By Jamil Anakkar
Abandoned carts. Low inquiries. High bounce rates. These are all clear signs that your website is losing sales. The question is, why?
There are several reasons why your website could be losing sales, from slow loading times to a buggy checkout. In this article, we will identify the common reasons why websites lose sales with actionable steps to remedy them.
Is my website losing sales?
How sure are you that your website is losing sales? Here are some of the dead giveaways that your website is part of your sales problem:
- Abandoned carts (few or no sales)
- Low lead generation (few or no inquiries)
- Low session duration (people are not sticking around)
- High bounce rates (people click off your website after visiting one page)
- Low pages per session (people give your website a go but abandon it after 2-3 pages)
If you can correlate any of these to your website data in Google Analytics, then we’d say your website is almost definitely losing sales.
Now, let’s get on to the biggest reasons why this could be the case.
Why is my website losing sales?
1. Customer mistargeting and irrelevant content
Sales development is impossible without understanding your customer.
When your website was being built, how much customer research did you do? And did your website design take this information into account?
We are all different: we are all unique and special in our way. But your customers will have several things that unite them. This is your crowd.
How to solve the problem:
- Create customer personas
- Conduct surveys
- Research your competitors
If you didn’t create customer personas and consider these when building your website, then there’s a strong possibility your content is off. To remedy this, you should create new customer personas using this data:
- Age, gender, education, location, career (get this data from Google Analytics)
- Behavioral drivers: What is your customer’s journey to your website, and what’s their goal for being on it?
- Mindset drivers: Are your customers seeking the thrill of a bargain? The luxury of a high-end product? The desire to belong? What is the emotional intent behind the purchase? This matters because, the higher the emotions, the more you need to convince your buyer. For example, selling a fitness program will require more convincing than selling a wall clock.
You can also conduct surveys to find out more about your customers. It’s also a good idea to research your competitors—if a successful competitor targets the same customers as you, they will be a useful benchmark.
You can use all this information to refine your content and connect with your target customer on a deeper level. Address the needs and wants of your products/services and make sure your content represents your target group.
2. You don’t provide all relevant product/service information
Research conducted by HubSpot found that 61% of buyers consider relevant information crucial for a positive sales experience. The fact is, if you don’t provide all the information your customers need, they will go elsewhere (probably straight to Google Search). Why? Because it’s easier and more convenient for them to use Google than it is to find what they need on your website.
People are creatures of convenience. We like it when things are easy. You can use this to your advantage by making it as easy as possible for customers to find the information they need.
How to solve the problem:
- Use clear and simple navigation
- Include a top menu and footer menu
- Use internal links in your content
- Offer spec and product info downloads
- Use lots of photos for products
- Put important information at the beginning of your content
- Use bullet points, lists, bolds, and italics to make information stand out
These simple tricks could improve your sales several times over.
3. Your checkout doesn’t provide a good user experience
If your checkout creates a poor customer experience, this is a critical conversion issue. It often results in abandoned carts as your customers lose confidence and patience in buying from you. This will make them go elsewhere.
Here are some of the most common checkout problems:
- Slow loading times
- Complex and lengthy steps
- Poor website design
- Too many clicks to checkout
- No pre-fill/autofill
- No automatic address lookup
- Losing information if the customer clicks back
- Requiring customers to create an account
- Not offering multiple payment methods
- Not allowing customers to amend their basket without going back
How to solve the problem:
Your checkout process should be simple with as few steps as possible. The more steps you introduce, the more friction you create. Map out your checkout process and see how many steps there are. Can you combine any steps or remove them to make it faster?
A simple solution is to use a one-page checkout. This requires no clicks because all requested information is on one page. This makes life easier.
Little things like autofill can be fixed with code, and automatic address lookup can be fixed with Google Address Lookup. Another tip is to allow guest checkout. Not everyone wants to create an account as a new customer.
Speed is also critical. According to data research firm Baymard Institute, slow-loading sites can increase cart abandonment rates by 75%.
Speaking of speed...
