2021 was a wild chapter for global retail eCommerce. With its market value sitting at $5.2 trillion, a projected 56% surge will skyrocket that number to $8.1 trillion by 2026.
As customers flock to online stores, the potential for sales is enormous. But here's the catch: fierce competition means you can't rely solely on "irresistible" selling points like eco-friendly eCommerce order fulfillment, worldwide shipping, or free returns. While those are paramount, traffic doesn't automatically translate into sales. If your website funnel leaks, you're losing money regardless of the traffic.
The real secret lies in optimizing your store to convert that eCommerce website traffic into paying customers through the power of eCommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO). But if your eCommerce website is falling short of desired conversion rates despite the best efforts, it's a glaring sign that you must recognize and avoid the common mistakes that undermine your online business's success.
Here, with 13+ years of experience working with hundreds of eCommerce brands, we’ve highlighted the top seven eCommerce CRO mistakes eCommerce businesses must avoid to maximize conversions.
What is eCommerce CRO?
eCommerce CRO is the art of driving specific actions from website visitors whether making a purchase, adding items to the cart, or reducing cart abandonment. It's about fine-tuning your website to nudge visitors closer to making a purchase.
This dynamic process generates improvements for your eCommerce site or app and validates them through rigorous A/B and multifaceted testing. Going beyond luck and chance, it demands a profound grasp of user behavior, meticulous analysis, and strategic implementation.
Amidst the hustle, it’s easy to lose sight of what truly matters and misjudge some things. Understanding the common errors in eCommerce CRO can make all the difference in avoiding them and improving your conversion rate. Let’s get started.
7 of the most common eCommerce CRO mistakes that online retailers make
1. Testing without a hypothesis
CRO can be done the right way or the wrong way. One wrong way, and there are plenty, involves making assumptions or following competitors blindly. The right way is to treat CRO as a scientific method at every step of the way to make it more intentional and data-driven.
Many marketers run tests, analyze results, and move on without the fundamental aspect of sound scientific methodology: crafting a well-defined hypothesis. Hypotheses are the expected results you can test based on the insights from qualitative and quantitative data gathered in the research stage.
For instance, a hypothesis could be, “We anticipate that a global search bar will yield 2X conversions because it helps visitors find information quickly.”
Every test in eCommerce CRO should be designed to assess a research-led hypothesis. It helps you determine if the outcome aligns with your expectations. If the logic behind your hypothesis seems flawed, your test won't yield the desired results. Even in that case, you learn that the hypothesis was incorrect. These learnings fuel your future CRO tests with a more refined approach and increase the chance of success.
In essence, ensure that data-backed hypotheses always have a seat at the table for long-term CRO success.
2. The sample size isn’t big enough
Avoid the common trap of running A/B tests with insufficient sample sizes. This usually leads to inconclusive or misleading outcomes. Implementing changes based on inconclusive A/B test results can negatively impact your eCommerce website performance. Reliable results require ample data for high confidence. It ensures that observed data trends are not merely due to chance but have a specific cause.
Another pitfall to avoid during eCommerce CRO is testing on low-traffic pages. Limited traffic poses challenges because reaching statistical significance may take time, especially with few conversions.
Instead, focus on high-traffic pages to maximize the impact of your tests. Allow tests to run until they achieve statistical significance to ensure accurate and valuable insights. Consider implementing significant changes in your test variations for low-traffic sites or pages rather than minor tweaks to observe the substantial impact.
3. Too many changes at once
Making multiple changes simultaneously clouds the understanding of what’s effective and what’s not. While split testing allows you to compare variations and determine their effectiveness on conversion rate, implementing numerous changes rapidly hinders progress.
Long-term CRO improvements are far-fetched without clearly understanding what impacts your conversions more.
Say you run a print-on-demand business. To ensure accurate CRO results, you want to focus on testing small, individual tweaks and changes rather than completely overhauling layouts, colors, and images of your website. You would also avoid abrupt, drastic design changes unless necessary for rebranding.
