5 tips to boost ecommerce conversion

Having customers who don’t convert doesn’t mean much to ecommerce merchants. If shoppers are only browsing, adding items to their cart, but not following through with their checkout, then they’re not very valuable to your business. 

So, merchants looking to convert more customers need to understand how to enhance their shopping experience—and give them a smooth journey from discovery through to post-purchase.

In this blog, we’ll explore what ecommerce conversion rate is, plus five strategies merchants can use to boost ecommerce conversion rate. 

What is ecommerce conversion rate optimization?

Ecommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO) involves the process of improving your ecommerce site and its content in order to increase conversions. Conversion rates indicate the percentage of users who complete a desired action—in this case, they complete a checkout. Site visitors who simply browse and don’t make a purchase will lower conversion rates, making it imperative that ecommerce websites commit to strong conversion rate optimization strategies. 

Calculating average conversion rate

To calculate your average ecommerce conversion rate, you can divide your total conversions by your total website visitors and multiply by 100. Average ecommerce conversions can also be calculated using the number of visitor sessions rather than site visitors. 

5 strategies to boost ecommerce conversion rates

To make sure your customers make it from discovery of your brand to checking out—or converting—there are some tips and tactics to follow. For example, personalizing the customer experience can make shopping easier and lead to a faster checkout for shoppers. Or, surprise gifts and discounts that can lure customers back if they haven’t purchased in a while. 

Below, we’ll explore five of those strategies to boost your ecommerce conversion rates and ensure customers make purchases with your brand, again and again.

1. Offer personalized product recommendations

Giving customers a personalized shopping experience will not only increase their trust in your brand, but will help them convert faster. When personalized product recommendations are shown, it can make their path from picking items to checking out much faster. Group customers by cohorts to ensure the recommendations they’re seeing are well-suited to their preferences.

2. Make product bundles available

Much like personalized product recommendations, product bundling is a great way to increase ecommerce conversion rates. When you make a group of products available together—as a curated bundle or as a build-your-own bundle—it takes the work out of choosing for your customers. Often, shoppers can get stuck on deciding which combination of products they want or need. 

When you give the option of bundles and offer special bundle pricing, you’ll entice customers to checkout much faster. Plus, they might just discover new favorite products with a bundle, leading you to higher average order value (AOV) and customer lifetime value (LTV). One Recharge merchant, Brickhouse Nutrition, increased their AOV by 75% using Bundles.  

3. Surprise & delight customers 

When customers reach a point where they’ve made a few purchases but haven’t come back in a while, there’s always the surprise and delight tactic to encourage them to convert again. By creating a workflow that will send them a surprise discount or free gift with purchase, you can incentivize shoppers to come back to your store and make a purchase. With Recharge Flows, ecommerce stores can do this without any coding involved.  

For many brands, this is an effective tactic to use on customers who’ve already made a few purchases with your store. With this unexpected surprise, you can boost their satisfaction with your brand and lead them to convert, all in one fell swoop.

4. Utilize direct checkout links

Another tactic that can be used to encourage ecommerce conversion is direct checkout links. These links bring shoppers directly to the checkout page, so whether they previously filled their cart with items or you’re suggesting items they’d like, direct checkout links make it easy for them to convert. 

By bringing them right to checkout, you take away the work of choosing items and adding them to the cart, plus take away those moments when online shoppers might be deliberating over which products they want to buy. When they’re taken directly to checkout, ready to go, it’s much easier to make that conversion—and, you make it easier on them by taking away a big portion of the shopping journey. 

5. Offer incentives to reach free shipping 

Offering free shipping to customers of your ecommerce store when they spend a certain amount can help you boost your average ecommerce conversion rate. How many times have you arrived at the checkout page, only to abandon your cart because the shipping costs were too high?

To avoid this, offer free shipping when customers spend a certain amount of money with your ecommerce store. By making this benchmark known while they’re shopping, you can also encourage them to spend a little more money than they planned, because they’ll want to reach the right amount for free shipping. This way your store is boosting ecommerce conversion rates and ecommerce sales, at the same time. 

Increase revenue with these ecommerce conversion rate optimization tactics

Following these tips, merchants can work to increase their ecommerce conversion rates in ways that will also enhance the customer experience and boost satisfaction. Achieving a good ecommerce conversion rate means focusing on how users shop with your online store and optimizing the experience across all touchpoints.