GrapheneAI has arrived!

If you're running an online store, then conversion optimisation should be a top priority. You'd be surprised at the number of common mistakes costing you sales and how making small 'quick win' tweaks to your website design, checkout process and overall user experience, you can make it much easier for customers to buy from your store. In turn, this can lead to a significant increase in sales.

One of the most important aspects of ecommerce is product discovery,  making sure that customers can easily find the products they're looking for. This means implementing a well-optimised product search that can quickly return relevant results. Over 50% of customers navigate directly to product search and, customers that use search are significantly more likely to buy.

There is a lot to consider when choosing product search software, including nowadays customers often use search for a variety of reasons other than finding products. They may be looking for information about returns, store locations, or contact details. In order to increase your overall customer experience which in turn builds trust and drives ecommerce sales, it's important to cater for these types of queries as well. 

eCommerce stores can increase their sales by using product recommendations. If you're not using product recommendations, you're missing out on a major opportunity to increase your sales. Product recommendations are one of the most effective ways to increase ecommerce sales because they allow you to suggest products that are relevant to the customer's interests.

There are a few different types of product recommendationto choose from that can increase your sales, and dependant on the product, category and your store you can show different types of product recommendation.

eCommerce stores can increase their sales even further by using personalized recommendations. Personalized recommendations are when eCommerce stores show customers products that are specifically tailored to their interests. This is done by collecting data about the customer's browsing and purchase history, then using this data to create a personalized list of recommendations.

There is a debate between whether product based recommendations or personalized recommendations are the most effective, however, personalized eCommerce recommendations are estimated to be up to 30% more effective than general eCommerce recommendations, so if you're not using personalization strategies for your product recommendations, you could be missing out on a big opportunity to increase your sales.

There are a number of benefits to eCommerce personalisation, including increased customer loyalty and satisfaction, by providing a more personalised experience, customers are more likely to return to your store in the future but the biggest benefit to eCommerce personalization is improved conversion rates and average order values.

Attention spans are reducing, and on average most online shoppers only view the first 3 pages of an eCommerce store, this could mean potential customers only seeing a very small fraction of the available product catalogue. By using personalization strategies you ensure that the most relevant products are displayed to each user increasing the liklihoood of the customer converting into a sale.

When it comes to ecommerce personalization, there are a couple of common mistakes that retailers often make. The first is not personalizing the experience enough. Many retailers simply rely on customer data to make generic product recommendations, instead of tailoring the whole shopping experience specifically for each individual customer. This includes dynamically controlling product display sequences based on segmentation and behaviours across all areas of your eCommerce site - Product Display Pages, search results and product recommendations.

Most personalization software utilizes a degree of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to 'boost or bury' products, but the other most common mistake retailers make when personalizing their shopping experience is not understanding the limitations of AI and ML, and the impact that can have on 'boost or bury' driven product display sequences. Advanced Commerce's personalization software allows retailers to use a blend of attributes such as popularity, margin, availability, trending, price etc to determine their product sequencing. It is computationally complex to do this quickly in real time, which is why most technologies out there use really simple merchandising techniques like boost or bury, but we have solved the complex nature of this and are able to do it really quickly, giving average page load speeds of below 100ms.

Site speed is one of the most important factors that affect ecommerce conversion rates. If your website is slow to load, customers will be less likely to stick around and buy from you. In fact, research has shown that a 1-second delay in page loading can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions. Tools like Google Page Speed Insights can help you understand where and how performance improvements can be made in your online store, and page speed and performance should definitely be one of your regularly monitored KPI's.

The KPI's you monitor, and the approach you take to merchandising your online store are the difference between small, medium and enterprise retailer's. Being a top online retailer is so much more than sales, it includes things like how you shift unsold stock, continually A/B split testing merchandising techniques, images, layouts, exit intent pop ups and more to get even the smallest increase - because lots of small increases add up to a large increase.

You'd be surprised at the difference a small increase can make. When contemplating making changes to your online store, it's important to focus not just on the cost of change, but also the return of that change. Ultimately, calculating your ROI will tell you if you can afford to make the change.

eCommerce is a competitive and ever-changing landscape, and in order to stay ahead of the curve, especially with the re emergence of inflation, retailers need to invest in technology that can help them optimize their online stores. By using personalization software, site speed optimization tools, and other eCommerce-specific technologies, retailers can improve their conversion rates, page loading speeds, and overall sales performance. While investing in technology may be costly, the returns can be significant and well worth the investment.