Introduction

The e-commerce industry is growing at an exponential rate, and so is the competition. Maximizing the performance and profitability of your online store is becoming increasingly difficult and important. In this blog, we’ll explore six tried and true strategies for increasing conversion rates for your Shopify store that can tremendously boost your business’s performance. 

Optimize Web Speed and Performance 

A slow site can have tremendous impacts on the performance of your Shopify store. 40% of shoppers will abandon a website if it takes longer than three seconds to fully load (Shopify), making it essential to ensure your site is fully optimized to load quickly. There are many different strategies you can implement to decrease load times and increase performance, including optimizing images, removing unnecessary scripts, and using only the most essential Shopify apps. 

Compress Images and Videos

Shopify automatically compresses images to enhance page loading times, but loading can be further improved with third-party apps or tools. Compression tools such as Compress Now or Tiny PNG can be used to compress large images and video files without losing quality. By decreasing the file sizes on your site, page loading times can greatly improve. 

Lazy loading

Lazy loading is a technique that delays the loading of images and videos until they are needed, such as when a user scrolls down to view them. This can reduce the initial page load time and improve performance, especially for websites with an abundance of media. Implementing lazy loading ensures that only visible content loads first, enhancing the user experience. 

Remove Unnecessary Apps and Scripts

Even after deleting an app from your Shopify store, there can still be code embedded within your site, slowing down the speed of your store. To ensure that there are no unnecessary scripts or apps, make sure to regularly monitor the apps you have installed, remove unused ones, and check for any leftover scripts to clean up your site’s code and ensure optimal page performance. 

Only Use Essential Shopify Apps

Shopify apps can greatly improve your site’s performance, business operations, and customer management strategies, but they can also impact page performance if not installed carefully. The more apps you download to your Shopify store, the slower your site speed will be. Because of this, it is important to be picky when deciding which apps to use. Do your research, read reviews, and ensure each app has a specific and important purpose for your business. We researched the top Shopify apps for any business needs, from subscription and customer management to page-building and data management tools. Read our list of apps in our blog, 13 Must-Have Shopify Apps for Your Site.

A/B Test Your Website

Instead of relying on what has worked in the past, what works for your competitors, or what you just think will work, test different elements of your site to determine what actually works. Your customers are unique to you and only you, so what performs well for others may not be the best option for your site. 

With Compose, you can easily conduct split theme and split template tests using the Shopify theme editor you are already familiar with. A/B testing can improve your conversion rates tremendously, especially when testing what matters. Experiment with different layouts on your product pages, landing pages, or home page with split template testing. With split theme testing, you can experiment with wider-scale navigation, branding, or messaging updates to learn exactly what your audience responds to. 

To learn more about using Compose to A/B test your Shopify store, read our blog, Split Theme, and Split Template Testing for Shopify.

Optimize the Checkout Process -

Streamlining the checkout process for your Shopify store is essential to reducing cart abandonment and maximizing conversion rates. Baymard recently conducted a survey asking over 1,000 people their reasoning for abandoning a cart and found that a long and complicated checkout process accounted for 22% of cart abandonments, and 26% of people abandoned their carts because they were required to create an account (Baymard Research). 

Realistically, Shopify significantly limits the changes you can make to the checkout process, but there are still steps you can take to improve the process to make it easy for your customers to make a purchase. 

Offer Guest Checkout 

By not requiring customers to create an account, the checkout process becomes significantly easier. With over 25% of abandoned carts being due to requiring an account, allowing customers to check out as a guest can greatly improve sales. 

Offer Quickpay Options

Offering quick-pay options such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and Shop Pay can greatly speed up the checkout process. ShopPay also allows buy-now, pay-later options, which can be attractive to many buyers, prompting them to go through with purchases. These payment options allow users to complete their purchases easily, with just a few clicks, eliminating the need to enter payment details manually. By reducing friction at checkout, quick-pay options enhance the user experience and help capture more sales from both mobile and desktop shoppers. 

Utilize Shopify’s One-Page Checkout

Shopify offers a one-step checkout option that can greatly simplify the process for customers. To utilize this feature, go to your Shopify admin dashboard and click settings, then checkout. 

1. Go to your Shopify admin dashboard.

2. Click the checkout section.

   

3. Customize your configuration.

   

4. In the sidebar, scroll to “Layout.” 

   

5. Click “one-page checkout.” 

   

Build Credibility through Reviews and Trust Badges

A common reason for abandoned carts is low trust in a website. By implementing social proof and adding trust badges, you can ease concerns about credibility and build trust for your brand. 

Implement Social Proof 

Judge.me is a great Shopify app that embeds customer reviews onto your site. The app allows store owners to showcase reviews while also automating review requests to customers after a purchase. Customer photos, star ratings, and written reviews can significantly build trust and credibility while easing any concerns about your products or brand to improve conversion rates. 

Add Trust Badges 

Another way to build the trustworthiness of your brand is to implement trust badges. Giving out credit card information can be a risky action for anyone, so it is essential to prove to customers that you can be trusted with this sensitive information.  

Upsell and Cross-Sell 

Upselling and cross-selling are great ways to increase average order value. Upselling is when you encourage customers to buy a more advanced version of the product they are exploring to gain more revenue. Cross-selling is the process of suggesting complementary products to the current products that a customer is browsing or has in their cart. 

You can upsell and cross-sell products before, during, or after purchases, and there are many apps in the Shopify app store to assist you in your strategies. After Sell is a post-purchase upsell app that is designed to help Shopify merchants increase AOV by offering one-click upsell offers immediately after a customer purchases a product.  

Recapturing Promising Leads 

Even with an optimized checkout process, some shoppers will still abandon their carts before completing a purchase. By re-engaging shoppers with strategic abandoned cart and checkout reminder emails, you can increase conversion rates and not lose these potential sales. 

Abandoned cart emails can remind customers about the products they’ve left behind. To implement these tactics effectively, send emails within a few hours of cart abandonment, include a strong CTA in the emails, and provide incentives such as a limited-time discount or free shipping. 

Shopify provides a built-in cart abandonment tool that allows store owners to automatically send follow-up emails to customers who leave items in their cart. 

To set up this feature: 

1. Go to your shopify admin dashboard 

2. Click on the checkout section

3. Scroll to abandoned checkout emails and customize your message

   

Optimize Your Site for Mobile Users

Mobile users account for over 64% of all internet traffic (Digital Silk) and 59% of total ecommerce sales (Sellers Commerce). While a large percentage of customers are still desktop users, it is imperative to optimize your site for mobile users if you want to maximize conversions. Difficult mobile navigation, complicated checkouts, or poor readability are common mistakes many e-commerce managers tend to make when it comes to mobile websites. 

Ensure your website is optimized for mobile users by using thumb-friendly navigation, readable text, simple checkouts, optimized images, limited pop-ups, and simple page layout and design. The large share of e-commerce revenue that is generated by mobile users makes it imperative to optimize your site’s user experience to maximize conversions. 

Watch our Webinar! 

Our webinar, How to Improve Shopify Conversion Rates, hosted with Udundi, explores all of these strategies and more. Learn the importance of optimizing your site and how to maximize conversions with a deeper dive into A/B testing with Compose. 

Watch the webinar here! 

Conclusion

When it comes to managing your Shopify store, countless strategies can have an impact on your performance, but ensuring you’re adopting the right ones is crucial for maximizing the efficiency of your efforts. By optimizing site performance, A/B testing your website, simplifying your checkout process, building credibility, upselling and cross-selling, and ensuring your site functions flawlessly for mobile users, you can greatly improve conversion rates for your Shopify store.