In today’s global economy, consumers from around the world could be heading to your website to purchase your products and services. When you’re making international sales, you have to be careful with the changes you make to your website. Your online shopping cart is netting you sales from all over the world. While it is in your best interest to always be improving, you need to understand how these improvements are going to appeal to customers from different cultures? Here are four tips that will boost your conversion rate the world over.
Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Ready
Smartphones and tablets have become increasingly popular over the last several years, with customers using them to shop more and more. If you want to be sure that you’re cashing in on every possible customer, make sure that your site is built to handle mobile shoppers. This means that the design of your site needs to be able to be just as effective when read on a smartphone and tablet as it is on a computer screen. If you have a hosting service like Shopify, this information should be easily available to you. Smartphone users aren’t all centered in one area of the globe. With tablets becoming incredibly popular worldwide, improving your site’s mobile readiness will boost access to shoppers from all corners of the globe.
Nip Off Escape Routes
The truth of human nature is that we’re easily distracted. Perhaps now more than ever, thanks to the advent of the Internet and instant click gratification. When it comes to your customers completing the process of purchasing from your website, this is not a quality you want them to possess. Basically, once a customer starts the checkout process you don’t want there to be an easy and obvious way for them to stop the checkout process. Don’t post advertisements on these pages, and don’t allow links to take the user directly from the checkout to a different site, page or product. People don’t have a lot of patience for doing something over once they’ve just done it. If your customer thinks they’ll have to begin the checkout process over again, there are good odds that they’re not going to bother. They’ll decide to put that off to do later, and may never return to complete it. Keep the checkout process as easy as possible and as free from distractions as you can.
Add a Progress Bar
When it comes to the online world, the old adage, patience is a virtue doesn’t apply. People are not only easily distracted they’re also impatient. You might think streamlining your site by subdividing the checkout process is a good thing. It usually is, as people feel better about filling in their information over the course of a few different categories rather than all at once. However, if people are filling in page after page with their information with no real idea when they’ll be through, it can get discouraging and they are more likely to simply give up and navigate away from your site rather than complete the checkout process. A simple solution to this problem is to add a progress bar to the checkout process. That way people can see that they’re only three, two, or even one step away from completing their purchase. This might give them the incentive they need to hurry up and finish their purchase.
Calculate International Shipping Costs
Nobody likes the idea of having to pay for shipping. This is even more so when they know that it is going to cost them a pretty penny to do so. To keep your customers on the purchasing track make sure that you calculate shipping costs early in the process, especially for international orders and instances where shipping is likely to be high. Customers get attached to the idea that their items will be a certain price when they see it on page after page of the checkout process. The sharp jump that shipping prices add can be too much for a customer who’s comfortable with that first number. Forty percent of customers who abandoned their carts say it was because shipping costs were added in too late, according to a study commissioned by UPS. When you’re looking at ways to keep more customers from around the globe on your website, you should work with your hosting service to get an easy shipping calculator installed early in the checkout process.
The best thing for a business is to be internationally popular. Sales from all over the globe are the best way to make sure that your business is stable. When you’re upgrading your online shopping cart, make sure that you work closely with your host to implement these changes. They’ll make your cart more efficient, boost conversion, and will work across cultural boundaries.