Guest post by Natasha Lane.
When working to build a successful website with a high conversion potential, reaching your goals will depend on more than just design and technical performance.
Yes, aesthetic appearance and usability factors impact how web visitors perceive your brand. Scientific research even suggests that they directly influence people’s purchase intention.
But converting new customers requires more: an in-depth understanding of what motivates people to click that “Buy” button. It also necessitates a comprehension of what deters consumers from converting — especially when they’re on the brink of becoming customers.
The average conversion rate in Q3 2024 stood at just over 1.8%. That means that brands don’t turn 98% of their website visitors into customers. Furthermore, the latest data on cart abandonment suggests that 70.19% of online buyers don’t go through with their purchases, even once they’ve added items to their carts.
While this data may not be even close to your site’s KPIs, it does suggest that the key to ensuring ecommerce success lies in strategically removing your audience’s conversion obstacles.
Here’s a deep dive into some of the best tactics for tackling conversion barriers to turn even the most reluctant buyers into customers.
Don’t Limit Product Ratings to Product Pages
Survey data from 2023 shows that most online shoppers — 99.75%, to be precise — read reviews before making a buying decision. But, if they can’t easily find user-generated feedback about a solution they’re evaluating, they’re not that willing to buy. In fact, 45% of people won’t purchase a product that doesn’t have any reviews.
So, if you want to boost sales and remove one of the most common conversion barriers from your prospects’ buying journey, make product ratings easy to find on every page of your website.
Don’t limit yourself to showing off customer feedback on product pages. Yes, these are a good place to support your value propositions with social proof. However, do your best to communicate your brand’s credibility with every consumer interaction, no matter where it happens.
By using star ratings wherever you mention your products — your home page, you’re “About’ page, or product category pages — you can create a general sense of product quality and highlight that your solutions have successfully removed consumer pain points in the past.
Check out how Transparent Labs does it on its Protein Powder collections page. Knowing that people look to social proof, and specifically star ratings, to quickly gauge the effectiveness of a solution, this brand includes such elements in an attention-grabbing way. This helps web visitors decide which of the products they want to take a closer look at—but that’s not all. The high ratings also remove a common conversion obstacle (lack of brand and product trust) and maximize Transparent Labs’s chances of turning first-time web visitors into satisfied customers.
Source: transparentlabs.com
Display Your Products at Their Best
Visuals play a tremendously important role in consumers’ decision-making process.
According to some behavioral studies, as many as 75% of all shoppers rely on product photography to decide whether to convert. So, it’s no surprise that one of the best ways to elevate conversion rates on your website is to invest in high-quality product photography.
However, even though presenting web visitors with studio-grade product shots is an excellent way to support the evaluation stage of the buyer’s journey, it’s not always enough to remove people’s doubts about buying. So, it’s important to consider additional ways to demonstrate the value of your offer.
One excellent strategy for removing prospects’ doubts about converting is to incorporate more authentic product imagery into your marketing strategies.
You can explore methods of showing off your solutions in real-life settings. Pergola Kits, for instance, takes professional quality photos of their high-quality Patio Covers deployed at actual customer residences. This gives potential buyers a superb insight into how the structures look in real life, making it far easier to imagine similar products in their own spaces.
Source: pergolakitsusa.com
Allow Reviewers to Upload Media
The previous conversion obstacle-removing tactic is an excellent step toward turning reluctant shoppers into buyers. But what about taking things to the next level?
Yes, branded content can do a great job of communicating value. However, when it comes to who buyers trust, word-of-mouth recommendations tend to outperform brand promises.
For example, consumers consider user-generated content (UGC) 2.4x more authentic than branded content. If you want to remove conversion barriers from your website, why not explore possibilities to incorporate more user-generated content in your sales strategies?
For example, something as simple as allowing reviewers to upload media can be a great way to boost credibility and take your social proof to the next level. This is what Mannequin Mall does on its product pages. Notably, the brand allows shoppers to filter product reviews based on whether they include photos, which is a marvelous way to provide potential customers with authentic purchase-inspiring information and convince them of the quality of the brand’s solutions.
Source: mannequinmall.com
Be Transparent with Shipping Costs
When tackling conversion barriers to successfully turn reluctant shoppers into buyers, you must look at the most common reasons people fail to go through with their purchases.
