Having dedicated previous chapters to various aspects of running an online business powered by osCommerce, it makes sense to look back and see how the efficiency of an online store can be measured and improved, and how that efficiency affects the business as a whole.
There are not many ways to measure the efficiency of any business. One can say the business is efficient if it regularly achieves its targets. But what is important is not only if the targets are achieved, but also how much effort it took to achieve them.
For example, the same amount of profits could be achieved by an online store with different turnover figures, depending on the effectiveness and profitability of the business.
By improving the efficiency of the business, the online merchant makes it possible to achieve the same targets investing less effort and less funds; hence more effort and money could be invested into further business development.
The conversion rate represents the efficiency of an e-commerce-based online business—to some degree. Several conversion rates could be measured, from how many impressions of an advertisement on other websites convert into clicks to the online store, to how many visitors to the online store later become its customers (i.e. place online orders) and later repeat customers.
Improving conversion rates actually means improving the efficiency of the business, and its profitability. This is because it may cost a significant amount of money and effort to attract visitors to the online store, and converting so many of those visitors into customers simply pays off for the money spent on PR, advertising, etc. A simple business model could be built that demonstrates how the profit produced by an online store depends on the cost of advertising and PR—in fact, how the business's profitability depends on Return on Investment (ROI). Correspondingly, the more visitors of online store place online orders, the less each individual order costs to the online merchant (the so called cost per acquisition becomes cheaper), the higher is ROI, and the more efficient is that particular online business.
Visitors to an online store convert into customers (place online orders) when they have had a positive experience with the online store. The best experience a customer can get is when the online store offers the customer exactly what the customer desires, within the customer's budget, and the order placement process is easy and secure. A mixture of all that, sometimes in a different order, usually ensures good visitor-to-customer conversion rates.
Therefore, the online store should help the customer find the desired product (even if the customer doesn't know exactly what it is), provide the customer with price options if the product's price is out of that customer's budget, and provide the customer with a straightforward and secure facility to place an online order. Positive customer experience with an online store results in improved conversion rates, and correspondingly, improved efficiency and profitability of an online business.
Before conversion rates can be improved, they should be measured.
But how can they be measured in osCommerce? And which conversion rates are to be measured?
There are different types of conversion rates that indicate how efficient and successful the online business is.
The conversion rate that is used often is the ratio of the number of buyers to the number of visitors to the online store. To measure this conversion rate, the online merchant needs to know how many visitors visited the store in a certain period of time, and how many of those have placed orders.
It should be mentioned that whatever method is used to measure those figures, it should make a clear difference between all orders placed online in a certain period of time, and those orders that have been placed by new visitors/customers during the same period.
It should also be noted that a number of new visitors may not be ready to place an online order straight away, so when they come back later to place an order, that order should be counted accordingly, along with other orders placed by the customers during that past time period. This means that figures for past time periods might change a bit in the future. The longer the period of measurements, the more precise those measurements will be, and the less likely they are to change significantly in the future.
This conversion rate shows how good the online store is in terms of selling products to very new visitors, how good it is in terms of converting visitors into customers who placed at least one online order. This will also show how many visitors were converted into buyers.
Any statistical package could be used to get approximate values of the conversion rate like Google Analytics (former Urchin) or the less complex Webalizer. Dividing the number of orders placed by new visitors by the number of those visits gives the online merchant an approximate value of the conversion rate during a certain period of time.
Let's assume the number of unique visitors to an online store per month is 15,000, and the number of online orders placed by those new unique visitors is 570. This means that the online store has a general conversion rate of 3.8% for new visitors.
For most online stores that rate would be less than 10%, which in the best-case scenario means that the online store needs to attract at least 100 new unique visitors to get 10 online orders. If the general conversion rate is just 1%, the online store would have to attract at least 1,000 new unique visitors to get 10 online orders, which obviously makes a big difference! Assuming each new unique visitor has seen the online store's paid advertisement on another website or in a search engine, and clicked the link, we can calculate how different the so called "cost of acquisition" of each new visitor will be for online stores with different conversion rates.
Let's assume that on the average each click on the advertisement displayed on another website or in a search engine costs the online merchant $0.40.
In the first case, where we have a 10% conversion rate, the online store needs to spend:
100 x $0.40 = $40
to get 10 online orders. Each order "costs" $4, which is spent on acquiring the customer.
In the second case, where we have a 1% conversion rate, the online store needs to spend:
1,000 x $0.40 = $400
to get 10 online orders. In that case, each order's cost is already $40, and this is to attract only one new customer!
That's a huge difference, and it demonstrates how important it is to work on improving the general conversion rate from new visitors to customers.
Yet another rate can be calculated when measuring the number of customers who place their second, third, and so on orders. It can be calculated by dividing the number of customers with more than one order on the account by the total number of registered customers who placed at least one online order.
This rate is also very important, as it demonstrates how much the online store actually saves on not paying for acquiring multiple orders from already registered customers.
Let's suppose at least one of seven registered customers places at least one order during a certain period of time. This means that the return customers conversion rate is at least 14.28%.
As soon as customers order more than once, it starts to improve the general conversion rate—because now, instead of getting all orders from new customers and paying a certain amount for attracting new customers, the online merchant gets 14.28% of orders "free"—i.e. without paying for acquiring the customer on such orders.
So even if the general conversion rate is 1%, but one of each seven customers will place at least one more order with the online store in the future, the actual conversion rate for that period of time is about 1.14%.
This makes a significant difference in the actual cost of acquiring new customers; instead of $400 to get 10 new customers/orders, the online merchant would actually pay 877 x $0.40 =$350.8, where 877 is the required number of new visitors, who, along with customers who ordered previously, would place 10 orders in total.
Of course, the more orders placed by customers who have already bought from the online store at least once, the "cheaper" are those orders to the online merchant. Therefore, online merchants are very much interested in converting customers into repeat customers.
