Today I was watching a Bass Fishing Tournament on television, and I heard them spout off a tiring statistic. This angler had cast his line 204 times and actually caught only 2 fish. WHAAAAAA? He had a conversion ratio of 1%. 200 casts to get 2 fish in the boat?
He picked the location to fish, he chose the bait and equipment, the rhythm of the cast and retrieve, and still only 2 fish for 200 casts. Was he where the fish were? According to the broadcaster he had tried in 3 different parts of the lake, and at the end of the day, and more than 400 casts, only 4 fish in the boat.
Nothing he tried seemed to work – simply the fish weren’t biting.
Is that how it feels on your website? Do you put sample orders through just to make sure “its working”?
It got me to thinking, what can you do when the fish aren’t biting or in your case when customers aren’t checking out on your eCommerce website?
Assuming the customers exist and can find your website, let’s look at some real basics.
Are you selling things people want to buy? (Is your bait tasty?)
Is it easy to find what they want? (Is it the right bait?)
Are your descriptions / content relevant and helpful ? (Are your hooks sharpened?)
Is it clear what they should do next? (Does that bait look real?)
Is the shopping cart easy to understand? (Are you steady cranking with an appropriate tease?)
Do you look trustworthy on the credit card page? (Are you setting the hook or yanking out of their mouth?)
Is everything pointing them to FINALIZE order? (Applying just the right pressure to get them to the boat?)
If you do it right, often enough you’ll put them in the boat!
Not sure what may be wrong ? Hire someone to buy something from your website – someone who has NEVER been to your site before – and then watch them. Visually watch where they struggle. Chances are if it is a struggle for them, it is a struggle for many other customers too.
Want to learn more about conversion and analytics? Stay tuned, we’ll be blogging about analytics more, soon.