Website review -struggling with conversion

[Danny Whitaker-Leach]

Hi,

Looking for help with getting my website to convert or any other general advice appreciated.

www .nordvek .com

It has been fully launched for just shy of 8 weeks and getting okay traffic considering through a combination of social and Google Shopping but conversions are few and far between.
The marketing plan was PPC & social leading towards building a customer base for longer term retention a long way down the line.

Have identified the only real way to compete is by product, product, product and by offering something the big boys can't do / not putting all our product everywhere. For example we have some website specific lines which are not listed on the marketplaces to try give customers a reason to come to our store.

Thanks for any help or advice!

Danny

(sorry not posted enough to be able to post links)

 

[finleydesign]

Change your header, it's huge! so off putting to overall page feel

Images - Poor quality in places

General - It's all a little gappy, very confusing to follow

 

[fisicx]

^^^What he said!

Homepage doesn't need the hero image - it needs the product categories. Bin the top picks and show me the range.

Who are you? Where's the tagline?

Go to any page and scroll down - the header keeps covering up the products.

Images are pants. Why only half a head?

Product description seem to be missing.

The whole checkout process is confusing and complicated. Offering PayPal as the primary payment method for a £400 items is just wrong. Getting to pay by CC isn't easy.

And I don't trust you. There are no obvious contact details on every page.

In short, it's not a well put together site (looked on a PC and my phone). Shopify limitations are probably a lot to do with this.

And your feefo review are better left off the site!

 

[Danny Whitaker-Leach]

Thanks for the quick and candid replies.

I think the theme selected also has something to do with the limitations, for example I have been able to make the header not follow you down the page but struggling to shrink it down without making the logo and text tiny.

Part of the reason for the top picks was to get more tier 2 categories onto the homepage for authenticity in search and to try demonstrate a larger range without just having a large grid of categories, to break it up and make it slightly more visually appealing.

Hands up, it has taken longer to write the copy of the descriptions than initially envisaged but they are coming, I just wanted to get the site up and running rather than waiting for everything to be ready.

With regards to both your comments on images, do you generally mean poor quality as in dont show the product / fit the style or poor quality on the edit / compression that has been applied?

Will look to get contact details clearly in the footer.

Have turned off customer preferred payment option so it will just go straight to add to cart where they choose an express payment like Paypal / Amazon pay or pay via card.

 

[finleydesign]

The issue overall is (and i amy be biased) but it looks like you have built it

Theres something about it, maybe spotify restrictions that just seem to work, the content of the images are quite good, but quite a few are just not sharp, makes it feel amatuer

I'm not sure i can put my finger on it, the whole page just looks so busy, theres a lot of text on the home page where there doesn't need to be

 

[fisicx]

Part of the reason for the top picks was to get more tier 2 categories onto the homepage for authenticity in search and to try demonstrate a larger range without just having a large grid of categories, to break it up and make it slightly more visually appealing.

Except it doesn't work. THe huuuuuuge hero image pushed everything down.

The only reason anyone will be on your site is because they want leather goods. So don't make it difficult for them to find the products.

For example: the first thing on the homepage could be 'leather jackets'. I click on this and see the sub categories - for men and women. I can then quick drill down or just browse.

As @finleydesign said, the site does look homemade - everything just looks like you plonked it down without any real thought about the user experience.

Try using the site one your phone and you will see how frustrating it is. Just getting the menu to work is bad enough.

I'm not so sure shopify is the right platform for your business. The way they do things isn't well suited to a luxury brand.

 

[Danny Whitaker-Leach]

The reason it does look homemade is because it was, however thought did go into the UX and SEO from my VERY limited knowledge and mostly using online research.

The text on the homepage I included for SEO, which is at the bottom of my list for marketing and don’t expect any kind of top results from because I just won’t be able to compete however my thought was if I can compete against my direct competition then I have a chance..
Maybe that was the wrong logic?

In hindsight the mobile experience isn’t the best it could be and that is down to the theme, i should have payed more attention to the mobile version of the theme than I did.

In terms of the images I reduced the quality in photoshop and then heavily compressed them, maybe I have gone too far, i will look to strike a balance on that!

It’s interesting you would see us as a luxury brand because that isn’t where we have tried to pitch ourselves, i was targeting higher end medium just above our competition (lambland and Westmorland Sheepskins)
Part of the reason I went Shopify is zero coding / website experience so wanted something out of the box that just worked. I also didn’t have a huge startup budget for a developer which I would have needed going open source like opencart or woo, it would have shrunk my marketing budget to zero.

In terms of lack of conversion, your trust and payment comment I totally take on board but out of a few hundred shopping clicks this month, non have converted. Social has converted but not very well for the traffic. Descriptions should help, is there anything else?
I can see the majority of traffic land and bounce without even clicking round so overall site structure can’t play too much of an issue on that can it?

 

[fisicx]

The mobile experience is far more important than anything else.

You say you are getting traffic from social - but where is it coming from? Are you sure it's not just bots? If not bots are those visitors the sort to spend £300 on a jacket?

It's also worth noting that the ROI from social media is notoriously poor. You can do well with targeted adverts but the adverts needs to be spot on and the landing page optimised for the advert.

Same with shopping. Who is visiting, what were they looking for? What do they see when they land on the site.

If the UX is poor they will just go back to google. People have a sub 2 second attention span. If they don't see what they want immediately they will leave.