The above conversion rates show how the online store performs in general, whereas conversion rates by specific referring sources (such as other websites, search engines, magazines, TV ads, etc.) demonstrate more specifically how visitors referred by those referring sources convert into customers.
Knowing specific referring sources' conversion rates helps to identify those referring sources that generate most of the customer traffic. Also, it's possible to see which referring sources do not produce a traffic of visitors who later convert into customers.
This usually means that visitors who come from those not-converting referring sources:
Cannot find the products they are looking for on the website easily enough.
Find the price is not right for them.
There are some other reasons that stop them from placing online orders.
This may be because.
The online store's presence in the referring source is not right, in which case then it should be changed.
The main page or landing pages may be confusing for most of the visitors who were referred by those specific referring sources, in which case the content of landing pages (or even the main page of the online store if it's where most of the visitors get to) should be reworked.
The price of products offered by the online store is not right for visitors referred by those specific referring sources. In that case, if it's not possible to lower the price because of tight margins, it may make sense to terminate the online store's presence in those referring sources with lower conversion rate from visitors to customers and invest that saved money into other referring sources with higher conversion rates.
Each visitor who comes to the website via some paid advertisement and leaves the website without placing an order is a loss of money spent on advertising in the corresponding referring source. The loss of the money spent on attracting one visitor obviously does not affect the whole business, but if the conversion rate is too small, the total figures spent on attracting non-buying visitors grow high and become quite noticeable.
As with referring sources, it's possible to calculate some more general conversion rates, like by media type. Usually, an online store would be advertised in media of several different types, including the Internet, printed magazines, newspapers, classifieds, exterior advertisements, TV, radio, etc.
The costs of advertising usually differs depending on the media type. Correspondingly, knowing conversion rates by media type helps to identify those that refer visitors who better convert into customers, and those that refer visitors who do not often convert into customers later on.
As with referring sources, the cause of lower conversion rate should be carefully examined, and corresponding measures taken. The online merchant should consider the case when the target audience of the online store prefers certain media types over others.
If it's impossible to improve the low conversion rate of a certain media type, and the costs of referring visitors by that media type are significant, the online merchant should consider ending the presence of the online store in that media type, and investing those funds into advertising in other media types with better conversion rates.
Most of the statistical packages (such as Google Analytics) allow for monitoring conversion rates of referring sources and media types, but mostly the online ones. In order to track conversion rates of all referring sources and media types, including those offline (i.e. printed, aired, etc.), the online store should use some more advanced methods.
For example, a special landing page could be developed for a specific referring source (like some magazine, or radio), and then statistics could be gathered on how many visitors were referred to that page, and how many of those visitors later placed at least one online order.
To record which landing page the customer has first come to, it's possible to use cookies that are stored on the customer's computer for a certain number of days. During the checkout process, osCommerce can check the value of a special cookie and store its value into the database, along with the order. The conversion rate of a referring source or media type could be easily calculated by dividing the number of orders placed by visitors to the landing page related to the referring source or whole media type by the total number of visitors to that page.
Usually, the conversion rate of an advertising campaign depends on:
Whether it reaches the target audience of the online store
If the content of the advertisement is right for that target audience
If visitors who reach the online store can easily find products they are or might be interested in
If the price of the advertised products is within the budget of customers who belong to the target audience
As with referring sources, it's possible to set up a special landing page for each advertising campaign, and use special cookies to track how many of the visitors who "land" on that page actually place online orders later on.
With an advertising campaign, it's also possible to use some sort of a discount coupon code that would either give customers a discount, free delivery option, or, for example, register the customer as a participant in a lottery where the prize is, again, one of the products being offered by the online store. This method can help an online merchant to track the conversion rates of offline advertising campaigns.
Actually, the same methods can help the online merchant to track conversion of not only advertising campaigns, but also referring sources—as one and the same landing page or discount coupon code could become a unique identifier of a certain advertising campaign AND referring source at the same time.
Product catalog and product information of course affect the online store's conversion rates a lot.
Visitors to an online store will become customers if products that the online store has on offer are the products that those visitors are looking for, or see as a way to address their needs even if they do not have an exact picture of the desired products in their minds yet.
Conversion rates calculated by category, brand, or individual product may demonstrate:
Which parts of the product catalog actually generate orders and which parts do not
Where there's room for improvement, of either product information, category information, brand information, or simply product sale price
Which categories or brands or individual products convert most of visitors into customers—it makes sense to promote such parts of the product catalog extensively
Which categories, brands, or individual products do not convert visitors into customers at all, and therefore should be either improved, reworked, or removed from the online store completely to concentrate visitors' attention on those products that do actually convert visitors into customers
It is relatively easy to calculate the number of unique visitors that some category page, or brand (manufacturer) page, or product page has received per certain period of time. It is also possible to use the cookie method and store a certain value into that cookie on visitor's computer as soon as the visitor opens a certain category, brand, or product page. Then, when some visitors place online orders, osCommerce can read the cookie value and put it along with the customer's order into the database. By dividing the number of orders produced by a certain category, brand, or product page by the number of unique visitors who opened the corresponding page, the online merchant gets the corresponding conversion rates.
Interestingly enough, there could be products, "referrals" that do not convert visitors into customers very well themselves, but motivate visitors to order other products that are somehow related to those "referral" ones. In that situation, statistics on conversion rate will highlight products that act as referrals.
Lower conversion rates on certain categories may call for reconsidering the structure of the product catalog, and re-organizing products in different categories. Lower conversion rates on certain brands may be caused by the target audience not being interested in such brands, or by a non-competitive pricing policy. In that case, it makes sense to ensure that those brands are of interest to the target audience of the online store, and may be rework the prices on products of those brands.
If improvement of conversion rates on some categories and brands is not possible because of tight margins or other reasons, it may make sense to drop certain brands or categories completely from the product catalog to let visitors concentrate on those brands and categories that actually convert visitors into customers, i.e. sell well.
