.png)
Introduction
So, you set up a new eCommerce site using Shopify.
You built a gorgeous homepage (that looks great on mobile devices), thrown in some glowing customer reviews, and loaded your shop with items you know there’s a market for.
You even have a good number of visitors from search engines and social.
The only problem? They come to your shop — but they don’t buy anything.
Improving your Shopify store’s conversion rate needs to be priority number one, so you can keep building momentum (and revenue). And there are plenty of things you can do to help make this happen.
If you need new methods to improve the Shopify conversion rate in your eCommerce store, we’ve got you covered with 13 of the best CRO tactics out there.
Why Are Conversion Rates So Important on Shopify?
Conversion rates matter on Shopify for the same reason they matter everywhere: the more people that convert, the more revenue you bring in.
Another way to look at it: conversion rates reflect an eCommerce vendor’s ability to turn potential customers into paying customers. This has ripple effects on numerous elements of the brand’s marketing strategy, since conversion rate directly correlates with ROI on marketing efforts.
By raising the conversion rate (a process called conversion rate optimization, or CRO), you’re also raising that ROI. In turn, this creates financial headroom you can use to build the business or keep growing conversions.
Let’s look more closely at why Shopify conversion rates are so important.
Generate More Revenue
The biggest reason to focus on average conversion rate is revenue. Better conversion rates can lead to an immediate boost in sales — even without increasing traffic.
Assuming your brand pulls in a base level of traffic regardless of changes to your marketing spend, then increasing your conversion rate (even by a small percentage) will have a direct, often large, impact on revenue.
Increase ROI on Marketing Spend
That said, when you improve your conversion rate, you probably will want to make changes to your marketing spend. That’s because you’ll get a better return on investment for every dollar you spend on marketing efforts.
This is why optimizing conversion is often more cost-effective than just spending more money on ads. Yes, the quality of your ads matters, but if the place your audience lands (no matter how they found you) converts better than before, every single click or view becomes worth more.
Gain a Competitive Advantage
You don’t need us to tell you that eCommerce is competitive. Customers are fickle, and depending on what you sell, advertising costs can be significant.
But when your site interests the audience more than the competition, you gain a natural edge over them. And when you improve ROI on marketing spend and increase revenue in general, you can keep channeling that extra efficiency into growing a competitive edge.
One more way your competitive advantage grows is that, over time, stores with better conversion rates capture a larger market share. And the more of your market you capture, the greater your advantage over the competition.
Improve the User Experience
Good conversion rates also tend to indicate a positive user experience. (When was the last time you fought through a broken, buggy site to buy something?)
When you offer your customers a seamless, almost frictionless shopping experience, the likelihood of purchase goes up.
Build Trust and Credibility
Last, seamless checkout and transparent processes enhance customer trust. Improving the user experience also improves overall customer relationships, which certainly doesn’t hurt!
Product demonstration videos can be a great way to showcase authenticity and transparency. When shoppers see real people interacting with your products, trust goes up.
See how easy it is to implement shoppable videos with Gander. Get started now!
Bonus tip: Trust doesn’t just seal the deal for a single purchase. It also directly impacts repeat purchases and ongoing brand loyalty.
13 Ways To Increase Conversion Rates on Your Shopify Store
If you’re ready to increase conversion rates for your Shopify store, start with these 13 strategies.
1. Use High-quality Photos and Videos
First, don’t underestimate the impact of your store’s visuals. Adding high-quality videos and high-quality product images to your Shopify store can heavily influence customer perception and buying decisions.
Make sure the product images in your online store are clear and high-resolution, showcasing all the product details that might affect buying behavior.
And make sure your videos are shoppable. They don’t have to be professionally produced, but they do need to demonstrate how your product works and/or how it looks in people’s hands or on people’s bodies.
Not sure if you’re tech-savvy enough to add video to your store? See how easy it is to embed shoppable video content with Gander.
2. Upsell and Cross-sell
Next, take every opportunity to upsell and cross-sell. Upselling means inviting users to purchase more of a product or a more expensive version, while cross-selling offers “you might also like…” products alongside what customers add to their shopping carts.
Video is a powerful yet subtle way to do this. Imagine a “routine” video (like a “get ready with me” from an influencer). In the makeup and beauty market, a single video could contain a dozen or more different products, all benefiting from the social proof this kind of customer testimonial delivers to your target audience!
Combine the power of video with intelligent upselling and cross-selling within Shopify, and you’ll likely see your eCommerce conversion rate go up (along with average order value).
3. Offer Guest Checkout
Mandatory account creation is another big piece of friction in online shopping. If you draw customers into your Shopify website to make a quick, impulsive purchase decision, the last thing you want to do is slow down those impulses. And multi-step account creation is a giant hurdle placed between your customer and your product.
Offering guest checkout helps to reduce this friction with new customers. If you set it up well, you’ll still capture some customer data, and you’ll give the customer another easy opportunity to create that account post-sale.
4. Use Remarketing for Certain Customers
Customers don’t all buy on their first visit to your site, but some of those visitors will buy on a future visit — if you keep reaching them.
That’s the principle behind remarketing or retargeting. Visitors were interested enough to click through to your Shopify store — sometimes an extra nudge is all it takes to turn them into customers.
Let’s use a personal illustration here. Just this week, I’ve visited probably 12 eCommerce businesses selling various types of coffee — and haven’t bought from any of them.
Now my social media feeds are comically full of video ads for various coffee brands, including brands I’ve already looked into. And every time one of those coffee-related video ads pops up, I stop again and reconsider.
