User Conversion Tips from the Top Online Retailers

Internet Retailer.com recently revealed a list of the Top 10 online retailers with the highest conversion rates in March. The research was conducted amongst online retailers with at least 500,000 unique visitors. Office Depot, QVC, VistaPrint, Roamans & Lands End made the Top 5 with conversion rates over 15%.

Disclaimer: The user conversion on one of these sites is so compelling, it prompted me to purchase an item, as I was typing up this post. Read on to find out which retailer’s user conversion struck my fancy.

The full list includes:

Office Depot – 20.9%
QVC – 19%
VistaPrint – 18.3%
Roamans – 18.1%
Lands’ End – 16.2%
eBay – 15.7%
1-800-Flowers.com – 15.5%
eBags.com – 15.3%
L.L. Bean – 14.6%
Pottery Barn Kids – 14.2%

A quick visit to these sites reveals several common user conversion strategies:

Time sensitive Specials: (Examples: 10% Until 5/28 on Office Depot, 4 Hours Only Sale on QVC.Com)

Offering time sensitive specials to your visitors encourage them to buy..and buy quickly. If they feel they are getting a good deal for buying now, that may be all the incentive they need to click “Purchase”.

Give something away for free: (Example: Free Business Cards @ Vista Print.com)

Believe it or not, you CAN get 250 free business cards with Vista Print. While many shady online retailers use the “Free” catch phrase in a bait and switch move, Vista Print actually delivers on their promise, which builds trust in the company. Consumers who receive the free business cards are more likely to return to buy future office goods, because they already know what they are getting with VistaPrint.

Clear Navigation: (Example: 1800flowers.com and PotteryBarnkids.com)

1800flowers delivers a user-friendly text based navigation. Whether you are shopping by occasion or specific flower, it is all ready navigable from the home page, no need to navigate through dozens of categories. Pottery Barn Kids also does this well, their homepage is segmented by the types of rooms to be decorated: girl rooms, boy rooms, baby rooms and play rooms.

Engage the audience (Example: LLBean.com)

LL Bean features a compelling video of family and friends enjoying the outdoors in LL Bean gear. The video is soo cute, I just purchased the french sailor’s quarter zip pullover for my son, yes I really did!

User conversion theory is not an exact science, it is more of a consumer experiment. As a website owner, it is essential to continually try new methods of conversion, measure your return on those strategies and tweak as needed.

See how Hall can help increase your demand.