According to a survey from July 2024, as many as 41% of people abandon their carts due to expensive delivery. And this finding shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
Year after year, studies uncover the importance consumers assign to shipping affordability. For instance, a recent survey from FedEx found that 75% of people prioritize free shipping over fast delivery. 57% would prefer to find a product with free shipping over one that’s affordably priced. And 81% are willing to increase their spending if it will help them meet a free shipping threshold.
Admittedly, your brand may not be capable of fully absorbing shipping costs. However, what you can do is be upfront with web visitors about how much it will cost to get their items to their addresses. That way, you can prevent prospects from giving up on their purchases due to unforeseen costs. Plus, you can elevate your brand’s trustworthiness by demonstrating your dedication to providing customers with the best possible shopping experience.
One way to do this is to add a free shipping calculator to your ecommerce website, similar to the one used by Kettle & Fire.
Source: kettleandfire.com
Or, you could use banners to effectively set shipping cost expectations, like Brooklyn Candle Studio does on its homepage.
Source: brooklyncandlestudio.com
Offer Trustworthy Payment Options
Even though online shopping is a process most people have adopted in their daily lives, it still feels risky to a large number of consumers.
For example, a 2021 scientific research study identified six common factors holding consumers back from converting, the main one being a fear of online transactions.
Certainly, removing conversion obstacles such as safety concerns is something that will best be done by investing in the overall trustworthy reputation of your business. However, you could employ additional tactics to ensure fewer reluctant buyers leave your website without converting.
One of the best strategies in this regard is to highlight your brand’s credibility by piggybacking on the positive reputations of well-established payment processing services.
For instance, if you check out the Therabody website, you’ll see that product pages promote two trustworthy payment options — PayPal and Affirm — allowing consumers to purchase the items without worrying about giving credit card information directly to the brand.
Source: therabody.com
Proactively Address Common Support Questions
Post-purchase support is another exceptionally important factor to most buyers.
According to Forbes, 88% of consumers think customer service is more important than ever. And 64% would even switch products they liked if the company behind it didn’t pay sufficient attention to their experience.
With this in mind, it’s clear that one way to win over reluctant buyers is to proactively address their common support questions. After all, when evaluating products they want to buy, people don’t just want a fair price and fast shipping. It’s also important to them that they’ll be able to extract value out of their purchase.
By investing in post-purchase content that addresses your prospective customers’ most common questions, you can effectively remove friction from the shopping process and deliver a better overall experience to your clients.
For inspiration on how to do this, check out how WholeWoodPlayhouses does it. By creating engaging and informative assembly videos for its website and YouTube channel, this brand effectively answers one of its prospects’ most common concerns: “How do I build this thing?” Furthermore, the brand includes a great post-purchase resource page on its website, where it answers commonly asked questions about the entire customer experience, from choosing products to assembling them to maintaining them throughout the years.
Kids Playhouse Assembly Video by WholeWoodPlayhouses
Source: youtube.com
Simplify the Checkout Process
Finally, as you explore methods to remove conversion barriers from your website, don’t forget to optimize your site’s UX design in a way that will make shopping genuinely enjoyable.
By allowing guest checkouts, avoiding intrusive content-blocking elements, ensuring high website speed, and paying attention to responsiveness (especially as 76% of Americans use their smartphones to buy things online), you can effectively create an environment in which your prospects will feel comfortable shipping with your business.
Furthermore, going forward into 2025, it’s a good idea to consider diversifying your sales channels.
A recent survey found that 58% of U.S. shoppers have bought something after seeing it on social media. Combine this with the growing penetration rate of social commerce, and you’ll find that the key to tackling conversion barriers might require you to focus more closely on prioritizing buyer convenience.
Final Thoughts
Although there are numerous ways to tackle conversion barriers on your ecommerce website, it’s safe to say that the key to success lies in understanding your audience.
It’s essential to know not only what types of solutions they need, but even more important to understand their fears and risk tolerance. That way, you can adapt your brand’s marketing and sales strategies to ensure they appeal to your ideal customers, giving you the opportunity to convert more customers and provide them with an enjoyable shopping experience.
Natasha Lane is a lady of a keyboard and one hell of a geek. She is always happy to collaborate with awesome blogs and share her knowledge about branding, digital marketing trends, and business growth strategies. To see what she is up to next, check out her Twitter feed.
Great insights on the importance of reviews! To take this even further, how about combining reviews with personalized product recommendations? When users see reviews for items tailored to their browsing history or preferences, it can help make them feel even more confident in their purchase.
That’s an excellent recommendation, thanks!