With the holiday shopping season just two months away, now is the time to get your store ready for increased traffic and sales. More people will be visiting your store between October and December, and by optimizing your BigCommerce website to increase conversion now, you can generate exponentially more revenue during this all-important time of year.
Think about it – if you normally get 1000 visitors a day and have a 2% conversion rate, that equates to 20 orders a day. In 4th quarter, your traffic may increase to 2000 visitors a day. If you invest time now in increasing your website’s conversion rate to 2.5%, that will bump up your holiday orders from 40 to 50 a day. Multiplied by your average order size, this increase from a 2% to 2.5% conversion rate means significantly more revenue!
Here are some ways you can prep your store during the slow summer season to maximize your Q4 sales.
Upgrade to a Responsive Design
If your BigCommerce website was designed more than two years ago, chances are it’s not responsive. Responsive is a fancy way of saying that the design automatically adjusts for any screen size, providing a better and more consistent shopping experience for people on tablets and mobile devices.
Stores that switch to a responsive design see increased conversion rates and a corresponding bump in revenue. You’ll find dozens of beautiful responsive themes in the BigCommerce theme store which can be used as-is if you’re on a budget. But if you want to really “wow” your shoppers, I recommend working with a BigCommerce partner to customize your theme so it better represents your brand and highlights your store’s value propositions. Book a responsive redesign with us before August 31 and you’ll save 10% on the project cost.
Refresh Your Existing Design
If your website is already responsive or you don’t have the budget for a full redesign, a design refresh is a great option. Design trends are always changing and shoppers notice when a website looks outdated. A stale looking website can lead to concerns about your company’s credibility and trustworthiness, which can hurt your conversion rate and sales.
A design refresh involves making small updates to improve the look and functionality of your BigCommerce website. Updating default fonts to modern Google fonts, changing dated gradient backgrounds to solid colors, swapping out old icons with new ones from FontAwesome – these are all simple changes that can go a long way in making your website more appealing with shoppers and increase conversion.
Don’t leave money on the table because your website looks old when the crush of holiday shoppers arrives. Contact us for a website review and we’ll help you identify quick and inexpensive ways to refresh your BigCommerce store’s design.
Amp Up Your Customer Service Capabilities
More shoppers during the holiday season mean more questions and customer contacts. And having accessible customer service options makes shoppers feel secure and is a known way to increase conversion. Make sure you’re ready to provide top-notch customer service by ensuring your website offers all the contact methods that shoppers demand.
If you don’t have a toll-free phone number, now is the time to add one. Though many shoppers have mobile phones with unlimited long distance, a toll-free number shows you care about hearing from your customers. I recommend FreedomVoice, which offers standard or vanity toll-free numbers with helpful features like call routing and forwarding.
Some shoppers don’t want to pick up the phone and call, maybe because they’re shopping at work or just don’t feel comfortable calling a live person. For these customers, live chat is a great solution. I recommend Olark, which is an affordable and full-featured live chat service you can easily add to your BigCommerce store. Plus, they have a great company culture.
To pre-emptively answer questions that your customers might have, make sure you have a well-written Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page on your website. If you already have one, now is the time to review it and see if new questions and answers can be added. I also recommend swapping out your default BigCommerce review system with Yotpo. Their advanced reviews and Question & Answer functionality will allow your shoppers to help each other, reducing their need to contact you.
Reduce Cart Abandonment
Once a shopper reaches the cart, you don’t want them to leave. By implementing an exit popup from JustUno, you can encourage shoppers to complete their purchase with a special offer. Exit popups can be run sitewide or targeted to your cart and checkout pages, and you can offer anything from free shipping to a percentage or dollar off discount. Done well, an exit popup can be just enough incentive for a shopper to finish placing their order.
But what if shoppers leave anyway? You can still draw them back to the purchase process with an abandoned cart email. Available on BigCommerce plans of Plus and higher, abandoned cart emails are sent when a customer leaves the checkout process before completing their order. You can configure the number of emails sent, when they’re sent out and the subject line and content. I recommend including a discount code to further encourage shoppers to come back and complete their order. If you haven’t been using this valuable feature, turn it on now to increase conversion rates during the holiday shopping season.
What other things are you doing to ready your website for holiday shopping? Let us know in the comments!