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My conversion rate sucks. Can I ask for advice?

Roli

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Do those of you who do Ecommerce pay someone to do the photography for you, or do you set up light-rooms and do it yourself?

Unless you are a professional photographer yourself, pay someone, the results will be infinitely better.
 
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Xeon

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A collection of my random personal thoughts:

1) I feel the home page should not display the prices. Put off showing the prices as late as you can. Imagine a visitor comes to your site. This visitor doesn't know you or heard of you before, and yet, one of the first things they see is $599.00 and $299.00, coupled with the unattractive photos. Chances are they will immediately hit the BACK button and run for the hills. Could this explain the 55% bounce rate for the main page?

2) I like the red, black and white color scheme. It's masculine and a nice fit for motorbike, jackets and racers. Strong and edgy. I would use white as the background color and black for most of the other items (nav bar, footer, some sections etc.), and red as the accent (buttons, small UI stuff)

3) I checked out some other motorbike jackets and accessories sites, your pricing seems to be in the higher-end premium (but perhaps not yet luxury) range. As such, the text content of the site should not look and feel cheap. Currently some of it feels that way:
Standard sizes now IN STOCK! Or you can order your Off-the-rack Charge suit in Custom Colors (on a Special Order basis) for only $30 extra!!

Lose all the !!!, it feels like those guys at a flea market hawking their wares due to clearance sales.

4) One of the ways to make websites look and feel more "premium" is to use white background and lots of white space in the site design. Don't clutter things together, make it sparse. The current site layout looks a lot like a early-2000s online departmental store. Heck, even Target and Walmart's online site looks cleaner!

5) More pics of each product. A mix of full views and really close-up details such as the zippers, prints, fabric texture, vents, pockets, buttons and all other finishing and accessories on the products.

6) If the customer will be dropping hundreds and above for those jackets, there needs to be some solid assurance on your end to make them feel safe. What if I spend US$450 on your Charge One-Piece leather jacket or US$1,099 for the Elite Two-Piece Suit, and then realise it's a bit tight on the elbows area, or the lower calf area feels uncomfortable? There needs to be some assurance in this in the form of guarantee. I guess this is something you need to work out and provide a good guarantee for the customer, then slap (literally slap) a big fat and good looking GUARANTEE seal badge of sorts on the main page, top header area, and also in the individual product pages. If there's conditions, just put "Terms & Conditions Apply". At least I know you won't disappear after taking away my US$599.00 hard earned cash.
You can even use this as your USP.

7) More pics of cool people wearing your jacket, in action. Splash these photos and visual imagery on your header banner and various sections. See: Free People - Women’s Boho Clothing & Bohemian Fashion and scroll down the home page. The clothes don't just dangle in mid-air against a lonely black background, they're shown with attitude and personality on real people.
Perhaps even create a Lookbook section like what they've on some premium clothing fashion sites.

8) Based on what I read on the About page, it seems you manufacture the items. If so, show pics of the process as well. The machines (close up view as well), the fabric, the materials all waiting in the holding area waiting to be handled, the people hard at work, Jerry measuring the dimensions with the bright red measuring tape, Jonas wiping away his sweat in the summer heat as he bends over to check the fabric for issues, Linda your wife/accountant holding some documents looking busy while she's holding the phone with a client, Tim sitting in the workarea eating lunch at 3.50 PM from a takeaway lunch box as he just finished putting together the panels on the two-piece suit.........

9) Since the items are made by you, you could try playing along the lines of "artisan", "hand-made", "hand-crafted" etc. Call your office/workshop an "(Racing Gear) Atelier" like how Pagani does it LOL I would even ham it up and push it all the way if I were you.
It's awesome that your jackets are not drop-shipped from China and this is a factor you can amp it up on. I know the About page has a bit of mention on this but it's not obvious enough.

I was thinking if you could get your visitors to see that these items are carefully handmade, precisely measured and meticulously engineered/constructed by your company and not dropship from China, they would start to feel that US$599++ for a jacket is not that unreasonable.

10) Perhaps on the main page, top banner, there should be something like a beautiful shot of someone in your jacket in motorbike action and words along the lines of "Motorbike jackets engineered for real bike riders. Our jackets keep you safe with our SpartanCore-M™ fabric technology. Backed with our 3-Year Guarantee*".....(pardon my first few attempt at copywriting)

11) Not sure if this is feasible, but if you want to save costs, I would consider shipping the apparel to Eastern Europe and find a photographer there. It's a lot cheaper based on my experience. The work quality of some of these photographers are amazing.

All in all, at the kind of prices you're selling, you would need to give customers a more premium experience. Currently, the products are sold like how cheap commodities are sold.
And if these customers think $499.00 for bike jackets are expensive, then www.Amazon.com is the way to go for them.

Today I learned : There's a shopping cart called Abantecart (sounds like "Abandon Cart")! :rofl:
I would go with Wordpress/WooCommerce if this was me though.
 
