Paul Bradish's Internet Business Blog

Like any brick & mortar, your online customers ought to be able to checkout as a guest. In my opinion as the industry matures this is something shoppers have come to expect. Just imagine for a moment being required to sign up for one of those Red Cards at Target just to move through the checkout line. That wouldn’t go over too well would it? I bet they would lose a lot of business (mine for starters). So why should it be any different online?

By this point in time most of us have far too many user names and passwords to keep proper track of them all. I probably have hundreds of them, most of which I’ve only used once or twice and then forgotten. Though it’s true many customers who visit your retail website will (hopefully) come back again and place future orders, forcing these first time shoppers to register during the checkout process can make an alarming number of them abandon their carts before they ever complete their order.

Why is this?

In my experience they will abandon for 3 main reasons:

1. They don’t feel that they have time to sit through all this right now.
2. They don’t have any immediate need or desire to return.
3. *sigh* It’s just one more log in and password to keep track of.

The reasons above are why I highly recommend enabling guest checkouts. If for some reason your shopping carts software doesn’t allow for this method then either have it programmed or move to a new cart. I also suggest giving your customers a bulleted list of the benefits of registering assuming there are benefits on your website for doing so (managing addresses, tracking packages, submitting returns, etc). But keep in mind it’s important to ultimately leave the choice up to them. If you don’t, you’ll be losing out on a lot of sales and those customers you lost will be placing their first and subsequent orders elsewhere.

Looking for a couple of quick and easy ways to increase your online store’s conversion rate? Here’s 3 Ecommerce techniques that I use and have been proven to help drive sales:

1. Add video to you product pages

Supplementing a product page with video can most definitely help to increase your online store’s conversion rate. In fact, interesting product commercials, step by step product demonstrations, and product reviews in video form can often be the deciding factor that converts a visitor into a customer. Just make sure that the video is embedded and doesn’t lead the viewer away from your product page.

2. Make your add to cart button pop

As I explained in my earlier post, how to find the perfect add to cart button, making sure that your add to cart button pops from the rest of your product page is of the utmost importance and will almost always instantly increase your conversion rate. This is something that you should be testing continuously, I suggest making use of Google’s free Website Optimizer.

Website Optimizer, Google’s free website testing and optimization tool, allows you to increase the value of your existing websites and traffic without spending a cent. Using Website Optimizer to test and optimize site content and design, you can quickly and easily increase revenue and ROI whether you’re new to marketing or an expert.

3. Offer live chat to your customers

If you have the customer service manpower, offering a live chat option can easily boost conversion rates by putting a customer’s mind to ease – even if they never need to use it. By simply offering live help via free or paid software such as oLark, you can build brand reputation, help to answer any questions that a customer might have, or even help the less technical savvy through their checkout process. Most shopping cart software worth their salt will have a built-in live chat feature or the ability to hook in an external solution.

And there you have it, 3 easy (yet often overlooked) ways to increase your Ecommerce Website’s conversion rate. Good luck!