The document discusses strategies for optimizing online store conversions and customer retention based on techniques used by successful e-commerce companies. It categorizes strategies by implementation complexity as low, medium, or high. Low complexity strategies include optimizing product names, images, descriptions, and security measures. Medium strategies involve tracking order status, delivery options, search, social features, and structured markup. High complexity strategies are responsive design, recommendations, personalization, promotions, and gamification. The document provides examples and explains how these strategies can increase online store performance.

1. Barath Kumar
OMate Pty Ltd
www.OMate.com.au
Maximise Your Online Shop Results
Conversion optimisation and customer retention strategies
from Great E-commerce companies

2. Context
• These are not purely my ideas
• Most popular strategies used
in successful e-commerce websites
• Seen more commonly
in industry blogs, forums and expert reviews
• There are 100’s. Categorised and filtered the
most common ones based on ease of
implementation
• We are not going to cover much on why it works.
Its proven.

3. Desired Outcome
• You will take away some techniques and
strategies that you can apply in your online
store
• You may know some of them. Get them from
back to front of your mind
• Increase in ability to make informed decision
regarding your online store optimisation

4. Glossary
• Conversion optimisation
– Not just sales/visits
– Track all activities
• Add to wishlist, subscribe, compare products, search
etc
• Customer retention
– Not just repeat sale
– Track repeat visit, newsletter open rate, feedback,
etc

5. Low – Medium - High
Implementation Complexity

6. Low
1.Product name, image and
description
• Product name
– Tell exactly what your product is
– Avoid codes unless necessary
– Easy to identify the product
– Less need to click through and read more
– Enough info to make buying decision
• Images
– Makes significant difference in conversion
– Professional high resolution photos
– Use videos if you can

7. Product name – example from Amazon

8. Product Description
• Not just specifications and details
• Sell it , drive emotion
• Address the customer needs
• Address the benefits
• Guide on how to use the product
• Make the buyer feel good and smart about
buying

9. http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/steel-grill-round-fry-pan/?pkey=cfry-
saute-pans|ckwfryfry

10. 2. Reassure safety and security
• Install SSL
• Display the Verisign, Symantec security logo
• If there is a return policy, make it clearly
visible
• Using padlock icon in check out page proven
to improve conversion in many cases

11. 2. Reassure safety and security

12. 3. Multiple Payment Options
• Always provide multiple payment options
• Minimum Paypal, Mastercard and Visa
• E-wallet and bank transfers
• If you sell international, research on popular
payment options in the country you sell
• https://www.emerchantpay.com/virtual-terminal/online-
payment-processing/alternative-payment-processing-
methods/

14. 4. Clear Distinct Call to Actions
• Buy, Add to cart
• Add to wish list
• Compare Product
• Write a review
• Sign-up for newsletter

15. 4. Call to Action - Bestbuy.com

16. 5. Basic On-Page SEO
• Site map for easy navigation
• Page title, page description, alt tags for every
single product page
• Enable e-commerce tracking in analytics
– Track sales, popular products, which product is
viewed but not bought, popular search terms and
all user activities like compare, view time
– https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/ga
TrackingEcommerce

17. Medium
1. Tracking of status
• Confirmation email after purchase with link to
track status of delivery in website
• Confirmation email when product is
dispatched
• Login area to see the delivery status of the
product
• Use integrated tracking like temando
– http://www.temando.com/solutions/integrated-tracking

18. Medium
1. Tracking of status

19. 2. Delivery Options

20. Medium
2. Delivery options
• If you are multichannel, give option to pick up
from store
• Normal, express, same day ,collection point
• Use Auspost, temando, etc
• http://www.temando.com/solutions/delivery-options

21. Medium
3. Use best practices in site search
• Available stats - 30 % of users will
use site search
• Improved sales and conversion
• Valuable information on what
customers want

22. Medium
3. Use best practices in site search
-Position and size of search box - easy to find
-Let people search using enter key
-Allow users to narrow searches before they begin
-Use auto-complete
-Link to advance search option if you have lot of products
• Make it really easy for the user to find the product they are
looking for
• Track all the search term data to analyze what visitors are
searching for

23. 3. Use best practices in site search

24. 3. Search-autocomplete-currys.co.uk

25. Medium
4. Social Login and social proof
• Registration is sometimes a barrier
• One of the major reasons for shopping cart
abandonment
• Let users register using Facebook,
Googleplus,etc.
• Show how many of their friends liked,
purchased , reviewed your products

26. Medium
4. Social Login

27. 4. Social plug-in shows friends activity – cafepress.com.au

28. Medium
5. Structured mark-up format
• Schema.org
• https://www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helper/ >> Google
prefer the structured markup format for all websites.
• Implement the tags for product related pages.
• Helps search engines to provide enhanced search results like
ratings, breadcrumb, etc to intelligently display relevant content to
user

29. Medium
5. Structured mark-up format

30. High
1. Responsive design
• Easy to use in any device
• All pages must be optimised and tested for
multiple devices and browsers
• Mobile browsing is already overtaking desktop
browsing

31. Currys.co.uk – responsive online store

32. Currys.co.uk – responsive online store

33. High
2. Recommendations
Recommend products at different points based on
user’s actions
• Customer who bought this also bought
• Cross sell/up Sell – recommend iPhone case
when customer adds iPhone to cart
• Recently viewed, last purchased
Popular e-com platforms have free extensions
– http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-
connect/product-recommendations.html
– https://drupal.org/project/commerce_rec

34. Recommended for you section in Amazon

35. High
2. Recommendations

36. • Taking recommendations to next level
• Ask the user what they like and don’t like
• Make the experience as personalised as possible
– Welcome username
– Automate birthday cards or send discounts coupons
on birthday
– Emails personalised to user’s interest - segmentation
– Live chat
– http://www.barilliance.com/ , http://www.livechatinc.com
High
3.Personalisations

37. High
3.Personalisations

38. 3.Personalisation - Live chat

39. High
4.Promotions

40. High
4.Promotions
• Because we have been trained to react to
promotions
• Regular promotions – seasonal promotions,
clearance sales, deal of the day, weekly deals
– You don’t need a reason
– Issue discount coupons. Use free extensions.
• Promote through newsletters, banners and
site wide promotional bars
– Have email templates and banners handy

41. 4.Promotions
Site wide promotional bar to access discounted items

42. 4.Promotions
Discount for newsletter signup

43. High
5.Gamification
• Applying the addictive aspects of game play to
non-game activities
• Point system for writing reviews, sharing in
social media, etc
• Points redeemed for products

44. High
5.Gamification

45. Recap
• Easy
1. Product name, description
2. Reassure safety and security
3. Provide multiple payment options
4. Make the call to actions button stand out
5. Basic on-page SEO

46. Recap
• Medium
1. Allow tracking of delivery status
2. Provide delivery options
3. Allow search and use best practise
4. Allow social login and show social proof
5. Mark-up the product pages for increased
visibility

47. Recap
• High
1. Make website responsive to mobile devices
2. Provide recommendations
3. Personalise the experience
4. Run regular promotions
5. Gamify user activity

48. Next Steps
• Compare against check list
• Enable ecommerce tracking in analytics
Offers
• If you like us to review your site and provide a report
for free, please ask
• Free $100 worth ad words when you spend $25
• How may would be interested to come next month
– We will cover basics of ad words and e-commerce analytics
tracking

49. Questions ?
• Thank you
Maximise Your Online Shop Results
Conversion optimisation and customerretention strategies
from Great E-commercecompanies