4 Shopify Selling Tactics to Improve Ecommerce Sales

Merely driving traffic to your online store isn’t enough. You need to figure out how to consistently convert that traffic into paying customers, which is often not an easy task. Whether selling on Shopify, Magento, or another ecommerce platform, marketers need to focus on making continuous conversion rate improvements. Thankfully, these improvements aren’t always a time-intensive project that will break the bank. Instead, there are plenty of Shopify selling tactics that marketers can deploy to increase their ecommerce sales. In this post, we cover four of the best ones.

SEE ALSO: Shopify Shipping: What is it? How Does it Work? And is it Right For Your Business?

Why focus on conversion optimisation

Conversion optimisation is the process of making adjustments to your website to nudge prospects closer to finally converting and closing the sale. Some common ways to optimise your site for conversion include:

• Changing up copy and page layout.
• Using specific landing pages for individual marketing campaigns.
• Trying different variations of homepage copy.
• Changing required form criteria.
• Adding a chatbot to answer questions in real-time.

Simply put: Any website change that can be made with the end-goal of improving the number of conversions - whether that be capturing an email address, booking a sales call, or straight up making a purchase. Conversion optimisation doesn't have to be a significant time or monetary investment for marketers. But it can have huge bottom-line effects, making it a highly important task to continually focus on. With this in mind, let's take a look at our four selling tactics to boost conversions.

1. Highlight your unique selling proposition

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One of your main differentiators as a company is your unique selling proposition. A unique selling proposition is defined as a “specific, beneficial promise to the customer which your competitors cannot or is almost impossible to replicate.” Sample unique selling propositions include:

• Uber: “The best way to get wherever you’re going”
• MailChimp: “All your marketing needs in one place”
• Casper: “The best bed for better sleep”

All three of those examples tell consumers what they are going to get when they use their products. Unique selling propositions also position companies in a way that differentiates them from competitors. Most unique selling propositions focus on what customers are hoping to get after using the product. For Casper’s unique selling proposition, they focus on “better sleep,” which is the desired outcome of their customers. Let’s dive into another example and draft a unique selling proposition from scratch. Gili Sports positions their product as “the highest quality of paddle boards you can buy”. They also have the headline “saving the world’s oceans, one paddle board at a time” to showcase the philanthropic aspect of their business. It would be beneficial for Gili Sports to test combining both of those messages into one unique selling proposition and moving it up as their headline. Something like, “Inflatable Paddle Boards That Save the Ocean” would show both:

1. The uniqueness of the paddle boards; and
2. the charitable, philanthropic aspect of the company.

In a mobile-first world where customers have limited attention spans, companies need to draft a short, specific unique selling proposition and feature it on their website. If you’re struggling to write a unique selling proposition for your company, consider hiring an expert freelance copywriter to assist. This is something that is important, and you need to get right. In order to cut through the clutter, this should be the first thing the customer sees on your site. With a unique selling proposition, customers will immediately understand your company and what you are offering.

2. Communicate directly with consumers

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Consumers appreciate engaging, direct customer service. However, companies sometimes don’t even have a phone number or email to get an immediate response. Companies need to evaluate their customer relations strategies and see how they can better serve and speak with prospective customers. By doing so, they can directly impact their bottom line. Approximately nine out of 10 consumers will evaluate a company’s customer support before deciding whether or not they want to purchase from them. Customers need their questions answered. So opening the lines of communication between your team and your prospects can help convert hesitant shoppers. Here are a few ways to improve customer support on your site:

• Add a phone number or email. The simplest solution is adding a way for customers to contact you in your store’s footer.
• Add a chatbot. Chatbots can help answer frequently asked questions without disturbing a team member. They are easy to install and typically only require adding a few lines of code to your site.
• Add a "Contact" page. If you have a large team with many different departments, consider adding a form on a new “Contact Us” page. This can help filter the messages so the person with the right expertise can respond.
• Add a calendar scheduling link. There are numerous third-party software solutions you can add to book meetings with a customer service representative. This will streamline communications between your customers and team members while eliminating the hassle of finding a mutual time to meet.

By improving your customer relations, you can help nudge prospects closer to purchasing. In addition, strong customer relations will improve loyalty and can lead to repeat sales as well. This will increase your customers’ lifetime value and ensure they come back to your company in the future.

3. Produce high-quality product videos

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Successful companies rely on more than just product images to entice shoppers to buy. Add video to your product pages to ensure future customers understand the full benefits and features of your products. In addition, videos enable potential customers to see the products in use in an environment that is similar to theirs. But video production doesn’t have to be intimidating. There's plenty of software available. Or you can outsource product video production to professionals, who can create masterpieces like this for Bayliner Boats:

To tie together your product pages, you can even cross sell products by including related product links at the ends of your videos. By producing high-quality product photo and video content, you’ll keep your prospect on your site longer and nudge them closer to the sale.

4. Publish long-form content

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Some website visitors might be ready to buy right now. Others might not be. So finding different ways to get these visitors engaged and staying on your site longer can be a great way to increase conversions down the line. One popular way to do this is to create and publish long-form content on your blog. For example, CRU Kafe create blog posts giving recipes that use their coffee. This nicely nudges readers towards a sale: Long-form content can be catalogues, articles, guides, videos, or even podcasts (that can also be submitted to places like Spotify). All this can:

1. Complement your product offering.
2. Keep readers higher up your funnel engaged.
3. Build community.

By making your content more accessible, you have another touchpoint to delight and educate potential shoppers that might be ready to buy.

Conclusion

Attracting consumers to visit your site is only one half of the equation. Marketers need to focus on conversion optimisation and make it easier for interested consumers to make a purchase. The four selling tactics in this post are a great way to start. You’ll drive revenue and improve ecommerce sales dramatically.