You want to keep your visitors on your eCommerce site, make them open 17 other product tabs, convince them to hit the buy button, wait for your newsletters, click on products, come back for more, and even better, come back with their friends.
We want to put that cycle into practice and show you the shortcut to how you can maximize your eCommerce add-to-cart rate.
This article is part 3 of a 6 part series:
- Awareness
- Acquisition
- Activation
- Revenue
- Retention
- Referral
Can’t wait for the other parts? Download our eBook on eCommerce here!
Positive experiences in the acquisition phase often lead to successful eCommerce activation. When your visitors are convinced of the value you give, they add items to their cart or initiate the checkout. Any interest or intention shown towards purchase here counts as activation.
Let's see how!
Show the value of your products and get that “add to cart”
The whole idea of the eCommerce activation is to trigger them to take action. Those actions could be different for every product such as:
- Registering for the site
- Subscribing for a newsletter/ blog
- Downloading a resource
- Following on social media
But the most important metric for the majority of eCommerce products is “Add to cart.”
Some of your visitors are not ready to buy. Some need a little nudge. And some need to be triggered by urgency signals.
For any occasion, the strategies below are “fingerbenders” for your eCommerce activation. They’ll persuade your visitors to click that holy “Add to cart” button and increase your eCommerce conversion rates.
You can find the impact sheet below to define your priorities and create your own approach.
Include your value proposition at every step
Your visitors might not see the value proposition on the first screen of your eCommerce website. Or they’ve already forgotten that you have free shipping and a 30-day return policy and eventually drop their orders.
To prevent that, add your value proposition in every step of your eCommerce funnel. Including your category, product, and checkout pages.
Enable filtering options
Filters help your visitors to find their desired product faster and thus taking them one step closer to the add to cart button. Use your product data to allow your eCommerce visitors to filter products based on their requirements. To trigger this action, include a visible filter section to each of your search, product, and categories pages.
Make sure your filters are useful
What type of filters could your audience possibly need or want to see?
Poorly designed filter functions could lead to frustration and undermine your reputation. Because of this, your sales performance might go down.
Place the price above the fold
This might look obvious, but in many eCommerce websites, finding prices could require an extra effort. And it shouldn’t be like that. So make sure your price is always visible, preferably close to your product.
If you are offering discounts or price cuts, make sure you mention them as well. This will help your in your eCommerce activation process.
Increase your conversions by adding urgency elements
One of the most effective ways in marketing, in general, is to create scarcity. Sometimes, even though we know the offers or discounts are manipulated, still we can’t hold ourselves to fall into the urgency trap.
It’s a powerful motivator for eCommerce activation.
Your goal should be to apply this strategy without losing your credibility or trust.
One of the worst examples of this one is the online course platform Udemy. Whenever you enter their website, they have a limited offer that ends in X days.
And when the day comes, they extend the limited offer to X days again. So it feels like a scam and leads to a bad reputation.
So be careful and don’t overdo it!
Here are three ways to create urgency that converts
- Quantity limitations. “Only five tickets left at this price!”
- Time limitations. “Early-bird pricing ends August 23!”
- Contextual limitations. “Get a gift now for Valentine’s day!
Here is an example of a good urgency trigger from LYST. By telling their visitors that specific products are selling fast, they increased their conversion rate by 17%.
Product descriptions are not for in-depth reading but more for skimming. So make sure to write your descriptions as short and skimmable as possible.
Long descriptions are scary and confusing. Make them concise with bullet points for easy reading.
Reiterate value proposition at the conversion point
Studies show that almost 70% of the shopping carts on eCommerce websites are abandoned by users. One of the main reasons for this that people are always comparing with competitors.
Wrapping your value proposition with a better and different package in the checkout could help you emphasize your benefits clearly. Especially, placing your Value Proposition close to call to actions could trigger the buying decision of your visitors.
This will remind them why they should buy from you and help in improving your eCommerce activation rate.
Always add ratings and reviews
This is the super trigger of this phase. Your most compelling and credible salespeople are happy customers who have left their five-star ratings under your products.
If you have reviews, add them. If you don't, encourage your customers to write reviews by giving them discounts and other offers.
When we're not sure, we're making our decisions based on others' reviews. So be sure to add social proof triggers to your product pages.
That was it for the eCommerce activation phase. Once you include all of these tips on your eCommerce website, you will notice the difference in activation rate!
If you want to know more about how to reach or acquire more customers or how you can visit our other articles:
Ecommerce Brand Awareness – How To Pick The Right Platform And Best Practices
20+ Actionable Strategies to Increase Customer Acquisition for eCommerce Business.
How To Find Customers Online Using 20+ Actionable Strategies (on 5 platforms)