My Conversion Rate Is Bad!!!!

kellerbrooke · Contributor Joined: 16 May 2005 Posts: 20

October was my new store’s full grand opening month and my conversion rate was only 0.48% (about 1 out of every 200 visitors bought something.

http://www.themekitchen.com/

I’ve been told that for an online store, my conversion rate should easily be a 1%. Can anyone help me figure out why it’s so low? Is it my shipping costs? Is the site not professional looking? Is it just because people are waiting to buy xmas gifts? Any advise would be appreciated. Thanks.
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kellerbrooke
From apple to wine decor
And all the fat chefs in between
It's Your....
Theme Kitchen
www.themekitchen.com

Derrick Pizur · Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 2:11 am Post subject:

Every market will have a different conversion rate. Where is this traffic coming from? Different lead sources can pull different conversion results.

A more general advertisement may draw a lot of traffic but very few purchases Smile

Derrick
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ululyps · Contributor Joined: 26 Sep 2006 Posts: 12

Hi
I went to your online store it looks great! Very Happy

When I approach your site I'm pretending I am going to buy myself. I was pretending I was going to buy an item and the shipping seemed high (maybe I'm cheap LOL) when I entered my zip code. Like when I wanted to buy an item for $18.95

Charge of the Flower Brigade Coasters Boxed Set of 6
it was going to charge me $10.75 for shipping. It's almost like I'm paying for 2 sets. Maybe you can look at the shipping OR maybe they are comparing your goods to other similar stores to see who is cheaper. Argg, I hate that "window shoppers" also what if you tried to move your 10% off coupon newsletter thing to the top left hand corner. That way it's right in there face, they can be like "cool I can get discount" and join.

Other then that your site is awesome.

kellerbrooke · Contributor Joined: 16 May 2005 Posts: 20

ululyps - Thank you so much for taking the time to check it out. I think I might try a shipping promotion to see if that helps with sales. I agree, it is like buying two. Thank you for your kind words!

Derrick Pizur - I get almost all of my traffic from the search engines. I am currently not paying for advertising. Thank you for your response.
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kellerbrooke
From apple to wine decor
And all the fat chefs in between
It's Your....
Theme Kitchen
www.themekitchen.com

Derrick Pizur · Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 12:49 am Post subject:

It may just be your market. How are your prices compared to similar sites?

How much traffic did you get in your first month?

Derrick
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kellerbrooke · Contributor Joined: 16 May 2005 Posts: 20

I had 3800 visitors my first month. The majority of my products beat competitor's prices. There is one line I have that I can't lower because of the cost my supplier charges.
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kellerbrooke
From apple to wine decor
And all the fat chefs in between
It's Your....
Theme Kitchen
www.themekitchen.com

Richy10 · Contributor Joined: 23 Mar 2005 Posts: 42

Hi Kelly,

Your site looks stunning it really does. Your problems may be associated with "trust" and you may need to add some logos to your site for your customers to see such as..

1. Hacker safe
2. UPS Logo
3. Veri Sign Logo

There are a bunch of others too

Richard

Jeff · New Joined: 17 Nov 2006 Posts: 1 Location: Nor. CA

Hi kellerbrooke, I have had luck offering a free gift with minimum purchase, I offered a olive wood coaster with purchase over $50, it cost me about $1 USD and people love something free, especially if it is something exclusive thay can't buy on the site - should be something cool for the kitchen you can come up with? Your shipping deal is a good move as well. Good luck.

Jeff
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Troy Pentico · Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:19 am Post subject:

Something simple that should help would be to use Mod_Rewrite on your site. If you are not sure what this is here is an example for you:

Instead of a search engine seeing this when it crawls and either indexing it that way or ignoring it:

http://www.themekitchen.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=8

It would see this:

http://www.themekitchen.com/Chubby-Chef-Cookie-Jar-and-Cake-Plate.html

If you know how to do it then I would make it happen. If not it can be complicated to learn but not impossible or ask on scriptlance or elance as I am sure it would be done pretty cheaply for you.

You also might want to look at using a service like Crazy Egg to get a picture of what your visitors are doing on your site. This is an awesome tool for you to see a picture of what visitors are doing on your web site so you can tweak it for better usability and in the process increase your conversions. For example you would probably see that you aren't getting many subscribers to your coupon list because it is past the first scroll of the page. I would move that up or you can verify the theory with the Crazy Egg tool.

Good Luck,
Troy
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Stephen Davies · Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2006 2:41 am Post subject:

Keller,
I will have to agree with Richard.

One way to build trust and credibility would be to have some good testimonials from prior customers.

You are asking for testimonials, right?

Another thing is to put a picture of your pretty face on the site somewhere. I would put it in the "about us" page, but you might even consider putting it on the main page.

Seeing a real live person's picture on the site will give your visitors comfort in knowing they are dealing with a "real" person.

In other words, try not to make the site too much like an establishment... get downright personal with your customers... make them your "friends", not just customers.

If you really want to build rapport, you need to have some sort of newsletter where you can get friendly with them and they get to know "you" better.

At the same time you send out the newsletter, encourage them to come back to the site for any specials of the week you might have.

These are just some of the things I've learned after having owned multiple websites over the past 7-8 years.

These things have worked well for me and I know they will work for you as well.

I hope this helps.
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