It’s springtime! Let’s go spring-cleaning your Shopify store for a better conversion rate, shall we?
If you are following our Shopify conversion optimization series, you’ll know that the answers to how to convert visitors into buyers are no secret. We know, because we talked about this quite a few times:
Great Traffic But No Sales? Here's What You Need to Change for Shopify Stores
Shopify Conversion Rate Optimization Guide: 3 Ways To Get Started
However, conversion optimization is not a one-time task, even when your Shopify store is converting well. If you don’t routinely evaluate your store's effectiveness, you’ll be missing out on real cash.
Below, we’re going to discuss new aspects of Shopify conversion optimization, in line with the trend of spring cleaning for eCommerce merchants. You’ll find this information helpful for you, we promise!
First thing first
Before doing any cleaning on your Shopify store with the goal of driving more sales per visit, you must always make sure that:
- You did proper customer research, meaning that you’re targeting the right customers for your store
- Because of that, you are targeting the right keywords and your visitors are quality traffic
- Your pricing strategy is right on track - you're not competing with others on price and attracting low-paying customers
- You know why customers buy from you and what customer's paint points you're solving via your product listings
Wiping the dust off your Shopify product content
Visiting your store with outdated product descriptions is like seeing you wearing the same pajamas all week. While you may feel comfortable about it, your returning customers might want to see "what's new" in your store after a certain period of time.
By “what’s new”, we don’t just talk about new arrivals, but your product content should be refreshed from time to time. Reasons?
Updating your product content on a regular basis is essential to keeping it relevant and effective. Even if you believe that you have covered all the necessary aspects of your product listing, it is important to consider how updates can enhance its performance.
Bite's toothpaste: new product description which adds better visual and highlight its unique selling points
By analyzing Shopify metrics and understanding customer feedback, you can identify areas where your product content can be improved. Furthermore, by staying up-to-date with industry trends and best practices (stalk your competitors!), you can ensure that your product content is competitive and aligned with the latest standards.
Therefore, it is recommended that you periodically review your product content and make necessary updates to ensure that it continues to meet the needs and expectations of your customers.
Let’s take an example.
Who would want to buy from a store that “leaves the Christmas lights up til January”? When the holiday is over, you’ll need to take down “the light” - your holiday-optimized content - i.e Christmas gift guide collection, or holiday-related keywords such as “Holiday gifts for girls”.
You might want to update your product description in accordance with the upcoming holidays - like the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day or Mother’s Day, for example.
Tips to update your Shopify product content effectively so it blooms in sales:
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Double-check your category, collection, and keywords: should you re-categorize any products to another collection or listing? What keywords are now trending or need to be prioritized in your next marketing moves? What are your competitors using? Any hot items that need to be updated on the bestsellers list?
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Know your product: you don’t have to change the features or specifications of your product. However, you might need to tailor these details to the current problems that customers might have.
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Add new visuals to your product descriptions: consider updating your products with new photography or videos - especially when you have changes in product design or packages, for example.
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Plan your product content optimization beforehand: your new product content needs time to be ranked and updated by search engine algorithms. You don’t want to wait until summer to update your Hawaiian t-shirt collection, right? In fact, for summer items to get sold better, you’ll need to plan your summer-ish product description from now.
During peak season, avoid making changes to your product description. This is because there may not be enough time to see results, and any issues could negatively impact sales.
Plucking off low-performing products and pages
To convert visitors into customers, you need healthy, promising Shopify products and pages.
For low-performing products - items that are slow in sales in your Shopify store (and you’ve pretty much lost hope for) - you need to come up with a strategy to either clear them out from your inventory or stop selling them completely.
For low-performing pages, the first thing you should do is stop redirecting your traffic to these pages. You need to investigate and improve these pages before opening the door for your visitors.
What to do with low-performing products on Shopify store?
Put your thinking cap on, grab a magnifying glass and we’re going to investigate why your product listing hits such a desperate dead-end. The reasons may vary:
- You have a trending product that is not trending anymore. For example, selling leg-toning leggings when your targeted customers are now hyped over bum-toning leggings
- You don’t push and prioritize your product equally, hence the low visibility and low sales
- Your product received too many negative reviews
- Your lack of product information, product-in-use showcase, etc.
There are two things you can do with an underperforming product listing: remove it or promote it to sell faster.
When these products are badly reviewed by too many buyers, or the age level of products is too old (close to the expiration date, for example), you definitely should consider removing them completely from your Shopify store.
If the cost of removing aged and low-performing inventory is too high, or if you think there’s still a chance to improve the sales volume for these underperforming items, you can always try a few methods to promote them.
Use product recommendations to promote slow-selling products
Give your aged product listing a final boost to rise from its deathbed with personalized product recommendations.
With shoppers' browsing and purchase history, you can suggest aging products they may be interested in. Hence, you can promote these products to customers who are more likely to be interested in them.
Alternatively, you can bundle slow-selling products with popular products like your new arrivals or bestsellers. This can help increase the visibility of the slow-selling product and encourage customers to purchase it as part of a bundle.
Another good idea is to dedicate a special discounted product section such as “Grab them before they’re gone forever” (literally) on your homepage for underperforming products. This kind of clearance sales creates essential buzz for your aging product sales.
Boost and promote low-performing products efficiently with our AI-Powered Product Recommendation
With 8 popular Shopify product recommendation types, you have total control of your cross-selling and up-selling strategies, plus the extra power-up from AI technology.
What to do with underperforming product pages on Shopify store?
Similar to the underperforming product listing, there are many reasons behind your underperforming product pages:
- Poor design and navigation make it harder for customers to browse and find the items they want
- Poor copywriting, outdated content, or not relevant product information
- Slow loading speed
- Inadequate promotions which lead to low visibility
- Lack of trust
- And more
For each reason, there are different solutions to improve your low-performing product pages on Shopify store. You might want to improve these pages before giving them any marketing boost or guiding more traffic to these pages:
- Create a list of product pages, collection pages, or any other sales pages that require improvement.
- Plan a timeline to gradually test changes on these pages, such as updating content, adding customer reviews, showcasing new product pictures and videos, etc.
Your turn
Managing the process of product refreshes, store-wise evaluation, and implementing new selling strategies can be overwhelming for many Shopify merchants. Don't try to handle it alone. We're here to help! Hope this article sparks some good Shopify conversion optimization ideas for you.