This will not only increase general conversion rates of the online store, but will positively affect the return on investment figures, as less funds will be invested into promotion and support of products that do not bring enough sales and profits.
Conversion rates from visitors to customers often depend on how certain pages of the site are designed, on the information displayed on them, and even on the location and appearance of certain page elements.
Later on in the chapter, we will see how pages and page elements affect conversion rates, how this effect can be measured, and how conversion rates could be improved when measurement procedures are in place and constantly used.
General conversion rate depends a lot on if the visitor to the online store can easily find the desired product or service offered online. Ideally, an online store would be able to suggest to the visitor this or that product even if the visitor doesn't have an exact idea about the desired product yet, but just has some general needs.
Of course, it would be easiest for the client to see the needed products directly on the landing page of the website. In fact, it's possible to realize such a situation by putting in place special landing pages for specific products or groups of products, and advertising those specific products or product groups in different media and putting links to the specific landing pages into advertising materials.
Pointing the visitor to an online store to desired products in an instant dramatically increases the chances of the same visitor placing an order with that online store, i.e. it increases conversion rates, and profitability of the online store.
Understanding how website navigation helps to convert more visitors into customers requires being able to calculate how many steps an average customer makes before he or she adds a product to the shopping basket. It is possible to calculate in osCommerce how many clicks on different category, brand (manufacturer), and product pages an average visitor makes before adding at least one product into the shopping cart.
It is also possible to calculate the relation between the number of clicks and the number of orders placed by visitors to an online store, which will be the conversion rate by clicks (or navigation).
The relation between the number of times the average visitor uses the search facility and the number of products added to the shopping cart or ordered directly from the search results page demonstrates the conversion rate (efficiency) of the search feature of the online store.
Of course, the more optimized the search feature is, the more relevant results (products) it brings to the visitors, the more are the chances for those relevant products to be ordered.
Lower search facility conversion rates mean that the search feature needs to be improved as visitors to the online store are not finding what they are looking for. Or that the visitors to an online store are not entirely sure about what they are looking for, and need some help—in that case it's possible to implement a special wizard or filtering system that could help website visitors in finding exact products even if the visitors are not sure about what they are looking for, and have certain needs but do not know the exact names or models of products.
An average osCommerce-based online store may have many paths that convert visitors into customers, but they all end up in the same way—with the Checkout Success page, with the order confirmation page. So it is easier to start discovering those paths from the end rather than from the beginning, as we know for sure what's at their end and can start our research from the Checkout Success page.
Which is the page that a visitor to an osCommerce online store would see before the Checkout Success page? It's the Checkout Confirmation page, where the order summary is displayed along with the customer's details and the customer (yes, already a customer since the visitor has already gone through the registration or login process to reach the Checkout Confirmation page) is required to confirm the order.
It is not possible to get to the Checkout Success page without having seen the Checkout Confirmation page earlier.
Which is the page one usually deals with prior to Checkout Confirmation page in osCommerce? It's the Checkout Payment and Checkout Shipping pages, where the customer chooses preferred shipping and payment methods. And it's not possible to get to the Checkout Confirmation page without passing through the Checkout Shipping and then Checkout Payment pages in standard osCommerce.
The customer comes to the Checkout Shipping page from either the New Customer registration pages, or from the Login page—here, for the first time we see how the path that converts visitors into customers splits in two. Actually, the customer may have been already logged in and then clicked one of the Checkout links (in the breadcrumbs, in the Shopping Cart page, etc.), which made the online store display the Checkout Shipping page of the checkout process.
Before that the visitor to an online store might have either pressed the Checkout button on the Shopping Cart page, or clicked the Checkout link in the header being on any page at all, or pressed the Buy Now button on the product listing page or product information page—there are multiple possibilities out there, and it all depends on how a particular osCommerce online store is built.
All the steps described above are more or less obvious and obligatory in standard osCommerce if the visitor to the online store wants to place an order.
But the true interest lies in the paths different visitors choose BEFORE they enter the checkout route. The path from the main/landing page to the checkout page is what should be examined by online merchants, and what should be the target for optimization. Those paths could be determined by statistical packages (like Google Analytics) or tracked by osCommerce online store itself.
In the latter case, a special addition to a script generally used (like for example the application_top.php file, which is usually located in the /includes/ subfolder of the online store) can make it possible to store the names or IDs of all pages opened by the visitor to an online store before the checkout pages, and store them into the database along with the order for further analysis.
It seems obvious that the shorter the path is, the more efficient is the navigation of the online store, and the easier it is for visitors to the site to find what they are looking for. It may be discovered that certain paths end up with the Checkout Success page more often than other paths—in that case, the online merchant may want to study why other paths are not so successful by comparing them to the paths that convert more visitors into customers, and also consider using the pages of successful paths in order to promote complementary products to the ones regularly bought by customers who choose this or that path through the online store.
Let's go back for a while and concentrate on the checkout process, and on how conversion rate changes from one step to another.
Let's consider the following to be the steps of the checkout process: Shopping Cart, New Customer Registration page/Login page, Checkout Shipping, Checkout Payment, Checkout Confirmation, and Checkout Success pages.
Let's remember that the general conversion rate of an osCommerce-based online store would be the number of customers who actually reach the Checkout Success page divided by the number of unique visitors who come to the online store during a certain period of time.
If the general conversion rate of an online store is 3.8%, this means that of each 1,000 unique visitors only 38 place online orders, only 38 reach the Checkout Success page. But what does it mean for other pages of the online store, and of the checkout process in particular?
For the checkout process pages, this means that their individual conversion rates, figures that show how many visitors or customers have actually reached those pages, will be higher or equal to the general conversion rate of the online store. Talking about the checkout pages, as they are mandatory to visit before an order can be recorded in the database, the individual conversion rate of each previous page will always be higher than or equal to (for the sake of correct theoretical argument, as in most cases, it will be simply higher all the time) the conversion rate of each further page/step of the checkout process.