4. Your website is slow
If a slow-loading website can increase cart abandonment by 75%, you can bet that it can slow lead generation as well. According to analytics company Kissmetrics, 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. Google conducted further research and found that 53% of mobile visitors will leave a web page if it doesn’t load within three seconds.
The three symptoms of a slow site are:
- Abandoned carts
- High bounce rates
- Poor search engine rankings (site speed is a Google ranking factor)
How to solve the problem:
Use Google PageSpeed Insights to measure the speed of your website. PageSpeed Insights is the most relevant tool for site speed because Google uses in-house metrics to determine the quality of your load time. You should satisfy each of these metrics for your site to be fast in the eyes of Google.
Here are some actionable ways to improve load times:
- Faster web hosting
- Reduce page size
- Reduce server requests
- Reduce redirects
- Pre-load resources
- Minify code
- Compress images
- Avoid render-blocking scripts
- Use WebP image formats
- Use a content delivery network (CDN)
- Use a lightweight website builder
- Download a speed optimization plugin for WordPress
An acceptable load time for an e-commerce store is over two seconds. Google aims for a load time under a half-second!
5. You don’t follow up on abandoned carts
According to Baymard Institute, nearly the average documented cart abandonment rate is 70%. Additional research by Barilliance found that mobile has the highest abandonment rates, with 85.65% of all transactions ending without a sale.
What do these numbers tell us? That cart abandonment is a significant challenge for e-commerce stores. Following up on abandoned carts is the solution to this problem. It represents a significant opportunity to reclaim the value of your lost customers.
How to solve the problem:
Your checkout needs to ask for an email address before your customer orders so that you can follow up if they abandon their cart. Once you have this system in place, you should automatically email your customer a link to their abandoned checkout so they can complete their purchase. There are a few ways to set this up:
- Shopify has a setting to automatically send abandoned checkout emails
- WooCommerce also has an abandoned cart email setting
- Use CRM software to automate abandoned cart emails
- Use email marketing software
By following up on abandoned carts, you can reclaim lost sales. However, a high-quality abandonment email is essential for this to work.
6. There’s no easy way to contact you/you don’t make yourself available
Customers have questions. After all, they are on your website seeking a solution to a problem. Why else would they be there?
If you do not make it easy for customers to contact you and be available when they do, this can harm sales. Being available is a sign that you care. It helps convince your customers that you are trustworthy, reputable, and someone they would like to buy from. Most of all, it allows you to reduce friction in your customer’s journey.
How to solve the problem:
- Use live chat
- Use a chatbot
- Use click to email
- Use click to call
- Use instant messaging
- Let customers arrange a call back
- Place contact information at the top and bottom of your website
Live chat is the winner when it comes to customer service. It can be integrated across your website with a pop-up box (so it’s always available), and you can staff it with people who are trained to answer all questions (so it satisfies your customer).
Another option is a chatbot. Chatbots are powered by AI to answer questions without human intervention. Chatbots are available for Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp so your customers can contact you in their preferred messaging app.
Make sure your contact information is available at the top and bottom of your website. An email address with click-to-email enabled will let customers email you without copy and paste. If you have a phone number, this should be prominent on your website and have click-to-call as well.
Speaking of phone numbers, a 2020 survey by sales strategist Marc Wayshak found that 41.2% of salespeople find the phone to be the most effective sales tool. So, if you want to increase website sales, start taking more calls.
To summarize why your website is losing sales
The biggest reasons why websites lose sales include:
- Customer mistargeting and irrelevant content
- Not enough relevant product/service information
- Bad checkout user experience
- Slow loading times
- No follow up on abandoned carts
- No easy contact method/no customer service available
These six areas are only a snapshot of what could be going wrong with your website.
Most of these problems are easy to fix. If your website is losing sales, we recommend using the leader in your industry as a benchmark. What do they do right? What can you learn from them?
Ultimately, sales development is an ongoing process. The points in this article will give you a good foundation to work from. Good luck!
RELATED: Boost E-Commerce Sales by Understanding How Customers Think