Why have you chopped the head off your models?

https://nordvek.com/collections/womens-coats-jackets/products/nv-715-100

On my mac I see half the image and no sizing info. It does tell me the colour is chocolate. Not sure why as there is no colour option.

You say you can't afford a developer but without help you ain't gonna sell stuff. But if you don't have the money then you need to keep trying different themes, change the images, try different categorisation, change your marketing and everything else. It's a long slow and frustrating process.

Allow yourself 2-3 years to find the sweet spot.

 

[Danny Whitaker-Leach]

I had accounted for a certain level of bots in my ‘figures’ on traffic, maybe I was underestimating.

In terms of google shopping the landing page is the product page and the main image they should land on is the same as the product. Price is displayed etc. I did spend a lot of time optimising the feed for Google which I think is shown in the high CTR I am seeing, just people seem to spend about 30-40 seconds before bouncing.

I thought that it would be better to display product and cut the head off, from experience on the marketplaces getting the product to fill 70-80% of the image helps when looking at solely a product so by cutting the head off helps fulfil that.
Why do you think it looks silly?

I’m not expecting quick results, the marketplaces are funding this but I want to reduce my reliance on them hence this is my number one goal for the long term
I agree if the UX and general feel is poor the. People will bounce hence me here asking for help to try and get things better.
I have time to try and change things and get them right and know it will be a slow burn. Also am not expecting / wanting too much from it, 2500 per week will do me to reduce the reliance on the marketplaces but at the moment that seems a long way away...

Do you think I have made a bad decision in choosing Shopify? Do you think I could expect better results on a different platform, or just the same somewhere else?

 

[fisicx]

I thought that it would be better to display product and cut the head off, from experience on the marketplaces getting the product to fill 70-80% of the image helps when looking at solely a product so by cutting the head off helps fulfil that.
Why do you think it looks silly?

Have close up images - but the main image should include the head. At moment it looks like the image is cropped - like it's a mistake.

Are they stock images or have you taken the pictures yourself?

 

[saythisinstead.co.uk]

Here's a quote from Dan Kennedy, one of the world's most well known marketers:

“Why should I choose your business/product/service versus any/every other competitive option available to me?”

I read this at least 10 years before I understood it.

Are your products made better than a competitors? Why? How? What would be the benefit of that?

Do you offer a great customers service? Better than your competitors? In what way? What do you do that they dont? How would that benefit a customer?

Go through this excercise for every product, price point, service, range choice etc etc etc etc

MAKE SURE YOU TELL YOUR POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS THESE THINGS ON YOUR WEBSITE.

If your products don't offer any of these benefits then don't expect to sell much.

Even a cursory search on google produced this description of a single jacket (and I'm not saying this one is THAT good) but it's a start

100% genuine leather
Loose fit
Concealed zip with press stud closure
High chin closure for protection against the elements
Cord string with toggle detail to neck
Four external functional zip pockets and two pocket stud closure
Internal draw string for bringing in waist (optional use)
Two internal leather trimmed zip pockets
Fully lined
The aberdeen safari mens leather coat is the cold weather quality of outer wear. Crafted in quality nubuck leather, perfect to touch, for layering over. Pop the collar against the elements or just feel the quality leather under the collar. The Aberdeen Safari is the in-style for all weathers and occasions. You will be able to fit yourself and layers under thisleather coat.

 

[TheoNe]

What is your conversion rate currently?

 

[Alan]

In my opinion the home page / hero stuff doesn't matter as visitors should ideally land on a product page

e.g. https://nordvek.com/collections/homewares-sheepskin-rugs/products/nv-601-100

Now what is wrong here ..... absolutely no text description (lets ignore the fuzzy image and lack of reviews ) ... to me personally the lack of text screams 'unfinished website' which instantly make me lose trust, i.e. I landed here due to an advert and I have landed on a possible scam site - bye ...

 

[Alan]

p.s. as a sophisticated user another trust signal i look for is a valid and open trading address, I'd expect to see that on the contact page and the returns page - it is actually a legal requirement as far as I understand.

Now I did find your company registered address ( another legal requirement ) but had to look hard, a typical sofa conversation with my wife goes 'is this site OK to buy from' and frankly I'd say 'no, looks a bit dodgy'

 

[Danny Whitaker-Leach]

Hi all and thanks for the replies, ideas and suggestions, a lot of which have now been implemented!

Our conversion rate for June was 0.42% down from 0.97% in May with traffic increasing month on month which I think caused the drop.

We have spent a lot of time on the changes with a revamped homepage, improved trust signals of more visible contact details (phone, email and address), the inclusion of live chat, and finally some descriptions!

Would be interested to hear what people think of the changes and whether we are heading in the right direction?

Thanks again!

Danny

 

[Danny Whitaker-Leach]

Just thought I would come back with some actual stats.

In the last week our conversion rate has shot up to 3.3% so clearly the changes we have made have had a huge impact!!

Danny

 

[AllUpHere]

Just thought I would come back with some actual stats.

In the last week our conversion rate has shot up to 3.3% so clearly the changes we have made have had a huge impact!!

Danny

Great news. But careful though as you need a good bit of traffic for the result to be statistically significant.

 

[Michael Beaumont]

The website looks great and I would feel confident I would be buying from an experienced and thoughtful retailer. Hope you are adding to the marketing budget now winter is coming.