This means that from a number of visitors who reach the Shopping Cart page, only some get to the New Customer registration/Login page. Of those, only a part would actually go through the registration or login process and end up on the Checkout Shipping page. Of those, only some would go further to the Checkout Payment page. And only a part of those would reach the Checkout Confirmation page. And finally, only a part of those will actually confirm the order and place it online and reach the Checkout Success page.
On each of those steps, the number of visitors and customers who reach further steps usually drops.
It is a task of utmost importance to measure the conversion rates of each page that is a part of the checkout process, see how the individual conversion rate of each page differs from the conversion rates of other pages, understand reasons why the conversion rate differs between the pages of the checkout process, and seek for ways to improve the individual conversion rate of each and every page.
There is a natural drop of conversion rate for checkout process pages, as not all visitors and customers are actually ready to place an online order even though they may have added products to the Shopping Cart, and even registered and created an account, or have already chosen payment and shipping method.
If the individual conversion rate of some page is unexpectedly low, this may be caused by some problem with the previous page, that prevents visitors or customers from moving forward, and results in more visitors or customers leaving the page/the online store than one would normally expect. Pages can be confusing, too complex, look uncomfortable or not secure enough to continue with the checkout process. The task of an online merchant is to ensure such problems are dealt with promptly to allow for improved general conversion rates of an online store.
As an example, conversion rate could be dropping on each step of the checkout process. It could be 60% on the Shopping Cart page, 32% on the Registration/Login page, 15% on the Checkout Shipping page, 10% on the Checkout Payment page, 6% on the Checkout Confirmation page, and only 3% on the Checkout Success page. The online merchant can work on improving all parts of the online store and checkout process in particular to improve conversion rates.
As with improved conversion rate of ANY page of the checkout process, the online store actually improves its general conversion rate. If all relations between pages and conversion rates stay the same, but instead of 15% of total visitors, 20% reach the Checkout Shipping page after certain improvements of the Shopping Cart and New Customer Registration pages, the online store can count on a 3% x 20 / 15 = 4% general conversion rate! It's a 33% increase in turnover (compared to 3% conversion rate) and most probably an increase in profit figures as well!
Checking the paths that converted website visitors into customers, one can sometimes find that before certain products were added to the Shopping Cart and bought later on, the visitor to the online store had visited other product pages, or just some other pages of the online store.
If by analyzing multiple orders it's possible to locate certain dependencies, it makes sense to start using those dependencies to convert even more visitors into customers.
For example, the browsing history may show that a number of customers bought product B after they have seen product A. In that case, product B could be featured as something the customer might be interested in while on the product A page, or positioned alongside product A on the product listing page.
Even more than that could be done. Depending on what were the last several pages of the online store seen by the visitor or customer (pages like products, categories, etc.), the online store can list certain products related to those pages and promote them to the customer.
Although it sounds a little bit complicated, it is definitely something that could be achieved with osCommerce.
It's possible to build a custom solution based entirely on osCommerce technology to allow for such "prediction" feature, or use third-party solutions that are very easy to integrate into the online store. That software tracks visits and purchases, and then does all the math on its side, linking products to the browsing history that led to their purchase.
Sometimes conversion from visitor to customer starts with an almost unnoticeable page element, like a button or a link, an information box, or an icon. Almost any visible page element can make a difference, affect a customer's decision on placing an order.
In this chapter, we will see how various page elements and web pages themselves affect conversion rates, and how to improve conversion rates by improving the pages.
But before we go any deeper into that topic, let us consider a situation where a decision should be made whether or not and how to put this or that element of design on the page—and the entire element is very important for conversion rates. Let's assume it's the decision of whether to put either the "Add to Cart" button or the "More Info" button on the Product Listing page. So how do we make that decision? Which button would go on the Product Listing page, or maybe both buttons should be placed there?
The answer is very simple and elegant: give no answer yourself. Better let your customers decide. By putting different customers into different situations, by showing two different groups of customers a different design element each, the online merchant can compare conversion rates that are specific to when this or that button was shown on the Product Listing page.
Technically, the implementation of this can be done using cookies. Each time a new visitor comes to an online store, a randomized procedure would virtually put the visitor into one of the two test groups. The value of a special cookie would be set accordingly, so each time that user comes back to the website, the website would only display that button on the Product Listing page to that particular user. And each time the visitor later on places an order and converts into a customer, the value of that cookie would be stored in the database along with the order, so that it would be possible to see which approach, which button actually converts more visitors into customers.
This approach in general could be called "A & B testing" and represents the idea that customers are better given the chance to advise an online merchant on which solution (either A or B) they prefer and which solution would convert more visitors to the online store into its customers.
When the customer first gets to an osCommerce-based online store, the customer "lands" on either the main page of the site, or any other page of the site. It can be either a Product Information page, Product listing page, or some specially designed page, which is often referred to as a "landing page".
Specifically built landing pages are often used in advertising campaigns. Customers who saw certain advertising are referred to the corresponding landing page, which not only contains appropriate content, but also records visits so that it will be possible to track the conversion rate and success of particular advertising campaigns.
As already said, it makes sense to put specific content on the landing pages that is related to advertising campaigns, to give the visitor the feeling of the "right place" to be. Quite often, online merchants make a mistake of referring their prospective customers to the main page of their website in each of their ad campaigns. The user may be disoriented and confused as the content of the main page quite often is not related to a particular ad campaign or advertising material the user might have just seen elsewhere. In many cases, the user then has to search for products or special offers on the website, which can further confuse that user and increase the chances of losing a prospective order.
So the rule of the thumb, when designing ad campaigns, is to create appropriate landing pages for those campaigns, and put appropriate content on those pages. Ideally, the landing page would confirm the message (some marketing action, promotion, special offer, etc.) the user has just seen elsewhere, and list some products related to that campaign too. It would also contain a link to the list of other products that are either related to that campaign, or to products listed on the landing page. This way the user will not get too much information at the very same time, but, if really interested in the offer, will be able to easily see (and possibly buy!) products directly on the landing page.
