How can I improve my conversion rate? (Full Version)

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whitemc -> How can I improve my conversion rate? (11/6/2003 10:48:04)

Hi.

Is there someplace I can go to get advice on improving my web's conversion rate? I have between 700 and 1600 visitor's per day, but only about 1/2 % of them actually make a purchase (about 4-6 per day). In a PPC environment, I wonder what an average conversion rate is? 1/2% seems pretty low to me.

I know that design and marketing are co-dependent (if that makes sense to anyone besides me). Is there something there or some wording that turns anyone off? Is there anything good there?

My site is geared for people who know what they are looking for, but I also tried to make it easy for the average person to find things.

Any comments would be appreciated, or if there is a professional consultant I can go to (not too expensive).

The site is www.aabsupply.com

Thanks in advance for any comments or advice.



DarlingBri -> RE: How can I improve my conversion rate? (11/6/2003 11:18:46)

Err. OK, a bunch of feedback, which is obviously my personal reaction to your site.

1) I'm a woman, and from the dippy floral background, I'm going to guess your site is aimed at me. Uh, no thank you. Really. I want a professional shopping experience, not a "pretty" one and sites like that annoy me. "Oh, you're a girl, here's the girl look."

2) You're wasting text. "Why fight traffic? Why waste time away from your salon?
Let the Post Office deliver to your doorstep. They visit your shop or home every day anyway, don't they? Public Welcome!
We never close! - Shop when you're not busy and at your own leisurely pace!! Take all the time you want to find the products you need."

Yeah, thanks, I'm already online and at a shopping site, I've already figured that bit out. The information that you have over 3,000 products is far more interesting to me, and should be at the top.

3) Over all, the site looks home-made and not professional, aside from the background image problem. I'm giving you money, I want you to look reputable. Really, I would suggest you start over with shopping cart software that runs the whole site; you know about databases, that much is clear, so you could do a homepage with a representative product image for each section, and a random database pull for a featured item or side menu for new products.

Honestly, go look at sites people do shop at and see how they present the shopping experience, image and interface to the user.

4) The fact that you are running banner ads on your main page for other sites doesn't work for me. They also don't appear to be affilate-coded links, so why are you sending free traffic to other sites? If you want links, do a Links or Other Products page. And umm, hooked on phonics?

5) Finally, since you seem cool with the database queries, I'd like to see a brand drop-down on the home page for Quick Product Links. It could just match against the product title field or whatever, but that would be useful if it was alphabetical. Much easier. Also, a text search on the home page would make my shopping experience a lot faster.

I think you have good products and can go somewhere with this site, but the presentation is just not working for me at all.



whitemc -> RE: How can I improve my conversion rate? (11/6/2003 12:05:37)

Excellent feedback Bri. That's why I asked... to get brutally honest opinions. I'll consider your suggestions but everyone reacts differently so if anyone has different opinion, or agrees with Bri, I'd like to know before I go revamping my site.

BTW - It is home-made... I'm not a professional web designer, I guess it shows.

quote:

I would suggest you start over with shopping cart software that runs the whole site;


I use StoreFront and only have a couple of pages that are not SF.

Thanks



smcfarland -> RE: How can I improve my conversion rate? (11/6/2003 16:45:30)

Again, I would offer my services :) but the site is MUCH improved over what it was several months (dare I say maybe a year) ago.

Agreeing with Bri on everything. Can you make the shopping cart pages look better or have less info? I want to browse through, not read my life away... maybe a picture, price and buy / more info buttons so you can fit three to a row and get more on a page without being so overwhelmed?



DarlingBri -> RE: How can I improve my conversion rate? (11/6/2003 21:01:45)

http://www.folica.com/

This, to me, seems a better shopping presentation. That's more like what I was expecting. Their categories are good, too -- I noticed that you really could reduce the number of categories that you have, or if SF allows, have sub-cats. Relaxers only has one product, for example, but gets a whole category!

Sorry, I really am trying to help :)



whitemc -> RE: How can I improve my conversion rate? (11/7/2003 12:00:08)

No need to apologize Bri. I thank you and Summer for your opinions. I agree that Folica has a much better site. I'm sure they have at least one full time person working on their site.

I'm way behind from where I wanted to be by now. Not making excuses, but working a full time job, packing orders and working the site evenings and weekends doesn't leave me much time to actually improve the site. I posted
hoping to get some quick ideas, but you are right... I need a major overhaul. If only I could pay for help... (big sigh!).

I'm in a catch-22 - not making enough money to quit my job, and not enough time to make more money from the site.

Sign me frustrated. [&o]



smcfarland -> RE: How can I improve my conversion rate? (11/7/2003 12:08:56)

I would be more than happy to help. I will do you a template if you want to barter and help you with some search engine marketing. I can barter my time. You can't skimp on things like your design. You just can't. Actually, if you could just send something to help with... well... I won't post that here lol. I am cheap. Leave it at that.

BTW, up until January, I was a single work at home mom with three children (7, 4 and 2) one who is either autistic or mentally retarded and I had several health problems (right now trying to fully recover from cervical cancer). So, we all have our issues and we have all been there. :)



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