Increased Revenue Thanks to Online Shop Conversion Optimization

1. What is a conversion in the online shop?
2. What is the basis of online shop conversion optimization?
3. 10 Measures for Online Shop Conversion Increase
4. Which conversion optimization tools are suitable for an online shop?

An online store is a wonderful way to showcase and of course also sell your own products. You can either integrate this into your website or use a website created specifically for the webshop. With various shop systems you can realize this project and easily create your online shop. But what if sales fail or are significantly below your sales targets?

We will address this in this article. We will show you ten measures with which you can achieve your online shop conversion optimization. All the products mentioned here can also be found again on OMR Reviews.

What is a conversion in the online shop?

In the context of online shops and sales, conversions and conversion rates are often discussed. But what exactly is behind it? A conversion is understood to be a process in which a desired action is performed. In relation to an online shop, the shop operators want their online shop visitors to make a purchase. Because only purchases contribute to the top goal of an online shop: sales.

Thus, the purchase of a product is the most important conversion in an online shop. Other conversions of a shop can be, for example:

• Items stored in the shopping cart
• The registration for the online shop newsletter
• The download of a specific file
• The click on a CTA button

Now let’s come to the conversion rate of a webshop. The conversion rate gives the percentage of buyers in relation to all online shop visitors. Let's assume as an example that your shop attracts 1,000 visitors per month. Of these 1,000 online shop visitors, 50 people make a purchase from you.

So for the corresponding month you have a conversion rate of (50/1,000)*100 = 5 %.

A conversion rate depends on various factors such as product, industry and seasonality, which is why no general statement can be made about a good conversion rate value. A rough benchmark for a good conversion rate in the e-commerce sector is 4 % to 6 %. But there are also significantly higher conversion rates with 10 % to 15 %, which are more realistic in niche online shops than in webshops with a wide range of products.

What is the basis of online shop conversion optimization?

The conversion rate is an important key performance indicator for your online shop performance. This allows you to check whether changes to your online shop have a negative or positive impact on your sales. So you can also increase the conversion rate of your online shop by increasing the number of purchases made through various measures.

When are such conversion optimization measures necessary?

The simple answer is: always. Because the goal of online shop operators is to increase the turnover or profit of their own webshop. Since this answer is not very satisfying, here is a more concrete answer: your online shop analysis will tell you whether an optimization of your online shop conversions is necessary. Because through the constant review and analysis of your online shop, you will notice if your conversion rate drops.

Possible reasons for conversion optimization in your online shop:

• Too few online shop visitors
• Short dwell time of your online shop visitors
• Few clicks on your CTA buttons
• High drop-out rates at checkout

The cause of too few online shop visitors could be your poor SEO, slow loading times or missing ads. People simply don't know that you or your shop exist. If the dwell time of the online shop visitors is low, this indicates an unattractive online shop design or a poor user experience (UX) of your webshop.

Only a few people click on the CTA button, it might be because it is not conspicuous or meaningful enough and the user overlooks it. High purchase cancellations often have the reason that important payment options are missing, the checkout is too complicated or the checkout appears unserious to your potential customers.

The reasons with the payment options and the seriousness are enormously relevant in times of data theft.

Fortunately, there are suitable tools with which you can get to the bottom of the causes and increase your sales in your online shop with appropriate measures. For example, heatmap tools like Hotjar, are suitable for finding out how your potential customers use your online shop. Thanks A/B tests (e.g. with AB Tasty) you can then test different versions of different elements (e.g. text elements, button elements or also images) and permanently integrate the variant in your online shop that has generated the most interactions or also conversions.

You can relatively easily solve the problem with the missing payment options and the less serious-looking checkout with the tool Unzer. Because with it you have the possibility to offer all relevant payment options as well as adapt the checkout to the design and layout of your online shop.

As a result, your webshop visitors do not end up on a third-party website during the payment process, which interrupts the checkout experience of your potential customers. Unzer thus offers you a so-called “white label” solution for your payment options with which you can increase the conversion rate in the webshop.

As you can see, ongoing analysis and understanding your target group are essential to measure and optimize conversions in your online shop if necessary.

10 Measures for Online Shop Conversion Increase

We would like to introduce you ten measures with which you can carry out your online shop conversion optimization. These conversion measures relate to different areas of an online shop, so there will be something for every one of you. So if you are unsatisfied with your conversion rate or other performance KPIs of your webshop, then be sure to take a look at the optimization measures.

In our article on the seven best conversion optimization tools you will find tools and tool info that can help you implement the following measures.