But what if the user comes to the main page of the online store, or to any other page from a search engine? Will the user always be able to see that the content of the page is actually what the user has just searched for?
Most web browsers nowadays send various parameters to the web server when requesting a web page. Among those parameters is the referral string. The referral string is what the user had in the address bar of the web browser before the link leading to the online store (in our particular case) was clicked. So, if the user searched for a certain key phrase in a search engine, the phrase itself and many other parameters including the URL of the search engine would likely be forwarded to the web server where the online store is hosted when the web browser sends a request for the page.
It's possible to create a relatively simple routine to extract the key phrase from the referral URL and display it on the pages of the online store to help the prospective customer to find desired products in the product catalog of the online store. That routine could be placed into the /includes/application_top.php script to ensure that every page of the online store is improved accordingly.
Once the routine is in place, the result of its work would look like:
"Thank you for visiting <online store name>! You searched for <key phrase> in <search engine URL>. <Click here> to run the search against our product catalog to let our online store find the best matching results for you"—where the <Click here> link would obviously lead the prospective customer to the Advanced Search results page.
Such an approach helps the user to find what he or she is actually looking for; therefore general conversion rates improve too.
There are some page elements that can be present on any page of the online store, whether it's the main page or one of secondary pages. Those are various banners, special offers, featured products, promotions announcements, etc.
It makes sense to track conversion rates of each such banner, or featured product by recording the number of clicks on any of them, and also by recording the number of orders placed by customers who ever clicked on the banner or a featured product link. Of course, it's possible to record the number of sales of featured products and products on offer, but that measure would not be very accurate on its own, as those products can be bought in a more standard way by customers going through the product catalog.
To track whether the customer who placed an online order actually did click one of the banners or featured product announcements, online merchants could use cookies again. Using cookies in that case is really straightforward; as soon as the user clicks the banner, the corresponding cookie is saved onto the user's computer, and is then picked up by the online store during the checkout process.
The ratio between the number of clicks and the number of orders produced by a banner or featured product would be its conversion rate.
Many aspects may affect the individual conversion rates of design elements. The appearance of those design elements, and their position on the page are very important. Online merchants can experiment both with the look and feel of those elements of page design and of course with their position to find the optimal solution for their business. This gets back to the "A & B testing" method, where some prospective customers are presented with one version of the page, and other customers with another version. But the only difference is the appearance of certain page design element, like a banner or featured product announcement. Comparing the conversion rates of different versions of the same design elements, the online merchant can make an educated decision on how this or that design element or the whole page should look.
Wherever the user can see products, where it's any page of the online store, and especially the Product Listing page, it should be made very simple for that user to locate the following crucial information about the product on the page:
Product name
Product image
Product price
Short description or the main feature or two (often combined with product name)
It's also crucial that prospective customers are given a clear choice of either getting more information about the product, or buying the product straight away (or rather adding it to the Shopping Cart).
It's important to remember that users come to the online store looking for products, more often in the "buy" mood. Therefore, it's essential to give users a facility to buy products, and make it very prominent and unmistakable. The easier it is for prospective customer to buy a product online, the more often those prospective customers who are ready to buy will do so.
Customers buy products for many reasons, but among those one of the most important is that the customer expects the product to address some specific needs, and make him/her happier.
Selling benefits and not only features demonstrates to prospective customers how a particular product can actually help to make them happier and/or ease their life. By letting the customer know about exactly how the product could be used, and what affect it will make on the customer—i.e. by selling a product as a bundle of benefits and solutions—an online store can actually increase its conversion rates.
For example, describing an electric kettle along with its basic characteristic like capacity, an online merchant could add several words about the number of people (size of family) that kettle would be able to boil the water for in one turn.
Or in the product description of a laptop, weight and size information could be followed by several words about how the customer could take the laptop anywhere, in almost any bag, and enjoy the day being able to work or watch movies or play games in the mean time.
A fridge freezer would be better described not only by its measurements of width, height, and depth, but rather by the size of the family that fridge would suit best, and also the size of the kitchen (whether it's got to be large or not).
Mobile phones could be better described by the lifestyle associated with them—whether it's a mobile phone for business needs, for family and chatting with friends, for outdoor activities, etc.
By associating a product in the customer's mind with some event or place where the customer feels or would feel happier, the online store improves the customer's reassurance in the product, and makes the product look and sound more familiar to the customer. The customer can easily imagine using the product, and also how using the product will positively affect the customer's life.
Hence the conversion rates will be increased and customers will be more likely to order products online.
Even if the customer is determined to buy a product, if the price is right, and the customer has added the product into the Shopping Cart, there may be some obstacles and distraction that could affect the customer's decision to place an online order, and of course affect the conversion rates.
The Shopping Cart and Checkout pages of an online store need to be made as simple, straightforward, but at the same time confident and secure looking as possible. We already considered how to build the customer's confidence by adding security certificates to the checkout pages, and more product information to the Shopping Cart (product image, description, etc.). Besides that, the Shopping Cart and Checkout pages could be simplified by disabling certain design elements, so that the customer's attention would not get drawn away to anything else on the page that doesn't lead to completing the order placement process.
It is recommended to remove all banners and promotion announcements from the Shopping Cart and Checkout pages if they are not directly related to product(s) currently located in the customer's Shopping Cart. This includes those banners usually displayed in the side columns, header, or footer on all other pages of the online store.
Adding the feeling of security and confidence to the Shopping Cart and Checkout pages by putting the company's contact details can repay in the increased conversion rates.
Simplification of the Checkout pages can be continued by reducing the number of them, and combining some of them together (like putting Login, Customer Registration, Billing, and Shipping options all on one page).
The simpler and quicker the Checkout process is, the more the chances are it won't cause any difficulties and confusion to the site's visitor, and the more the chances that the visitor will convert into a customer.
