Low conversion rates...

[Kerrib4]

Hi guys,

My conversion rates have dropped, and it seems to be since my website was re-designed. The product pages look a lot different now, and the customer needs to scroll down the page to find the price and the buy button. I now know that it is beneficial to have the price and the buy now button above the fold. I looked at our competitors websites, and we seem to be the only ones without the price and buy now above the fold.

Do you guys have any designers who you would recommend to me for re-designing the product pages? My site is babyonthego.co.uk.

Thanks,
Kerri

 

[Kerrib4]

Anyone?

 

[mayo23]

Without comparing it to the old site, it's difficult to spot any changes that could have caused the lower conversion rates.

Personally, I think it's always good to have the price near the top, but I don't think that would have had a massive affect on your sales.

All I can suggest is put the price directly under the product name, and if the customer is happy with the price, they will then read on down the page and find the buy now button easily enough.

This should take your developer about 30 secs to implement.

 

[Kerrib4]

Thanks Mayo23,

The best way I can describe the old products pages is this:

Images at the top of the page,
Price and buy button under the images,
Description at the bottom of the page under the price and buy button.

The site used to have a left nav bar which is what was redesigned on the site (to have only a top nav bar) - nothing was changed on the product pages but because the redesign put the product pages more to the centre (due to the left nav being removed) we had to change the product pages to a different default option which we feel has a left it looking a bit untidy. We are looking for a designer to completely redesign the product pages and move the price and buy button higher.

We have created new buy buttons but have still to upload these.

Thanks

 

[deniser]

Could it be that some of the products are out of stock? So people find the item they like and then can't have it? I don't see the position of things on the page as an issue - it is all very clear.

 

[fisicx]

My conversion rates have dropped, and it seems to be since my website was re-designed.

Can you put the old site back up?

There isn't much wrong with your product pages, they don't need a massive redesign just a few tweaks. The big problem area is the navigation, all the feeder pages especially the homepage.

But you need a website review to cover all of this...

 

[Kerrib4]

Can you put the old site back up?

There isn't much wrong with your product pages, they don't need a massive redesign just a few tweaks. The big problem area is the navigation, all the feeder pages especially the homepage.

But you need a website review to cover all of this...

Thanks for everyones opinions.

Fisicx, could you please give me a bit more detail on the navigation problems? I've just had the homepage redesigned, so I hope the navigation problems are not huge. Thanks.

 

[Kerrib4]

Could it be that some of the products are out of stock? So people find the item they like and then can't have it? I don't see the position of things on the page as an issue - it is all very clear.

Yep some products in certain colours are out of stock, but I was advised by other members on here to keep these on the site to pull in customers from Google.

 

[fisicx]

Keeping the product on the site will keep you in the index (if you rank for that product) but by being out of stock you are losing potential customers. If you are out of stock but more are coming tomorrow then put that on the site. If you haven't got the blue do have the black then tell your visitors, they may well chose the other model.

You have to sell the products and offer alternatives, there is too much competition to hope your visitors will stick around.

Sending you a PM about navigation otherwise this turns into a website review and the thread will get pulled.

 

[deniser]

Yep some products in certain colours are out of stock, but I was advised by other members on here to keep these on the site to pull in customers from Google.

Well that could explain your conversion rates......could you offer a pre-order facility for when the item comes back into stock?

 

[Kerrib4]

Hi deniser,

I guess thats a good point. Well most of the products out of stock are old product range colours, so it's impossible to get more stock for these particular colours. Other members on this forum recommended that I keep these pages on my site. Do you think I should just scrap these? I guess if I did this I would need to place redirects?

Thanks

 

[fisicx]

If the products are no longer available then keep the page but say it's an old model and show them the newer version (with a link to the correct page).

 

[deniser]

If I were you I would remove old products from the site altogether.

Don't forget people are coming to shop and there is nothing more annoying than finding the product you want but then seeing it is not available. They will then leave your site looking for it elsewhere deeming your site too annoying.

In other words don't let the SEO tail wag the dog!

 

[castus]

I'd be tempted to leave the pages, but take off the buy button on these products and link to the new products, that should be very similar. Alternatively, you could take off the in stock/out of stock text and when someone clicks to buy an out of stock item they are presented with an email field to fill out their details for when it comes back in. You can then contact the customer to arrange for something else to be sent out. You can also tell what you need to stock if you keep getting requests for the same product.

On the conversion rates. Do you still have the same amount of visits/page views?

I'm looking into ways to improve the conversion rates for a client of ours at products4testing.co.uk. If I find any magic gems I'll let you know.

Gary
castus.co.uk

 

[Kerrib4]

I'd be tempted to leave the pages, but take off the buy button on these products and link to the new products, that should be very similar. Alternatively, you could take off the in stock/out of stock text and when someone clicks to buy an out of stock item they are presented with an email field to fill out their details for when it comes back in. You can then contact the customer to arrange for something else to be sent out. You can also tell what you need to stock if you keep getting requests for the same product.

On the conversion rates. Do you still have the same amount of visits/page views?

I'm looking into ways to improve the conversion rates for a client of ours at products4testing.co.uk. If I find any magic gems I'll let you know.

Gary
castus.co.uk

Hi Gary,

Thanks for your input. Yeah my visits are still the same but just with much lower conversions than before.

I have had a look at my admin panel for the site today, and noticed that many people have left my checkout page. I thought there may be something wrong so I put a transaction through myself which went through without a problem. I would really appreciate if someone could have a look at my checkout page to see if there is anything wrong (although as far as I can see it looks the same as always).

Thanks

 

[fisicx]

Loads of reasons why people leave. The checkout page is quite daunting and at one point a shipping cost was suddenly added (didn't see that coming) and then I'm taken off site to sage pay with no way back to the main site (unless I cancel). It looks like I need to register (you say I don't but the top box says login). All these little things add up to a loss of confidence and the visitor leaves.

 

[Kerrib4]

Loads of reasons why people leave. The checkout page is quite daunting and at one point a shipping cost was suddenly added (didn't see that coming) and then I'm taken off site to sage pay with no way back to the main site (unless I cancel). It looks like I need to register (you say I don't but the top box says login). All these little things add up to a loss of confidence and the visitor leaves.

Thanks fisicx, I appreciate that you took a look at the checkout for me. I understand everything you are saying, but I'm wondering why this has suddenly made EVERYONE leave, rather than just a few. I could understand if the conversion rates were always really low, but the fact that it's dropped so sudden made me think that there was maybe an error or something on the checkout.

I will do my best though to fix the problems you have stated, so thanks for pointing these out for me.

Also, the reason it goes off to Sagepay's site is because it was the only way I could integrate it easily with my shopping cart.