Covid-19 has forced many retailers to set up an online shop. It’s incredibly competitive and it’s tough when you’re not getting the sales you want.
With online shopping in high demand it’s more important than ever that your ecommerce site reflects your bricks and mortar store, according to Gemma Ostroburski and Sarah Quinn from TalkShop Retail.
During their presentation at the recent Life Instyle Online event they shared their tips to maximise your online sales and optimise the consumer experience.
1 How to increase e-commerce conversions
Your online is your digital window front. How do you keep it fresh and exciting, so that the customer comes into the store?
There is no one individual item that will increase your conversions greatly, it is an accumulation of lots of small things and great attention to detail: visually; text and copy; backend running; apps that you can add to your site; keywords; website speed; SEO; overall customer experience; connection to your brand
2 How to improve website conversions
When landing on your site, does your customer instantly recognise whose site they are on? The challenge is to make your site different to other sites, you need to use your brand values, mission, beliefs for this.
You need strong branding: first impressions; let your brand shine through; about; visuals, photography, fonts and graphics; tone of voice throughout your entire shop
Considering that people can’t touch or try on your products online, you need to work twice as hard to make your products come alive via excellent photography and graphics.
How are your products listed, to give as much information and transparency as possible for your customer?
• Product overview and wrapup
• Sizing and fit
• Product details―application instructions, fabrication and ingredients
• Wash, storage and care instructions
• Total transparency―where was this made? Who made it? What were the conditions? Was anything harmed in the making?
How are your products organised, so that your customer can shop intuitively? How can your customer find what they want (even if they don’t know quite what it is)?
• Insights and intelligence
• Ranging and grouping
• Intuitive shopping
• Product filters
• Edits/collections
3 How to improve the online customer experience
• Be Human as possible
• Relate the product back to your customer
• Look for opportunities, by reviewing sales and grouping products in the way your customers shop
• Presenting ideas and opportunities to maximise trends, using the intelligence from your store to optimise your most popular products to be at the forefront and easy to understand
• Use product suggestions to help with add-ons
• Add ‘shop Instagram’ if this is something that inspires your customers
4 How to translate the shop experience into the e-commerce shop
• Show your shop
• Mirror your shop
• Show your brand team
• Use similar questions and copy to replicate the in-store experience
• Present multiple ideas for the end use of your product
• Share your product knowledge
5 Additions to your site
Use your announcement bar; share shipping prices; create a sense of urgency; extra reading section; as featured; speed up the checkout process; virtual assistant; customer reviews and ratings; book a stylist; enable onsite search; colour swatches for products; shop the look; kits and bundles/deals; add automation scripts to your site; best-sellers/customer favourites; optimise for mobile; add FAQs; check your page speed and load time; add custom graphics; simplicity; minimise main navigation tabs; use white space.
Gemma’s takeaways
• Create connections
• Use your brand voice―invest in good copy
• Persona
• Capture customer
• Build a like-minded community
• Humanise
• Use your Instagram insights to add personality
Sarah’s takeaways
• Review the customer experience on your site
• Run regular tests
• Lower the abandon carts
• Use insights, sales information to help make decisions
• Invest in your ecommerce site (like you would for your bricks and mortar store) if you want it running at its best
