@Casabenico , STOP before you rush into making any random changes to your store. This may very well be wasted time, money and effort if you don't know what actually stops your visitors from buying.
What if you are having problems with the product page (which you seem to)? Would it make sense to change your homepage and collection pages if people rarely see them?
With your paid ads you are already leaking money. No point in wasting time just fiddling with your website, or god forbid, installing more paid apps or paying someone to "fix" something other than the step that's scaring your traffic away.
There are three general areas where you may be doing something wrong, which usually results in no sales, or in sales, but with higher costs than is desirable.
1. The right people
Who are you targeting? Do you know where they hang out, so you can research them? Do you know if they buy things online? What do they buy?
2. The right products
Knowing who are the people you'd like to serve, you can find out what kinds of products they pay for. You can also find out the problems they hope to solve with them. Then you can source these.
3. The right shopping experience (from first touch with your brand to after they've bought from you)
Following from 1 and 2 you have all the data to know if they would buy a certain product if it is presented to them in a specific way. So you can use your competitor's sites as a specification to improve on.
If you are certain that you know the answers to 1 and 2, figuring out 3, the right shopping experience, should be simple, as you've gotten examples of others in the same niche and the way they serve the same people.
If you are going the other way and trying to test if various answers from 1,2 and 3 make sense for some people then you'll have to rely on empirical data from your visitors.
Say you've found almost the right people and you are presenting products they are interested in.
Social media is a very fickle channel to access these people through. Because of the nature of advertising there, your ads interrupt people when they aren't in the mindset of buying your stuff exactly. No wonder, even if they click on the ad, that they come to your product page, read a bit of the description and go away. There are better alternatives which access people when they are in the right stage of the shopping process, hence having "buying intent" (SEO, paid search ads, Google Shopping are all good for targeting people).
Assuming your social traffic is good enough to buy, what may be the problem then?
Disclaimer: I'm guessing, as I don't have access to your Google Analitycs data and can't tell for sure. Based on the hundreds of stores I've seen, I expect your bottleneck to be on the product page... but I've been surprised more than once, hence the disclaimer. You can identify the bottleneck yourself with the help of this short guide
What's wrong with your product pages then?
Let's use this product page as an example:
https://www.shopbenico.com/collections/storage-jars/products/black-marble-pattern-ceramics-storage-j...
Assuming people came with the idea to understand a bit more about the product you've been advertising, they expect answers to the following questions:
"Is this for me?"
Can you tell them with certainty that this is the right product for them? If you know well the people you are advertising to, you should be able to name them by category/niche/interest like:
"This marble porcelain cup is perfect for the work desk of a minimalist who wants to bring structure to their favorite pens and pencils. Or just needs a sense of texture, a touch with nature (especially when used as a flower pot or vase)."
"How does this product solve my problem?"
Knowing your ideal customers can help you with answering that question, too.
You'll know which, out of the 20 possible, uses of this product are they interested in.
Do these Marble "Jars" get bought mostly as pen holders or by coffee lovers as a bean container?
Knowing that you can explain how the products FEATURES (dimensions, surface quality, cover, color, textures) help them get the BENEFITS they are after.
"Why should I buy this product from here?"
What's unique about the product?
What's your competitive advantage?
Highlight that to give them ONE MORE reason to stay and consider buying that product from you, instead of going to their local home decor store and buying something similar.
"How am I going to pay for this?"
Help them see that the payment methods they feel comfortable with are supported by your store.
If you've researched your target audience you'll know what are they used to shop with. Is it Afterpay? Is it Apple Pay? Do they stay away from PayPal? Are they scared of using their card online because a site may not seem trustworthy?
"How much exactly am I going to pay?"
This is a tricky one, and online shoppers know it. You see a price of $40 but you know this isn't going to be the final price you are going to pay. And expenses keep adding up—shipping, customs... returns (if they don't like it). Sometimes not buying is the safest action they can take.
To help them understand the real cost of obtaining this item, make sure you include shipping info on your product pages. You shouldn't make people wait until 2 steps into the checkout to know how much MORE are they going to pay for this.
Give them as close to the final price as possible, so that they could start rationalizing why buying this product is good for them (based on your answers of their other questions).
"How exactly am I going to get this?"
Visualize or explain which shipping services are going to be involved. Ensure them that the products are well packaged and won't be damaged during transportation. Explain that you have a policy if this happens, so they feel safe even in the "worst case scenario".
"When can I hold it in my hands?"
Helping people imagine having the product (and all the benefits they are after) is a big driver for their actions.
Nudge them to consider buying by telling them something along the lines of "Shipping 2 weeks after your order is processed." or "Order today and you can have this item before Feb 14 2021".
All of the above points are potential opportunities to tip the scales in your favor. With them you are giving your visitors more reasons to stay and buy from you. Or worded another way—removing yet another of their objections that's been stopping them from buying.
When the relationship between you and your potential customers is just starting out you are on the far end of the "distrust" spectrum. Catching their attention with a product is not enough. There are many small bricks to stack that can help you win their business.
Still, if you know your people well, you can get by with ticking just some of the boxes at the start. Your sales numbers will tell you how effectively you are ticking these boxes.
Even if you are starting with nothing and getting no sales, that's ok. E-commerce is a process of never ending improvement. You'll eventually do more research and this will help you'll improve your messaging, product portfolio and targeting over time. Hopefully before you've burned all your cash on social ads...
NEXT STEPS FOR YOU, assuming you are selling the right products to the right people:
- Make sure you know what type of page is stopping your visitors from buying. This short free guide will help.
- If it is indeed the "product page", find the a single product ad that has the highest CTR.
If it isn't, contact me. Different page types/steps of the shopping process have different questions and strategies for improvement. - For that product, answer as much of the above "customer" questions you can on your product page. Use the product description for that, no need to get fancy now.
- After the changes to the product info are live, start the ad and let it run for a while. See if the sales/add to carts of this product improve.
Let me know if you have any questions or need directions investigating this issue any further.
I help family-run Shopify stores increase sales from existing traffic Learn More
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