Eventually, someone’s probably going to “get” me. But only because they retargeted me — more than once.
Pro tip: Videos perform better than static photo banners. In fact, 67% of SMBs who measured the difference saw notably more success with video than photo ads.
5. Incorporate Transparent Pricing
Making your pricing clear and transparent, with no hidden fees or checkout surprises, will reduce cart abandonment and, as a result, improve your conversion rate.
You’ll never get cart abandonment to zero. Depending on whose data you trust, cart abandonment, on average, sits around 60%.
But you can fix some of the issues that lead to cart abandonment. One survey found that 34% of abandoned carts were due to having to create an account (see tip #3), while a stunning 55% were due to too many extra costs (like shipping and fees).
6. Leverage Personalization Features
Personalized product recommendations can also bump up that conversion rate. Personalization is similar to upselling and cross-selling, but it takes those concepts and makes them, well, more personal.
When customers feel truly understood — and when you present the thing they legitimately want (whether they knew it or not) — they tend to buy more.
7. Structure Your Page Elements
Next up, let’s talk about page structure. A clear, logical page layout is a big part of creating an inviting, compelling, and frictionless eCommerce experience.
When a page is structured logically, it can guide the visitor's journey and encourage sales. Conversely, when a page is hard to understand (or when multiple site pages seem to follow different logic), consumers can get confused. And what do consumers do when they’re confused by an eCommerce website? They leave.
Give some consideration to the placement of videos for maximum engagement, too. For example, don’t relegate them to the very bottom of the product page, where they might not even be seen.
And while we’re big believers in the power of video, make sure you’re not relying on video alone. You still need that traditional written product description, both for your human readers and for SEO purposes.
8. Optimize the Checkout Process
Remember, the name of the game is reducing friction. If your checkout process is super convoluted, you’re probably losing people along the way.
Thankfully, Shopify makes it easy to optimize your checkout process. If a customer has ever bought a product from a Shopify vendor (even one totally unrelated to your industry), Shop Pay makes checkout a breeze.
This Shopify service, which the brand calls the best-converting accelerated checkout on the internet, makes checking out faster and easier — often just a few clicks or taps. It remembers credit card information, address, and more, with no login required, making it an easy tool for higher conversion rates on eCommerce sites.
If your checkout process can’t work with Shop Pay, then you’ll still want to keep it as simple as possible. And don’t forget to keep placing those videos. Visual aid videos keep your product front and center, encouraging users to keep checking out.
9. Highlight Your Return or Exchange Process
One objection consumers raise — especially for businesses with low brand recognition — is what happens if the product doesn’t work for them.
Let’s face it: everyone’s been burned by an online purchase that didn’t work out and wasn’t easily returnable (or wasn’t returnable at all).
So get out in front of that customer hesitation by making your return and exchange processes friendly, simple, and clear. Doing so will boost customer confidence and can increase sales since consumers will feel a lower sense of risk about the purchase.
Sometimes the physical return process is hard to visualize — how to repackage an item, where to request an RMA, and so forth. Video can be used alongside text or images for easier understanding.
10. Include Clear, Persuasive CTAs
Every conversion-oriented piece of content needs a strong call to action (CTA). CTAs guide user actions by providing a firm nudge to actually take action (in this case, buy the item).
The “Buy Now” button still works, of course, but it’s getting a little tired. Did you know it’s also possible to use a video as a CTA? See how with Gander.
As you experiment with using videos as CTAs, remember that your videos still may need some textual assistance — and they need to provide a clear link to the desired action.
11. Add a “Notify Me” Feature
One recurring frustration in eCommerce is that items go out of stock. There’s often nothing you can do about this as a vendor, but there is a way to keep customers engaged, despite the supply chain struggle.
A “Notify Me” feature gives you a point of contact for customers so you can reach them directly when the item is available again. If they're still in the market, you’re reaching out to an extremely hot lead — automatically.
12. Improve Your Site Speed
There’s a strong correlation between page load time and conversion rates. These days, with high-speed internet and cellular connections everywhere, people won’t wait around if your site doesn’t load. They’ll assume something is broken or scammy, and they’ll move on.
If your site is slow to load, one SEO expert recommends reducing image sizes, compressing images, or reducing reliance on Javascript.
Pro tip: Even though it looks high-end and resource-intensive, using Gander’s embedded video won’t negatively impact your site speed!
13. Use Intelligent Search Functionality
The larger your product catalog, the more vital your Shopify store’s search experience becomes. Intelligent or intuitive search can guide customers to the products they’re looking for faster. For example, intelligent search can pre-populate the search field with relevant products based on what’s been typed so far.
Additionally, video search has been on the rise on eCommerce platforms. Brands can leverage the growing power of video content and intelligent search to help users quickly find the products they’re looking for.
Intelligent search makes it easier to determine user intent. Plus a new generation of AI-powered tools can search through transcripts for product mentions, analyze and provide responses based on voice search, and even analyze videos to tag the products within them. Brands can leverage these tools to cater to their audiences better than ever before.
Boost Your Shopify Sales Today with Gander
Increasing conversion rates on Shopify is a top priority for eCommerce stores like yours, and we’ve shown you 13 ways to make it happen.
One consistent thread through many of these strategies? Quality videos.
Gander makes it easy to find, create, and display video throughout your Shopify store, making your product pages more compelling, more personal, and more conversion-driven.
Ready to explore the power of video? Start boosting sales today with Gander — get started today!