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DangerousDave

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Ok, so reading everybody's comments, it sounds like my priorities should be:
1) Product Photography. Get lots of good, professional pics. Include lots of details. All feature images should be on a white background for consistency. Action shots should be featured whenever possible as secondary images and banners. Eliminate all designs as main pictures - Find a way to get actual product images.
2) Replace the old website with something modern, attractive and intuitive. Since I already have a lot of configuration done in my Abantecart, how do you guys like these Templates I can buy for a pretty reasonable cost? Naked Bootstrap Responsive Template demo page
Your Store Clean, responsive, a lot of whitespace, and hopefully easy to configure. Make sure it has guest checkout.
3) Work on the copy. Simplify, and dont have !! everywhere. No humor.
4) Feature a USP. Feature Guarantees.

I'll update you guys with my progress. I really appreciate your help. Hopefully I can turn this from a small, low performing business into something great.
 

Andy Black

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Also, don’t call them clicks or traffic. They’re people visiting your site. Hopefully bikers.

On that subject, what brings your visitors to the site? Have they done a search on Google? What were they searching for?

Are they searching for information, or are they shopping around? (I like to think of them either searching with a coffee in hand or with a phone/credit card in hand.)



Don’t forget that it’s not the website that has a conversion rate - it’s the visitor that converts (into a prospect or a buyer).
 
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WinTheDay

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It's easier to shell out $10 then it is $100.

Not true. It takes the same amount of effort for the internet to give you $10 as it does for it to give you $100. It's all relative to the person. It's groups of people that will "shell out" $100 with no hesitation but be reluctant to buy something online for $10.
 
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sparechange

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A collection of my random personal thoughts:

1) I feel the home page should not display the prices. Put off showing the prices as late as you can. Imagine a visitor comes to your site. This visitor doesn't know you or heard of you before, and yet, one of the first things they see is $599.00 and $299.00, coupled with the unattractive photos. Chances are they will immediately hit the BACK button and run for the hills. Could this explain the 55% bounce rate for the main page?

I kinda disagree with this, could be wrong but for people that shop online prices are the first thing they look at comparing to other brands

Also 600 bucks is pocket change for bikers, at least for track riders. tyres, gas, oil, crashes, repairs, replacing helmets constantly in the mid 3 figure range etc.

The real problem is I can goto a local track day and get fitted and buy gear on the spot that fits correctly (as you mentioned) So not only is OP competing with brands that promo at track days or physical stores there is no trust (why am I going to trust someone online to ensure my safety and life?) When I can goto trusted suppliers in person?
 
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Xeon

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I kinda disagree with this, could be wrong but for people that shop online prices are the first thing they look at comparing to other brands

Also 600 bucks is pocket change for bikers, at least for track riders. tyres, gas, oil, crashes, repairs, replacing helmets constantly in the mid 3 figure range etc.

The real problem is I can goto a local track day and get fitted and buy gear on the spot that fits correctly (as you mentioned) So not only is OP competing with brands that promo at track days or physical stores there is no trust (why am I going to trust someone online to ensure my safety and life?) When I can goto trusted suppliers in person?

You made a good point there. :thumbsup: As you're someone from OP's niche or similar, what (if any) would have attract you to buy from his site?
 

sparechange

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At track days / race events people will setup booths beside all the racers, so when I am off track on a break and am in need of something someone is there to help me ASAP.

That would be the best sales funnel, direct traffic from events where your market is throwing money around like hot potatoes.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKctyQ-K5uY


Heres an example above. Shooting fish in a barrel
 

AndrewKent

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So a lot of what you mention (and a lot of what others mention) are somewhat qualitative (long copy, site design/UI, USP, etc.). But a few people have alluded to taking more of a quantitative approach. I agree with the latter.

Dig into your analytics and identify where the dropoff is. Do you have a framework for a funnel (like the AARRR funnel or something similar)? If you have a high end, specialty product that might take many interactions with your brand before buying, how are you getting your traffic ENGAGED with your brand first? Email opt-ins, social media, etc.

Or do they just bounce once they're there? That could be a design/usability issue. Dig into metrics for that sort of thing.

Can you also tell if you have good product-market fit? That is, is the traffic you're attracting actually made up of the people you want to attract? Oversimplified example: a bunch of people looking for a cheap jacket come to your site—that's bad. You need to find a new audience first.

If that's not the case, is your checkout process too difficult/confusing? Do people add things to their carts? Do they then view a shipping/billing page? Do you have a large dropoff after people hit your shipping/billing page?

There is virtually an unlimited number of things that could be happening. The point is to take a little more of a quantitative approach since you already have some traffic. Start at the top of your funnel (acquisition and engagement: are you attracting the right people and are they doing what you want them to do). Then, if that checks out, move to the middle and bottom parts of your funnel (retention, revenue, referrals: do people leave and never come back? Do they fall off once they try to purchase? Are people talking about you (social media, referrals such as backlinks, etc.).
 
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DennisD

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I agree with the general sentiment. Item descriptions are too wordy, site is weird, better product photos can make a difference. However I wouldn't focus on those. You can make sales with everything you have now if you wanted to.

Your conversions are so low because your site design is bad. You can increase conversions with a redesign.