This page is the most important one as this is exactly the place where customers make their final decision on whether or not to place an order. The same as on the Shopping Cart and Checkout pages, it's recommended to remove all excessive design elements that may distract customers' attention.
In order to improve customer's experience, and give the customer that feeling of having full control over the Checkout process, the customer can be given an opportunity to pay online only on that page, the Checkout Confirmation page, and not earlier while being on other pages of the Checkout process. This method requires a number of serious modifications in the standard osCommerce Checkout process, and often it is better to seek a professional developer's help to change the osCommerce Checkout process in that way.
Once the customer has placed an order by pressing the Confirm or Continue or Order button, that very button could be disabled. It will then not let the customer to accidentally place another, identical order by pressing the button again. The button can be disabled using JavaScript. Also, a special routine could be added into the checkout process that would not accept an order from the same customer for the same products within a period of, say, five minutes after the first order has been received.
Some online stores allow their customers to place online orders without creating an account. As a number of customers may get concerned about an online store having their account information, giving the customer an option to place an online order without creating an account may sound like a good idea! It increases conversion rates by making the whole checkout process simpler, and more secure for such customers.
Google Checkout and PayPal PRO are good examples of that approach, as the customer can switch to either Google Checkout or PayPal PRO directly from the Shopping Cart page of an osCommerce online store, without even getting to the point of creating an account with it. The Google Checkout contribution can be downloaded from http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/4556 and the PayPal PRO (or PayPal Direct) contribution can be downloaded directly from PayPal at http://paypaltech.com/content/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=64&func=select&id=20 or from http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/3647.
Another solution, which is especially useful with websites where customers are likely to place repeat orders, is account information being stored on the customer's computer (in the cookies) and not in the database of the online store.
A customer first fills in the registration form, and answers the question if the account information should be stored on the local computer or on the database. If the customer's choice is the local computer, every time that customer gets back to the online store, adds products to the Shopping Cart, and presses the Checkout button, the online store checks if account information already exists in cookies on the customer computer, retrieves that information, and pre-fills the registration forms accordingly.
This makes it so much easier for end customers to place repeat orders without creating an account with the online store!
Customer experience improves a lot by allowing the customer to save certain products into the Wish List without having to actually place an order for those products.
osCommerce supports storing of the customer's Shopping Cart contents into the customer's account by default. Also, every time the customer logs in, the current Shopping Cart is merged with the customer's saved Shopping Cart contents.
But some prospective customers are not ready to buy products at all! They would like to think about this or that offer and maybe come back later—therefore, the Wish List feature could be used in osCommerce to convert at least some of such prospective customers into actual ones.
A Wish List can be practically the same as the Shopping Cart, except that the Shopping Cart is used for purchasing products whereas the Wish List helps the customer to store products the customer likes or would like to buy at some time in the future.
There is an osCommerce contribution that implements support for the Wish List feature. It can be downloaded from http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/1682.
The existing solution allows customers who are logged into their accounts to add products not only into their shopping carts, but also into Wish Lists. A special "Add to Wish List" button then appears on the product information page along with the "Add to Cart" button.
A Wish List is to some degree very similar to a Shopping Cart, but at the same time, it allows customers to add any number of products there without any concerns or doubts. As products can be easily excluded from the Wish List, the Wish List can be saved until the next time the customer logs in, and products from the Wish List can be easily copied into the Shopping Cart.
Wish List could be also used to save products that are currently out of stock there, and come back to the saved products later on when they are likely to be back in stock to purchase them.
A better solution would be to allow others to have access to one's Wish List. This would then allow customers to create their Wish Lists and share them with their friends, relatives, colleagues, and so on. Therefore, it would be possible to create solutions for wedding gift lists, newborn baby gift lists, and all other special occasions when people are likely to receive presents but would like those presents to be of a certain range.
Besides orders and Wish Lists, online merchants who run osCommerce online stores may allow their customers to request a quotation based on the content of their Shopping Carts. Requesting a quotation makes sense when either the price of products that the customer would like to buy is negotiable, or if the price is not known as along with certain products the customer would also like to order some services. For example, along with laminate floors (where the price can be calculated on a per square meter basis) the customer would also like to order some fitting services.
As an example, a quotation request could be submitted by the prospective customer who wishes to buy several products at the same time and would expect a slightly improved price because of the total order amount and total quantity of items being ordered together. Or if the prospective customer would like to order, say, kitchen furniture, and, along with the products, and possibly appliances, would also like all furniture and appliances to be assembled and installed.
Quotations are regularly based on the content of the Shopping Cart or a Wish List. But since the customers may require some additional services (hence the quotation request), it should be possible for the customer to submit comments or description of the service required in a free-text field.
Ideally, to attract more visitors to submit their requests for quotations, the online store would not require the visitor to pass through the full registration process, and would only collect essential contact details (name, email address, and phone number, and possibly a ZIP code if it's critical to submit a quotation).
Of course, if an existing and logged in customer would like to submit a request for a quotation, the website would simply pre-fill the contact details of the Quotation form with the data extracted from the database.
The administration of the online store receives a request for a quotation in one of several ways. It can be a simple email containing the customer's contact details. This assumes the sales team will simply either give the customer a call or send an email. Or it can be a more advanced solution that would record each request for quotation in the database and allow for further communication via the website between the sales team and the prospective customer.
In the latter case, as soon as the price and scope of the quotation are agreed, the system may even allow the customer to place an online order using content of the request for quotation submitted earlier.
By enabling the functionality of requests for quotes, online merchants make their websites more flexible, and more responsive to the needs of their customers. This improves customers' experience with the online store, and may convert more prospective customers into actual customers by providing them with more flexible options to choose from.
To convert more wish lists and requests for quotations into orders, the online store should be pro-active in communications with the customers.
A special automated email could be sent to prospective customers who saved their Wish Lists or submitted requests for quotations some time ago and never responded to an offer provided by the sales team. It will remind those prospective customers about their requests and invite them to place an order online or by phone or using other means of communication before, for example, the price changes and while the wished or quoted products are still in stock.
