Image: eCommerce experts Net-a-Porter.
Firstly, it’s always better to have traffic. If you have traffic to your website – everything else is supplementary. If your site is seeing high traffic but disproportionate revenue – questions prompted will often run as follows:
‘Are our customers unhappy with our offering?’
‘Is something broken?’
‘We were doing much better this time last year – what have we done wrong this year?’
Don’t panic –an overview of digital and eCommerce distinctions.
Fundamentally, solving one of the latter questions alone will increase on site conversion. However, before looking at these questions – it’s perhaps important to identify the purpose of your website. Regardless of whether your site has a checkout, it may be the case that the site itself serves as a shop window or magazine with the bulk of sales planned via distributors or other eCommerce stores. If this is the case, high traffic and low conversion is precisely what one would expect to see. However, if most your sales are expected to come from your online store – it is always a good idea to keep an eye on your conversion rate.
What does good look like?
Naturally, a solid percentage of conversion differs from site to site. For a smaller website with fewer visits and pricing in-line with major retailers, around 10% would be exceptionally healthy. For a larger website with an Average Order Value of around £40, a conversion rate of >5% would be exceptionally healthy.
I have the traffic – but where is my revenue?
There are multifarious factors which may affect a conversion rate. Always check your historic conversion rate year on year day aligned. Keep in mind the following:
- What online trading activity or promotions were scheduled year on year, or last month year on year. If you had a particularly strong offering in comparison to your current offering – conversion is naturally going to be lower.
- Which pages in your website have the best conversion rate out of the total available pages on the site? Have a look at whether your brand pages perform at a better rate than standard product pages.
- Has your site undergone layout or technical changes in the last 12 months? If you’ve undergone a re-brand or a platform migration – there is often associated traffic loss.
Mobile
Never forget your mobile site. Ideally you will have a responsive website – however, the experience can be markedly different to that a desktop experience. Increasingly eCommerce websites are seeing up to half of their visits from mobile devices. This will only grow as smartphones become more proliferate. If your site’s mobile experience is inferior to that of desktop – it’s time to rethink your digital priorities.
With thanks to Walpole's Digital Corporate Partners GGMR Ltd. Please contact George Gill at [email protected] or 0870 777 6735.