It's CRAMPED and needs more white space. Elements are too close together and so it's difficult to form mental distinction between parts of the site. This makes your viewers feel claustrophobic and anxious... which is amplified by all the red.

Biologically the color red = blood = danger so it's usually avoided. For your niche I think it works. You're selling PROTECTIVE GEAR. You want to evoke a little danger/fear. I think it can work for you. You just can't have your customer ALREADY feeling claustrophobic due to bad design.

The relative sizes don't make sense and makes processing the page unintuitive. For instance: When I go to buy an item, the size of your drop down menu specifying number of items is BIGGER THAN THE ITEM TITLE. Why is the item title so small? Why is the product image so small? Why is your 'add to cart' button is ABOVE your item's core description rather than below or to the side?

Things like this make your site difficult to mentally process. If you squint your eyes, it doesn't even LOOK like a page to buy a product. The design is unintuitive and unfamiliar, which makes it feel like an UNSAFE place to conduct business.

  1. Space things out. You need SO MUCH MORE WHITE SPACE. This will reduce initial bounce-rate.
  2. Look at another buy page and structure your site to look like that. Unfamiliarity wards off buyers.
  3. Make your existing images bigger.
  4. On your main page, don't pillarbox the item images. Instead, crop your images to fit within the space.
  5. Get rid of your image slider on the main page. Replace it with a single image of a single product and a call to action of that product.
I promise you'll see improvements after that.
 

DangerousDave

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I agree with the general sentiment. Item descriptions are too wordy, site is weird, better product photos can make a difference. However I wouldn't focus on those. You can make sales with everything you have now if you wanted to.

Your conversions are so low because your site design is bad. You can increase conversions with a redesign.

It's CRAMPED and needs more white space. Elements are too close together and so it's difficult to form mental distinction between parts of the site. This makes your viewers feel claustrophobic and anxious... which is amplified by all the red.

Biologically the color red = blood = danger so it's usually avoided. For your niche I think it works. You're selling PROTECTIVE GEAR. You want to evoke a little danger/fear. I think it can work for you. You just can't have your customer ALREADY feeling claustrophobic due to bad design.

The relative sizes don't make sense and makes processing the page unintuitive. For instance: When I go to buy an item, the size of your drop down menu specifying number of items is BIGGER THAN THE ITEM TITLE. Why is the item title so small? Why is the product image so small? Why is your 'add to cart' button is ABOVE your item's core description rather than below or to the side?

Things like this make your site difficult to mentally process. If you squint your eyes, it doesn't even LOOK like a page to buy a product. The design is unintuitive and unfamiliar, which makes it feel like an UNSAFE place to conduct business.

  1. Space things out. You need SO MUCH MORE WHITE SPACE. This will reduce initial bounce-rate.
  2. Look at another buy page and structure your site to look like that. Unfamiliarity wards off buyers.
  3. Make your existing images bigger.
  4. On your main page, don't pillarbox the item images. Instead, crop your images to fit within the space.
  5. Get rid of your image slider on the main page. Replace it with a single image of a single product and a call to action of that product.
I promise you'll see improvements after that.

Thanks for the specific recommendations.
I am working on replacing the website with a new design. . . Just choosing the template I want to use for the store. The new site will have much more white space, and probably a white background. Images will be bigger and zoom on mouseover.
As Im doing that, for the new site I am trying to find all my original photography, and use all white background images for consistency. I am seeing clearly I do not have enough images, and the ones I do have do not have enough detail or quality. So I must get new product photography.
 

DangerousDave

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Just a quick update:

  • While Im not finished yet, I have the major work done on my new website. [ www.Spartanleathers.com/new/ ] Once I get some final CSS issues worked out I'll publish it as my main page. I think the design is a lot cleaner than the last.
In the meantime Im running a 3 day analytics A/B experiment to see what the new site does to my bounce rate.​

  • I still have to get new product photography shot, and Im shopping for a lightbox setup to accomplish that.

  • I have a call out to my customers on Facebook for pics of them in my suits, and I am getting quite a few of them. Im not sure what to do with them though. Do you think I should have a gallery, or put them in the slider banner, or on the individual product pages?

  • Once I get the site fully implemented, I'll put another call out for my customers to post reviews. They seem happy enough to help me out w/ images, so I suspect they'll post a review for me as well.

  • Im thinking about some other ways to help improve conversion as well, besides design/photography. I think of Toms, where they give shoes to needy kids or whatever. Im thinking of advertising where I give a portion of sales to the Airfence Fund (essentially big airbags that line guardrails/hard impact points on tracks for motorcycle racers). While helping a good cause, I think it would also help attract more racers and build some social reputation. I am also thinking of heavily advertising an all-inclusive policy where all custom design stuff, sponsor patches, etc are included in the price. No upcharges. Of course, to do these things I would have to raise prices (or at least, not put my product on sale), but if the market supports it, I'd rather see that happen anyway. And finally, focus on Racer sponsoring. That would be a potentially large expense though, as providing heavily discounted/free suits really adds up fast. But to be on World Superbike teams and the like would be pretty awesome and really good for press.
 
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