Website Conversion Efficiency

kt4ye

kt4ye

Well-Known Member
Oct 15, 2007
837
1,149
93
Charlotte
www.flowerhut.com
State / Prov
NC
I have a YahoO! hosted e-commerce website.

They recently added a real-time site analysis module, and this allows me to track visitors (customers?)

I'm kinda happy with my SEO placement, but the new module seems to have brought home that my conversion efficiency isn't what it used to be. Before 2008 it chugged along at around 3%. It tanked in '09, got better in '10, '11 & '12 and then tanked again this year.

With the exception of VDay & MDay when it returned to ~ 3%, most of this year its been at or below 1%.

I put in a Cart Closer to offer an additional 5% discount to customers that have something in the shopping cart and "click away" from the site. That has helped a bit, but I'm still closing WAY TOO LITTLE.

Or am I?

Would love to learn of other folks closing percentages. Also, if anyone would care to look at my site, http://flowerhut.com, perhaps they'll see something obvious (or subtle) that I'm missing?????

Thanks!

Bill
 
Hi Bill,
One thing I noticed is that I get a message that says "connection refused" on some of your links. I can't seem to find any rhyme or reason to why it is happening. Some links work fine and others don't. When I get the connection refused message, the URL shows up in the address bar and if I hit return, it takes me there, but it might still be something to check out. Keep in mind that I am in Taiwan, so it may be location based.
 
My conversions can range daily from 3 % to 10%.

I don't put too much stock in them, though, because I get a lot of phone calls from people who are obviously looking at the website, but ordering over the phone.

I also have people access the website who are looking for wedding flowers, which wouldn't show up in conversions.

Sometimes the numbers don't reflect what is actually going on.

I think if you are happy with how you come up in organic searches, you don't have to worry about it.
 
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blumen said:
My conversions can range daily from 3 % to 10%.
Click to expand...

Wow! May I please have your website URL? I'd like to see what you are doing differently!

blumen said:
I don't put too much stock in them, though, because I get a lot of phone calls from people who are obviously looking at the website, but ordering over the phone.
Click to expand...

We have adopted a different philisophy. We offer an online (only) discount on our products. That approach allowed us to completely eliminate one FT employee and allowed us to reduce the quantity and de-skill our Temp helpers at VDay & MDay. We still get calls, but much fewer than before.

blumen said:
I also have people access the website who are looking for wedding flowers, which wouldn't show up in conversions.

Sometimes the numbers don't reflect what is actually going on.

I think if you are happy with how you come up in organic searches, you don't have to worry about it.
Click to expand...

If my sales figures were strong, I'd agree. But our sales have been in the tank ever since MDay. Part of that is certainly attributable to the NC economy that is still VERY rocky with unemployment way above the national average.

Still... the Quantity of visitors each month to our site is holding steady and high. It's just that the buying percentages have tanked bigtime!

Thanks for the comments & ideas!

Bill
 
Bill & Blumen,

The normal conversion rate for all ecommerce websites is just under 2%. For a niche / local business it's very possible to get above that threshold because you aren't competing nationally for iPod sales or Nike shoes, but you are providing a specific service in a specific area.

With proper segmenting in Google Analytics you can filter out visitors who don't have commercial intent. (For example, we run a filter that removes visitors who never visit a catalogue or product detail page - these might be blog readers, people looking for your address, etc.)

In general, if someone is calling you while looking at your website it's often because (consciously or unconsciously) you haven't addressed all of their concerns. Consumers need to be reassured about a lot of things, some more tangible than others:
  • Are you a real business?
  • Do you guarantee your work?
  • Is the item they want actually in stock?
  • Can you deliver when they want it?
  • Are you a quality company to buy from?
While there is always a small subset that will want to call because they want to call, most calls are the result of unanswered questions. The question for you is how many are not calling, just moving on?
 
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Looking at FlowerHut.com a few things come to mind (in no particular order, just as I jot them down):
  1. The slider has a lot of images on rotation, with no info, no CTA (call to action)
  2. Sliders are popular, yet studies show them to be really ineffective
  3. Two main visual elements promote (1) items under $30; (2) Save 20% - makes me feel like I'm shopping at the Dollar Store, or at least one of those shoe places that always has a BOGO on
  4. No products on the home page over $42.99
  5. Full Price Disclose is noble, but looks awkward and is taking up valuable real estate. Make it its own properly formatted page, with more description, and have a little icon used across the site to reference it.
  6. Tiny picture of the store, big text bashing competitors
  7. "Shop featured items" has only two shoppable items, and 3 links to apparently non-shopping items, and then a blank space where a 6th items is expected
  8. Left sidebar nav has no divisions or groupings of content, just a long line of links no one has time to read
I haven't delved into the interior pages, I have to get back to work ... but hopefully this gives you something to start with.

Two really useful tools:
www.luckyorange.com
www.usertesting.com
 
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theRKF said:
Sliders are popular, yet studies show them to be really ineffective
Click to expand...

Wow - I didn't know that. They are so ubiquitous I just assumed they worked.

Is it because people don't understand that they can click on them? If so does a specific call to action on the slider help? And is there an optimum number of slides?
 
Here's a report that came in today about my website, ludwigflowers.com.

I actually have two sites: blumen.com is more informational, and refers visitors to my Media99 site for ordering. I have a lot of wedding stuff on the first, as well as my blog. Blumen.com is where I do most of my SEO.

I just noticed that the number of visitors under the referring domain section of the report is different from the number of visitors at the top of the funnel, which would change the conversion percentage.
 

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Mark Anderson said:
Wow - I didn't know that. They are so ubiquitous I just assumed they worked.

Is it because people don't understand that they can click on them? If so does a specific call to action on the slider help? And is there an optimum number of slides?
Click to expand...

Often they move too fast and people don't have time to digest what's being displayed.

Latest study I read reported that only 1% of users will click on a slider, and 84% of that 1% will click on the first slide.

Conversion optimization experts have been preaching about getting rid of sliders for years, but they are so common and pretty it's a hard message to process.
 
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theRKF said:
Often they move too fast and people don't have time to digest what's being displayed.

Latest study I read reported that only 1% of users will click on a slider, and 84% of that 1% will click on the first slide.

Conversion optimization experts have been preaching about getting rid of sliders for years, but they are so common and pretty it's a hard message to process.
Click to expand...


So... I paid extra to get it because it was cool. Now I gotta pay extra to delete it!

#SIGH#
 
Why are you paying extra to do anything to your site?
 
Ummm... because I paid someone to change the layout from the DIY look that I had about 4 years ago. And people often like getting paid when the do something for me.
 
kt4ye said:
Ummm... because I paid someone to change the layout from the DIY look that I had about 4 years ago. And people often like getting paid when the do something for me.
Click to expand...

Ok, I misunderstood. I thought you were paying your web provider to add or change content on the site, not paying an employee/contractor to implement your directions.
 
theRKF said:
Ok, I misunderstood. I thought you were paying your web provider to add or change content on the site, not paying an employee/contractor to implement your directions.
Click to expand...

BTW I forgot to thank you -- and the other folks -- for their inputs. VERY useful!

I'm busy "un-busy-ing" my site and hope to have it up later today. (I have one change left to do, and can't figure out YET how to do it.)

Bill
 
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