1. Improve User Experience

The User Experience – i.e. the user experience of potential customers with your webshop – is one of the most important factors of an online shop. Because if users visit your shop and feel like they can't find their way around or are not addressed, it can quickly happen that they leave your online shop directly. For this reason, you should ensure that the usability in your webshop is particularly high. Potential customers who feel comfortable and picked up with you are more likely to buy something. This in other words has a positive influence on your conversions or your conversion rate.

Here you can learn which measures you can take to ensure a high User Experience.

Menu and Navigation:

A clear shop menu with unambiguous names makes it easier for users to navigate through your webshop. In addition, users find exactly the products they were looking for through an intuitive navigation. So make it as easy as possible for your online shop visitors to find what they want.

Product Categories

Product categories give your webshop visitors a first overview of the products available from you. Users can thus see at a glance whether they can purchase the desired product from you or not.

Filter and Search Function

Refine these two functions so that your users can reach the desired search result as quickly as possible. There is nothing more annoying than an online shop with hundreds of products in one category that can't be further filtered. Or a product search that ends up leading nowhere. Nobody has the time or desire to click through hundreds of products for hours.

Product Descriptions

Product descriptions are a tedious topic for many shop operators. However, there is a lot of potential hidden in it, because you can present the advantages of the product with the help of the product descriptions. In the best case scenario, you build the bridge between product advantages and customer needs with the product description, which automates the persuasion work. Provide your customers with all the important information they need. And make the effort to not take standardized texts across all products.

Product Photos and Video

Online shops live from strong, expressive product photos or videos. Because unlike in an offline store, your users can't physically see or touch the products. For this reason, you need pictures / videos that represent the products as best as possible and evoke emotions in the web shop visitors. They need to be able to imagine what it's like to have the product. For this, it is well worth it to put time and work into qualitative product pictures or videos.

Completeness and Transparency

Users don't want to search indefinitely for specific information about your products, your sales process, the shipping & returns conditions or the delivery times in the online shop. Therefore, provide all the necessary information on the product page that makes life and especially the purchase decision easier for your users.

Show Related Products

Another measure that can help you with the conversion rate optimization of your online shop is related products. In your online shop, there are various sensible places where you can display related products to the searched product. An example of this is the product page. At the top of the page, the actual product is displayed with all the necessary pictures, videos and information. And below this area, you play suitable product alternatives. This way, users get the opportunity to look at a related product if they don't like the product they called up. Without having to put extra work with the product search.

Loading Times and Mobility

Nobody likes to visit an online shop whose loading times are ultra slow or whose pages just don't look good on the smartphone. Instead, we switch to the competition. You probably know this from yourself, right? So make sure your webshop is fast enough and looks top on all devices (desktop, tablet, smartphone).

Checkout

A checkout that provides all relevant information for the purchase-ready customers as well as is intuitive and easy to use increases the purchase completion. If you make it as easy as possible for your potential customers in the checkout, they are more likely to go through it completely and cancel the purchase less.

2. Create meaningful product detail pages

The second measure that you can take for your online shop conversion optimization consists of meaningful product detail pages. But what exactly does that mean? To answer this question, it is important to understand that most purchase decisions are made on product pages. If your product detail pages do not provide all the information that potential customers need for their purchase decision, you are unnecessarily throwing away sales potential.

To get back to the question of meaningful product pages, we now give you the content you should definitely include on your product detail pages if you want to increase your conversions:

• Product-related headings
• Detailed product descriptions
• Advantages of the product
• Qualitative online shop product photos and videos
• Information on prices, sizes, available quantity
• Information on shipping costs, delivery times, possible means of payment and returns management
• Answer users' questions

3. Add call-to-actions

The CTA is often underrated. CTA stands for Call-to-Action, which means “call to action”. Accordingly, you want to prompt someone with a call-to-action to do a certain action. In relation to your online shop, the call to action is the purchase of a product.

But why are CTAs so useful and fundamental? Because users want to be guided. On every website and in every online shop, users get so many impressions and impressions that they can't process everything that quickly. Pointing them in the right direction can significantly increase the conversion rate of the online shop.

However, there are two basic rules for CTAs: highlight them in color from the rest of the page and be short and specific in the CTA message. It often also helps to visually support the call-to-action by placing the CTA as a clickable button on the product detail page and on the checkout page.

4. Simplify the ordering process

A common reason for cancellation is a cumbersome or complicated checkout process. So here is a lot of potential to optimize your own online shop conversions by simplifying the entire ordering process. Therefore, check your ordering process to see if it can be performed in as few steps as possible and if there are no distractions in the checkout area (e.g. due to pop-up windows). Because each distraction carries the risk that your potential customers do not complete the ordering process and you therefore lose potential turnover.

