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Top 5 Barriers to Online Conversion & How to Overcome Them

Apr 22, 2022Marketing

So, your online shop has plenty of clicks, but your online conversion rate is a tad lacklustre. No one creates an eCommerce website for the fun of it. Whether your online shop generates all your sales, or it compliments a brick-and-mortar store, your clicks need to convert.

There are plenty of barriers to online conversion that prevent reasonable consumers from making a purchase. Read on for our top 5 barriers to online conversion, and how to overcome them.

Poor Web Design

When a user lands on a web page, they make an instant judgement of your brand. Your colours, typeface, font size, images and the overall website design are a direct representation of your business. If your colours are off-brand, are not aesthetically pleasing, or your website layout is hard to navigate, your customers lose trust in your brand. Plus, a messy eCommerce website design can lead to a frustrating user experience for customers, which is another barrier to online conversion.

Taking advantage of the skills of web designers and graphic designers is critical to the success of your website’s eCommerce development. This will ensure your website design is user friendly and intuitive for your consumers to use. Plus, it will result in an aesthetically pleasing online shop that encapsulates your brand perfectly.

Lack of Information

Despite how far we’ve come with technology, it’s important to recognise just how much customers are giving up when they purchase from an online shop. When a customer cannot see or touch the product they intend to purchase, this needs to be made up for by including plenty of product information on your website.

If your eCommerce website design lacks full product descriptions or doesn’t include enough product imagery, your customers lose confidence in your product – and ultimately your brand.

To overcome this barrier to online conversion, add a detailed description to all of your products. With your imagery, make sure that you include photos and videos of your products that are taken from multiple angles. Include a reviews tab as well, so that customers can get a sense of what others thought about your product. This can be a gamechanger in building confidence in your product from your customers – 93% of customers read online reviews before buying a product on an online shop.

Lack of Shipping Options

Not every customer can afford to wait for 10-14 days for their purchase to be delivered. On the flip side, not every customer wants to be forced into paying for the express shipping option. When customers have managed to make it all the way to the checkout, now is certainly not the time to frustrate them.

Your eCommerce website design needs to offer plenty of shipping options. This gives customers the freedom to choose the best option for their needs and their budget. Providing estimated delivery dates to help customers make the best decision is also key to your businesses’ eCommerce development.

Cost is an important factor as well. Considering 59% of online shoppers consider shipping costs when they shop online, be completely transparent with the price and your shipping policy from the start of the check out process. This saves your customer from frustration if they encounter a shipping price that’s out of budget when they have nearly completed the online shopping process.

Lack of Payment Options

66% of consumers shop online outside their country. One in four customers will abandon a website if their currency is not listed at the checkout. Not including enough payment currencies is therefore a major barrier to online conversion.

Plus, multiple methods of payment must be available to the customer using your online shop. According to Smart Insights, 59% of customers will abandon a transaction if their preferred payment method is not available.

To overcome these barriers to online conversion, be sure to include major global currencies at your checkout page. Also, include all relevant payment gateway options at check out. In Australia, these include MasterCard, VISA and American Express, followed by PayPal, ZIP and POLi.

Your eCommerce website design also needs to have trustworthy logos prominently displayed on your checkout page. Including PayPal, Norton and Google security badges will help your customers trust your website.

Slow Page Speed

As humans, we’re naturally impatient beings. Or at least, since the emergence of technology, we’ve become impatient. No matter how you slice it, no one likes a slow website.

In fact, 40% of customers will abandon a website if they need to wait more than three seconds for a page to load. It gets worse – almost 80% of these customers would never return to an online shop that made them wait this long. That means if your page doesn’t load fast enough, you will have lost almost half of your customers.

There are some steps you can take to gain a faster page load speed for your online shop. Reducing your image size, removing excessive amounts of redirects, compressing your files and choosing a fast theme for your store will help minimise your page load times on your eCommerce website.

Online shoppers are handing over their hard-earned cash to your business – without choosing to view their purchase in person. This is a pretty big sacrifice. Your eCommerce website design therefore must to be built in a way that fosters trust in your brand from your potential customers. This means professional and aesthetic graphic design and a user-friendly interface.

If you’re ready to learn more about marketing and start improving your social media skills, head over to our homepage, Madi.Digital and get started now.