In the highly competitive world of fashion e-commerce, simply attracting visitors to your website is not enough. The key to success lies in converting these visitors into paying customers. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a systematic process aimed at increasing the percentage of visitors who complete desired actions on your website. This is based on testing and the theory of small changes to enhance the customer journey. By increasing the conversion rate the demand flows through and the UX of the site engages more customers. All companies can do this to some extent and you do not need to have huge teams but can use the tools that you have available.
Understanding User Behaviour
To optimize conversions, start by understanding how visitors interact with your website. Tools like Google Analytics, Hotjar, and Contentsquare provide insights into user behaviour, including heatmaps, session recordings, and user flows. Speak to your customers as much as possible and run focus groups to get answers, tools will only demonstrate the key element to always remember is that we are selling nice things to humans and they are irrational!
Key metrics to monitor include:
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page. Benchmark if possible against your competitors or get data from IMRG
- Exit Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave from a specific page. Useful to see if specific pages have high exit rates, are they easy to use, is there a stock issue
- Average Session Duration: The average amount of time visitors spend on your site. Iterating to increase this all the time
- Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action. Look at the Conversion funnel and the stages through it to identify pain points
Improving Product Pages
Product pages are critical in the decision-making process. Optimizing these pages can significantly impact conversion rates, depending on your marketing mix around 40% of your visitors land on these pages from Google Shopping, no one ever realises this and it is a real eye opener for teams from finance to buying. A test that I have run is to show carousels of alternative similar products to the customer so that they view more than one product on scroll. Always look at the mobile view is also another key factor as we are so used to looking on our work laptops when most customers are on mobile devices. This can radically change behaviours and something that seems obvious can be tiny on mobile.
Streamlining the Checkout Process
As we all know the simpler the better and the amount of pre-filled data and steps dramatically can alter the flow through the funnel. Have you got all the available payment types and with clear logos in their colours? At one site that I looked after the logos were turned black and white whilst this looked great from a design perspective it was not great from the customer POV and changing back to colour increased confidence, conversion and revenue.
Personalisation, Personalisation, Personalisation and Serendipity – Show her that she does not know what she wants yet!
Recommended, You May Also Like carousels can be optimised and tested against each other. Another element could be personalised content on the homepage and navigation points, is the customer returning or new if new should we be showing our iconic products if returning newness and items related to their purchases? In fashion due to seasonality and trend, it’s really important to include an element of serendipity or chance into this though, to show the customer that she does not know what she wants yet. Is yellow now a thing that she has never bought before but Beyonce wore a yellow dress to the Met Gala, this needs to be included so that we are presenting trend and relevance. I would only ever be shown black trousers and dresses if this was not used!!
A/B Testing
Set out your hypothesis and then have very specific metrics to move and monitor. Look at conversion as well as AOV, Bounce etc so that you are looking at the whole journey. One of the best ways to start is to have customer interviews and watch them go through your site as it will be very different from how you think that the customer browses. One test that a team ran massively won on conversion but I did point out that as a luxury brand sorting low to high was not the best policy!
As I said earlier we are selling nice things to humans and trying to show her what she does not know she wants yet – have fun 😊
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