Also allow your users to have a customer account, where they can store their customer and bank data to go through the ordering process faster the next time. In addition, you can enable so-called 1-click payments for repeat purchases. Here, the payment information of the buyers is converted into encrypted tokens and securely stored on the server during the first purchase using tokenization. So even sensitive data, such as the credit card number, can be safely stored for the next purchase. A payment tool provider with which you can implement this is Unzer.

5. Offer different payment solutions

Another reason that can lead to purchase cancellations is the lack of relevant payment options. You may know this problem from yourself: if online shops only offer, for example, credit card or direct payments and no “purchase on account”, you leave your shopping cart and do not complete your purchase. Especially when it comes to a high invoice amount and you are not 100 % sure whether you like the ordered goods.

Popular Online Payment Methods in Germany (Source: Statista)

That's why we recommend you to offer as many relevant payment methods as possible for your webshop. According to Statista in Germany PayPal (48 %), purchase on account (21 %) as well as credit card or direct debit (19 %) are among the most popular payment methods. If the payment method “purchase on account” or “buy now, pay later” is too risky for you as an online shop operator, there are payment providers who take over the risk of payment defaults for you. This way, you can offer your customers invoice purchases and installment payments and in turn increase your online shop conversion rate. These payment providers include, for example, Unzer and Klarna.

As already mentioned further above, White Label Payment Solutions can also boost your conversions. Because if you use, for example, payment providers like Klarna or Paypal, your user ends up on a “foreign” third-party page (in this case Klarna) to complete the purchase there. This can affect the user experience, because suddenly layout, design and page structure are completely different. If, on the other hand, you use white-label solutions from Unzer or Ratepay, you can adapt your entire checkout process to your branding and your online shop design.

6. Use discounts, vouchers and promotions

Discounts, vouchers, and promotions have always been a good marketing tool to promote sales and thus increase the conversion rate of the shop. And exactly that still works today. However, we advise you to use such saving offers sparingly, otherwise you may lose credibility. Therefore, use discounts and vouchers specifically in your marketing, e.g. to generate sales in the retargeting of purchase cancellers.

7. Establish a personal relationship

Behind your sales are real people with needs and emotions. Therefore, rely on a personal customer relationship, so that your customers like to shop with you. Such a personal customer relationship can e.g. be established through personal addressing in the customer account of your online shop and in your emails – or through automation using tools like Neocom. Give your customers the feeling that you know and above all appreciate them. This also includes the use of correct wording in your customer communication. Therefore, avoid negatively connotated words like “must, should or but”. It does not convey a positive feeling. Instead, address your target group personally, warmly and appreciatively.

8. Integrate Appealing Design

Do you know online shops that hurt your eyes because of the glaring colors, seemingly a thousand pop-up windows and loud marketing? Do you feel like browsing in such online shops and spending your valuable time there? No? Then don't do it to your potential customers either. Sometimes less is more. And a quiet, non-overstimulating shop design can work wonders. Okay, that may be a bit exaggerated. But nevertheless, you can improve your conversion rate in the online shop by not overburdening your potential customers, but simply and quickly finding and directly buying what they want.

9. Create trust and credibility

Besides the measures mentioned so far for online shop conversion optimization, trust and credibility are an important factor in the purchase decision process. Therefore use verified trust badges as well as real customer reviews in your shop. These should be present on all purchase relevant pages. In addition, you can set up a FAQ section in which you answer the most frequently asked questions from customers. Because these questions will also have many future customers.

With this FAQ section, you create added value for your users and thus build trust in them. And people buy from people they trust and consider credible (that's why it also doesn't help to fake customer reviews).

10. Ensure data protection

In times of data theft, we have all become more cautious about putting out our data. Especially when it comes to giving it online. Therefore, observe all necessary data protection measures and also point out their compliance. This gives your online shop visitors a safe feeling. And those who feel safe with you also prefer to buy from you.

Which conversion optimization tools are suitable for an online shop?

After you have now got to know ten measures for conversion optimization in online shops, you probably also want to know which tools are suitable for online shop conversion optimization. We have already mentioned a few interesting tools in the article. But for the sake of completeness, we will now briefly introduce you to a few recommendable conversion optimization tools for the various use cases in e-commerce.

• Online shop analysis: etracker Analytics and ECONDA Analytics
• User behavior in online shop: Hotjar and Heap
• A/B tests: AB Tasty and Kameleoon
• Personal customer relationship and support: Dynamic Yield, Zoovu and Neocom
• Avoid purchase cancellations: uptain
• Product pages and design: Unbounce
• Payment solutions:
  • Purchase on account with white label solution Unzer and Ratepay
  • Purchase on account without white label solution PayPal and Klarna

You can find more tools from the categories E-Commerce & Shops, Conversion Optimization, Payment and Analytics on OMR Reviews – including real user experiences and ratings for our listed tools.