Sometimes, if the product range of the online store changes periodically and quite often (say, once a month), content of the Wish Lists, saved Shopping Carts, or submitted requests for quotes may expire. In that case, the online store may send an automated email to prospective customers notifying them about the fact that certain products are to be excluded from product range, and suggest either similar products or simply contacting the sales team to find substitutes.
The price of certain products may increase or decrease, and again, the online store may send an automated notification email to the customer with a suggestion to either place the order now, or contact the sales team to find the best solution.
The customer's experience and feeling of safety and security while placing online orders very much depends on how the payment facilities are implemented in the online store.
Some customers would not mind placing an online order and submitting their card details. Other customers would rather prefer to call and place a phone order, even though they started the order placement process over the Internet. Yet some other customers would rather submit their card details on the website of the payment processing gateway, which they trust more than the site of the online store.
Therefore, in order to improve overall customer experience, an online store should have solutions suitable for as many customers as possible. Usually, this results in the online store having several payment methods that different customers would find most convenient and secure to use.
Sometimes it's enough to have two payment methods, one being the main method, and another—the backup one. Some online stores do not give the customer a choice between the main and backup payment methods unless the customer fails to submit a payment using the main payment method—then, after displaying an error or warning message the online store would display the main payment method along with the backup one. On the one hand, this reduces confusion as normally it gives the customer a choice of only one payment method. And on the other hand, it makes the online store more flexible by introducing the backup payment method if the customer can't use the main one for any reason.
It makes sense to add the phone number of the sales team to the page of the checkout process where the customer actually submits payment details, just in case the customer would like to continue placing an order by phone.
If the online store implements a payment method where the customer enters card information directly on the website (of course usage of SSL certificate is a MUST in that case!), and yet another payment method where the customer is redirected to the website of the payment gateway—it makes sense to show corresponding information about details of the payment submission process for each supported payment method to let the customer choose the most suitable one.
By being flexible, by listening to the customers' needs and requests, online stores can make a real difference, improve customer experience and of course improve its conversion rates.
Improving error handing is an important part of improving general customer experience.
The standard osCommerce error handling solution is sometimes not enough to ensure the customer has understood what the error is all about, and knows how to fix it to continue the registration or order placement process.
To make it easy to understand the problems and provide immediate solutions, do not disappoint or scare the customer, make it an easy, secure, and safe experience for the customer—these are the main principles of a successful Checkout process. These principles ensure positive customer experience.
During the registration process, the customer can make all sorts of mistakes. The customer may miss certain fields, mistype dates and other information, etc. Warning and error messages should very clearly explain why the registration process can't be continued until the customer fills in all required information properly, and indicate where on the registration page the customer can find those fields that should be corrected. Such fields could be highlighted with some bright color, or their titles could be highlighted and made to look bolder than the titles of other fields. In either case, the customer should not experience any difficulties in locating such fields on the registration page, and in understanding why those fields need to be filled in, and in which way, and how that information will be used by the online store.
As a very simple example, the standard osCommerce installation asks for customer's date of birth.
First of all, not all customers would like to disclose that information since it's sometimes used to confirm their identity in, for example, their banks. Secondly, most online stores would not be really using that information either, even though they have it in the database.
So really there's not much need for insisting on that field to be filled in by the customer. And moreover, date format changes from country to country, and not all osCommerce-based online stores ensure that the date format on the website has been changed properly and according to the local format of the country where most of the prospective customers are likely to be from.
Error messages that relate to payment processing should contain as little technical information as possible. It's quite often that error messages returned by payment gateways are displayed directly to the customer. But they are sometimes not so easy to understand for the customer, so a better solution would be to handle all error messages returned by payment gateways and display custom/reworked error messages to the customer.
Error messages should clearly explain the reason for the issue (if it's possible at all) and, more importantly, propose a solution. They should encourage the customer to try to pay for the order again and not just leave the site after the first attempt has failed. For example, if the payment gateway has failed to process the transaction because the billing address entered by the customer doesn't match the one registered for the entered credit card, the online store should not only inform the customer about that issue, but of course also advise checking the address in a very polite way, or using another card.
It is the same with the shipping methods in osCommerce. If for some reason the order cannot be delivered to the customer's shipping address by certain shipping carriers, it makes sense to ask the customer to either call the sales team to try to find a solution, or to request a call and then the sales team will give the customer a call to discuss possible delivery options.
If the online store uses several shipping carriers to deliver goods to customers, there could be situations when some shipping methods would be available and some not available to that particular customer, depending of course on the entered delivery address. It doesn't make sense to display information containing any negative message on the pages of the Checkout process. Therefore, it may make sense to simply not list those shipping methods that are not available to that particular customer, based on the customer's delivery address.
The order confirmation page should contain all information related to the order, including the list of products, payment and shipping information, customer details, links to the legal terms, refunds and cancellations policies, delivery policy, sales and customer service contact details.
It is important to reassure the customer that the order has actually been received by the online store, so as soon as the customer actually places an order, all that information from the order confirmation/summary page could be sent to the customer in an email confirming the fact of order placement and advising on further steps to be undertaken by the online store to deliver customer's order.
osCommerce implements support for customer accounts. As soon as the customer registers (even before the order gets stored in the database) new customers create an account in standard installation of osCommerce.
The default implementation of customer accounts allows the customer to manage an address book, see previous order history, and change personal information.
The customer account can be further improved in osCommerce to improve overall customer experience with it. First of all, for previously placed orders the customer account can allow for tracking the status of the order. This feature is implemented in the standard installation of osCommerce, but can be enhanced by providing the customer with not only the status of the order, but also the status of the delivery (or location of the parcel) if the order has already been dispatched. Most shipping carriers provide the facility to track the location of the parcel nowadays; therefore, by implementing special links that open the shipping carrier's delivery tracking page and by inputting delivery tracking numbers into the orders, the online merchant gives customers the facility to monitor delivery without the necessity to contact the Administration of the online store every time. It becomes easier for customers, and also saves the time of the Customer Services department of the online store.