By isolating changes, you can accurately gauge their impact on conversion rates. Additionally, gradual, incremental changes preserve customer loyalty and brand identity. This allows you to optimize your site while maintaining your unique identity.
That said, if you don’t have an in-house team of eCommerce CRO experts, consider consulting reputed eCommerce solution providers before implementing changes.
4. No traffic segmentation
In the fast-paced world of eCommerce conversion rate optimization testing, marketers often need to pay more attention to crucial details on segments. If they don’t, the result will be inconclusive tests.
To gain deeper insights, the key is to go beyond the overall results and compare different segments. That’s because one variation may resonate well with a particular segment but may not have the same impact on another segment.
By segmenting your reports based on demographics, geography, and other dimensions, you can uncover specific trends and behaviors unique to each group. This granular approach enables you to tailor your eCommerce CRO strategies to target particular segments more effectively rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach.
Let’s look at this closer with an example:
An eCommerce website is accessed through various devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones. Each platform offers a unique user experience. So, if your website isn’t optimized for mobile and only caters to desktop users, your CRO results may not be great for mobile users. So, by segmenting your traffic, you can uncover valuable insights about which changes resonate with specific visitor groups. This helps you identify optimization gaps and tailor your approach accordingly.
5. Being unclear about statistical significance
This is grave because statistical significance is vital for reliable outcomes in eCommerce CRO. It determines if website updates truly impact conversion rates and separates genuine patterns from mere flukes.
That means your job doesn’t just stop at collecting the test results. You must analyze them to ensure the results are statistically significant and rule out random chance. Without a deep understanding, you risk running ineffective tests that can seriously derail your marketing efforts.
For instance, there is a common misconception that you can stop your tests when you reach 95% significance. In reality, if you stop an experiment as soon as it comes to a certain significance level, say 95% or even 99%, but fail to consider the sample size, there's a reasonable chance that your result is merely a result of luck.
You can avoid this eCommerce conversion rate optimization mistake by determining the required sample size before launching the test and sticking to it. Additionally, it's beneficial to educate yourself about A/B testing statistics in general.
6. Launching a test without considering the timing
With CRO in eCommerce, timing is critical. Failing to account for it, you run the risk of getting inaccurate results. In general, you want to skip low-traffic periods and go for average or high-traffic periods instead because running tests during bustling periods ensures a solid sample size and accurate results.
For instance, if your eCommerce business is seasonal and your site sees a drop in visitors during the summer, it would be best to avoid testing in July. Instead, opt for peak seasons like December when traffic is steady or increasing. In short, align your testing schedule with optimal traffic levels to avoid a costly eCommerce CRO mistake and maximize the effectiveness of your CRO efforts.
7. Not testing pages that are already doing well
eCommerce CRO is all about continuous improvement even if it means optimizing well-performing pages. Even though a page is doing well, there’s still room for more conversions and better results.
So, prioritize low-performing pages, but don't overlook high-performing ones. Pay attention to website insights and run on-page surveys for user feedback. These steps can uncover ideas for further optimization and enhance user experiences.
Avoid costly eCommerce CRO mistakes by staying informed
CRO is your best bet to enhance your web store's effectiveness and increase profits without excessive marketing expenses. But it takes dedication and strategy. While a short-term conversion rate boost is achievable, long-term success is challenging and should be best left to the specialists.
In the meantime, contact us if you need custom web development solutions for your eCommerce website. Let us analyze, recommend, and seamlessly implement the perfect technology solution tailored to your business needs and supercharge your eCommerce success.
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Carl Torrence is a Content Marketer at Marketing Digest. His core expertise lies in developing data-driven content for brands, SaaS businesses, and agencies. In his free time, he enjoys binge-watching time-travel movies and listening to Linkin Park and Coldplay albums. |
Published July 28, 2023
