How To Convert The Visitors On Your Drop Ship Stores Into Paying Customers

If you have already read the beginner's tutorials on this website, found good drop ship companies and driven some traffic to your drop ship store, it's time to improve your ecommerce business further.

Even if you don't get loads of traffic yet you should be looking to receive the first sales. Ten quality visitors daily on a well optimized drop ship store can result in 1 to 10 monthly sales or even more, depending on the type of products you sell. On the other hand, there is no use to get thousands of visitors daily if they only come to look and then leave the site - that's only going to increase your hosting bill.

Let's see what you can do to increase the conversion rate on your drop ship store. The points below are not ordered in any particular order.

Make Your Offer Clear

There's nothing worse than a web store that looks like a mess and the user can't understand what you are selling. If you are selling blue gadgets, make it clear: don't just show a heading and page title like "Joe's web store". Instead, try "Blue gadgets" or "Blue gadgets at Joe's web store". On each product page show clearly what the product is. On each category page show clearly what the category is about... you get the idea.

What to do with the home page? There are many ways to organize it, but it must clearly show what the web store is about. Use the homepage to clarify the USP of your ecommerce store and to show the best offers or latest products at the same time.

Clean and Nice Design

Everyone has a different opinion about how important the design is, but I can tell you design is fairly important. No, it's not what your designer says - that blue square on left will not boost your sales if made orange. However the design must be clean, must look like a professional work, must have no irritating errors and misplacements, and must lead the user's eye to the action points on each page.

Do not understimate design. Hire a professional designer or at least buy a premium template for your store.

Offer Several Payment Options

Try to offer Paypal and at least one other credit card processor like Authorize.net or 2CheckOut. If possible accept also bank wires, checks and e-check. The more payment options you can provide the more sales you can make. Of course don't clutter the page with hundred payment processor logos. Show 1-2 and make the others be shown only after clicking on some link saying "more payment options" or something like that.

Have Clear Refund Policy

Of course your refund policy will depend on your drop ship suppliers, but don't just say that. Make it clear and visible for every category and product on your ecommerce store. The visitors will feel a lot more secure if they know that under some conditions your store will issue refunds.

Have Visible Contact Details

Don't just put a small icon with a "mailto" link or a lame web form. You must have at the very minimum a web form, visible email address and if possible instant chat system and phone. Having a phone number is still fairly important and it's even preferable to have a toll free phone number.

The link to the contacts page must be clearly visible on every page of the store. If possible you should even show the phone number and/or support email directly on every page.

Use Bug Free Software

Don't be cheap and forget about OSCommerce or other open source crap. If you can't afford paying a developer to code a web store for you, at least check HotScripts and choose some elegant bug free software even if you have to pay few bucks. Carefully check everything for issues after installing on your server. Make a test order to ensure that the ordering process works fine and is easy to follow.

Just one bug or even a innocent PHP warning on the screen can push your customer and his money away forever. Don't do this to your business.

Offer Discounts, Coupon Codes, Special Offers

People like deals so always try to have few of them on the site. Subscribe to your suplier's mailing lists, check their site, make use of every promotion they offer. If your profit margins are high enouhg or you also do wholesale business you can even initiate special offers yourself.

Sometimes you can even offer an item without any profits with the hope that users will also buy other items or become loyal customers. You should be confident in the quality of your store and customer service before doing this.

Avoid Distractions

Some web stores like to open various popups or have blinking ads everywhere on the pages. Instead of driving more sales these ads are only distracting the visitors and pushing them away. Worse, they make the web store look cheap and unprofessional.

There is one more thing I notice recently. Many websites show those stupid "virtual assistants" - talking men or women popping up somewhere and speaking crap loudly. Don't ever think about doing this - it shows a very bad taste. Leave these virtual assitants to the crappy web marketers offering "get rich quick" e-books. In fact, be very careful about using audio at all. Streaming audio without asking the user first is irritating and makes many users (for example me) close the site forever. Some of your users will browse from their work computers and they don't want their collegues know what sites they are browsing (especially if you have an erotic web store). So forget about unwanted audio at all.

Provide More Product Details. And Then Some More!

People want to know everything about your products - brand, height, weight, country of origin, price, compatibility, how do they work, what do they do, guarantee, shipping costs... Do offer as detailed descriptions as possible. Attach as many high quality pictures as possible and let your visitors see the product from all sides. Videos can also be very useful. Whatever you do, make sure that the visitor are getting the most possible information for the product. This will not only increase sales, but it will reduce the number of support questions and returns.

Of course the information and pictures should be provided in a convenient way without cluttering the pages.

Be Clear On Surcharges

Don't leave your customers think that the price is one and then surprise them on the order confirmation page with more charges. Try to show clearly what the end price will be yet on the product details page. If that is not possible (say shipping depends on number of items purchased and the location of the buyer), at least say that there will be some shipping charges and give a link to a page that explains in details your shipping prices for different quantities and locations.

Show User Comments

Use a e-store software that allows user to comment under products. This will make them and the others who read a lot more confident in you. Don't moderate the comments unless for hate, spam, porn etc. If there is a negative comment about some product, try to answer professionally instead of deleting it. If the negative comments for a product are too many or too harsh, consider removing the product along with the comments, but don't remove the comments alone.

Don't Forget The Call To Action

Each product page and the shopping cart page must have clear answer to two questions: why buy from you and why buy now. It doesn't need to be something super original, but you must give a reason why your store is good and why they shouldn't leave the order for later (the products are limited, the price will grow up etc). Very often people want to think a bit more about the purchase and then forget or re-decide. The call to immediate action is required to avoid that.

Make It Easy To Ask Questions

Often users have some doubts regarding a product but are too lazy to go to the contact page, find the details and contact you. Instead of that they close the window and go to the next web store. That's why you need very detailed descriptions. Even then some questions will remain unanswered. To handle them, in addition to comments give some easy option to ask private question about a product directly on the product page. I have used this on a site selling software and it's bringing me real sales. Instead of leaving the doubtful users out, you can answer their questions and convert them into buyers.

Catch Visitor Email Address When Possible

No matter how well you do your job, many visitors will leave your store without buying anything. However they are not lost forever - if you catch their email address you can contact them with tips and offers and possibly get them visit the store again, and eventually turn into customers. You can obtain their email address when they comment or ask questions, but also you can invite everyone to join a free newsletter. This works even better if you offer some freebie or special discounts only to people who join the newsletter. Don't expect wonders, but this can help you keep some visitors for longer which is a good option.

If you play your cards well you can convert your visitors two and more times better than your competitors. This means that you can drive more sales with less traffic. And once done this, buying traffic via PPC or other means becomes a lot more profitable. Conversion is the key.

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