Special news and announcements available to customers of the website can be made available as soon as an existing customer logs in. They can be implemented as a part of the customer account pages, or as separate pages of the online store that require registration or login to be viewed. That information may relate to the service available to customers of the online store, or to the previously purchased products. It may also contain discount coupons that the customers could use to order more products from the online store with a discount.
For online stores where customers are likely to order similar or the same products periodically, it makes sense to implement the re-order feature. It may be useful for online stores that sell certain supplements, like printer cartridges, coffee, tea, products for body builders, etc. If the customer would like to order the very same product(s) once again, a special Re-Order link or button could be added to each order in customer's personal order history. As soon as the customer presses that button, the online store would add the products from the selected previous order into customer's shopping basket (if such products are still available in the product catalog). It can make the re-ordering experience really straightforward for online customers.
The back end (the Administration Panel) of an online store could be also improved to ensure improved customer service experience. The easier it is to use it, the faster it works, and the more efficient the solutions that can be provided to the customer service team to manage customer accounts and orders—the better the pre-sale, sale, and post-sale experience customers will get, and the more likely they will buy from the same online store once again in the future.
When a customer calls the customer service team, it's crucial to be able to promptly find that customer's account, and all associated orders in the database. Customer and order search should be made possible by customer name, address, ZIP, email address, products ordered, and of course order ID.
To speed up the search process, it may make sense to implement a special auto-suggest feature using the AJAX technology, which would be suggesting possible customer details while the customer service representative types them in the search form.
Of course, the database of the online store should be optimized to allow for quick search by one or several fields, as customers would not enjoy having to wait while on the phone and often expect an almost immediate response.
Order management, besides standard features like changing order status, and printing the invoice and packing slip, may include some additional activities.
For example, it may be required to re-send the customer the order confirmation email. Or export the invoice into PDF format and send it to the customer via email as a proof of order (sometimes it's required by manufacturers to provide the customer with warranty services).
Some online stores allow their customers to change an order even after it has been already placed, as the actual payment transaction is not processed until the order reaches a certain status. There is a contribution in osCommerce that allows for order creation and order editing.
This solution can be downloaded from http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/1435.
It allows for creating new customer accounts, new orders, and also editing existing orders in the back end of the online store. It is possible to perform some sort of advanced search by category, product name, or model when adding a new product to the order.
The newest versions of that solution allow for almost real-time updating of order information in the database using the AJAX technology.
Shipping fee quotes are calculated immediately according to the changed shipping address or ordered products list using the same shipping modules that are used in the front end of the online store, during the Checkout process.
Web-based chat with a live person can be of great help to prospective customers, and can help customers to find the best suitable products, confirm the delivery terms, warranty promise, etc. Web-based chat with a member of the sales or customer service team can eventually result into the customer placing an online order. It makes sense to implement the live chat facility on the online store for pre-sales, sales, and after sales (customer service) support.
There are multiple solutions that allow for web-based chat. Usually, it would be possible to either buy a full version of the live chat system, or rent it from a manufacturer using a hosted version of the system.
It's important to set up live chat departments and operators correctly, so that the customers could be given professional help and advice depending on which question or issue they have.
There are paid and free solutions that could be utilized by an osCommerce store owner to implement live chat and allow customers to ask real person for help and advice. A good example of a paid solution is phpLiveSupport, which is available from http://www.phplivesupport.com. It is very easy to integrate it into osCommerce, and all integration instructions are supplied with the installation package.
http://www.helpcenterlive.com is a good example of Live chat solution that is available at no cost to the online store owner. The installation manual is available online. Also, the installation routine is built into the package, so in fact after un-packing the files on the web server, the webmaster or the online merchant simply goes through a wizard consisting of several pages and configures the system.
A link, or a button, or corresponding image can be either put in one of the side columns of osCommerce, or added to product pages and checkout pages to make this facility available to the customers when they are more likely to need it.
Answer phone service is important if the online store doesn't operate 24/7 as many customers may still prefer to call first before placing an order. Therefore, the answer phone should be properly configured to help the customers and not disappoint them.
For example, if the customer calls during non-business hours, the answer phone service can ask the customer if it's about one of the previously placed orders or about placing a new order.
If it's about some previously placed order, the answer phone service can ask the customer to leave a message including name, call back phone, and order ID, so that the customer service team could call the customer back next business day. Of course, it is VERY important to always call customers back if they left a message!
If it's about placing a new order, the answer phone service may suggest to the customer either calling next business day, or visiting the website, which is available 24/7.
In either case, the answer phone service needs to clearly tell the name of the company, names of the websites operated by the company (as sometimes the name of the website the customer knows would be different from the company name), and business hours when the sales and customer services teams are available to help the customer.
No complex menus, only a positive attitude towards the customer, and professionalism will ensure positive customer experience with the live chat and answer phone services of an online store. It will result in improved conversion rates from visitors to customers and from customers to repeat customers.
In this chapter, we reviewed how important it is to monitor and constantly improve conversion rates of online business, and how conversion rates affect the profitability of the business. Conversion rates in osCommerce can be separated into conversion from visitors to customers, and from customers to repeat customers. Also, conversion rates can be monitored by referring source, or type of media. Conversion rates can be different for different products, categories, and manufacturers.
Conversion rates in osCommerce may depend on the content of certain pages of the online store, and even on particular page design elements. The conversion rates of certain pages obviously affect general conversion rates of the online store. It is especially easy to see this on an example of the Checkout pages of an osCommerce-based online store.
We also reviewed how conversion rates could be monitored and further improved in osCommerce, and how positive customer experience affects conversion rates.
In the next chapter, we will further explore monitoring of the performance of the website by creating various reports, and of course understanding those reports and using statistical information to improve the efficiency of an osCommerce-based online business.