Cracking the conversion funnel: increasing eCommerce conversion by 233%

ABOUT LEATHER JACKET SHOP

Leather Jacket Shop is an Australian leather brand started in 2011. Specializing in custom made jackets and serving 16000+ happy customers worldwide.

GOAL

• Increase conversion rate by 100% in six months.
• Improve user experience specially mobile.
• Reduce dropoffs at checkout.
• Increase repeat customers.
• Improve customer service

ROLE

• Product Owner
• Product Analyst
• User Experience Designer
• Marketing Strategist

OVERVIEW

The user experience for an online brand does not end on the store, it starts there. To improve our conversion we not only had to redesign the website but our end to end experience, including product, pricing and marketing.

• Audience Analysis: Based on historical data, a comprehensive picture of our customers was created.
• Checkout Improvement: The checkout was overhauled for maximum conversion by removing distractions, adding confidence, providing more payment option & giving live help when needed.
• Website Revamp: The website was updated based on the needs of our audience. The revamp was not only visual but focused on helping the users finding the right product and finding the solutions to their questions.
• Product Updates: The pricing strategies, sale strategies were revised. We added personalizations for customers including, name engraving, lining selections, size and design customizations. Adding more value and profits.
• Email Marketing: Email captures, marketing campaigns and automations were implemented to convert more subscribers to customers and increase return customers.
• Customer Service: We shifted our focus to customer delight even when it meant short term loss. We changed our policies, added online chat, 4 hour maximum email turn around rate and production improvements — simultaneously.
• Retargeting: Being an expensive fashion product, consumers took more visits to convert hence, to get them back we worked on ad-retargeting.

RESULTS

• Conversion rate up 233% in 3 months.
• Customer satisfaction improved with 95% positive reviews.
• Increase in order value by 20%
• Increase in bulk and custom orders.

THE PROCESS

THE AUDIENCE

After analyzing four years of user and customer data we knew this about our users:

• Men between the ages of 24–65 with the best conversions from users above 45.
• Australian with brand Australia close to them.
• Shop online, interested in property, traveling and family.
• Not tech savvy.
• Like to talk with a real person, instead of a website.

WEBSITE OVERHAUL

We had built our website on magento and it served us well. So we didn’t want to move away from the platform. But wanted to upgrade the look and feel of the website.

But simultaneously, we didn’t want it to be minimal, trendy, fashion forward or ‘hip’ any of those things. We wanted it to be traditional, clean and easy to navigate. No surprises for our audience, if there is one thing these guys don’t like it’s changed. Also, teenagers.

CART/CHECKOUT IMPROVEMENTS

• Cart abandonment popup: Our initial cart abandonment rate was 70%, we’ve put in a discount 10% popup on cart abandonment when you give your email. This code is used in 20% of our sales now. This acts as a nudge for users who want to buy but aren’t sure.
• Email address on checkout: Email is captured as step one of the checkout. A series of cart abandonment emails is sent to users who do not complete the checkout. 10% of these users buy from us later now. This helps users who accidentally abandoned a cart or had an issue on the cart.
• No redirection: Users get distracted if there is something interesting in the header/footer or a link to something they were a little confused about. We’ve taken everything out of the checkout. You just have the logo to redirect you to the homepage and the checkout steps.
• 10% off when you pay cash: This has been our most successful payment method 40% people chose this after its introduction. We can afford it because we don’t have to pay a paypal/credit card fee and we save money from frauds or PayPal charge backs and give this cost benefit directly to the user in return we get less hassle.
• Free shipping: Many users drop out due to shipping charges, since we ship from Pakistan that’s a huge amount. So we have introduced free shipping on all and any orders.
• Easy chat: Our chat bot is present on the checkout and if someone takes more than two minutes, it sends a polite ping asking if someone needs help. At times people are confused about entering certain information and talking to customer service almost always converts.

HOME PAGE UPDATES

• Hero Image: After heat map and user sessions analysis, the users were trying to find the jackets directly or knowing more about the company. In the update a hero image with redirection to men/women categories is added. 80% users (who do not exit) are now redirected from the hero image or the top menu bar.
• Values & FAQ: From page accesses we know what information users were trying to look for (size, shipping, returns) etc. Values are now clearly written on the homepage, free shipping, hassle free returns. 10% users now click on the values to directly see the details.
• Credibility: Our exit rate of the homepage was around 50%. We added testimonials on the homepage along with a detail of the company and social links. Added a large footer with catch all categories. After the updates’ homepage exit rate is in the lower 30’s.

Screenshot of the first fold after overhaul

PRODUCT PAGE & LISTINGS

• Product images improvement: We don’t keep inventory so we didn’t have all the products to photograph again nor the budget. So we re-edited all the old images removed the mannequins from the images to give them a cleaner look.
• All user questions answers on the product page: Usually our customers are concerned about, sizes, shipping information, delivery time, details of leather, company credibility. Instead of limiting information on the individual pages we put all this in our product pages directly. We clearly defined delivery date under the buy now button, along with other details.
• Customization options: Most people don’t want a customized product but a personalized one. Since we operate on the model of just-in-time manufacturing we allowed our users to change colors, linings, put their name on the jacket or even have a custom size. More details on this in the pricing section.

Product Detail Page after the overhaul

WEBSITE SPEED & MOBILE WEB

The website speed was over 10 seconds. We’ve cut it down to half the time and improving on it. Our scores on google insights are above 80 for both web and mobile. The web is based on bootstrap’s grid system, is mobile first and 48% of our users access it on mobile now, with equal bounce and engagement rates.

PRODUCT PRICING & AVERAGE ORDER VALUE

PRODUCT PRICING — 50% OFF

Most of our buyers are price conscious budget buyers. After a few A/B tests with our prices, our emailing list and always on sale factor is something that works for us. We are your regular discount shop which gives decent products at good prices. Sometimes there’s a good sale sometimes there isn’t, if we want to build a high street brand with this pricing strategy that isn’t happening. But this gives us conversions through the google search with immediate and medium term goal.

INCREASING AVERAGE ORDER VALUE

Since most of our customers are price conscious buyers that means we cannot increase the base cost of our jackets. But once someone is convinced of the service (or is a repeat buyer) they are likely to spend more if offered good value. These are some things that have increased our order values.

• Multiple order discounts: When we ship our jackets together we save on prices and ensure to reflect that saving directly to the customer and give 10–15% discount when they order in bulk. We get the same profit, the customers get extra saving. 5–10% of our orders are multiple since introduction.
• Addons for the jacket: We charged users for a custom size and color before the revamp. Many customers opted for these options. So we looked for other small options we could introduce. Now customers can chose different type of linings, they can choose different lining colors in their jacket and they can have a customized label on their jacket with their name of it. Giving it more of a personal touch. Each custom option ranges from $20-$30. 30% of our customers use custom options hence increasing the order up to 40%
• Custom jacket services: We have highlighted our custom jacket services on our website and SEO. Being just-in-time allows us this massive competitive edge over our competitors. Turns out many people who want a custom jacket, actually just need a personalized experience. And we charge for the experience, these are the most profitable jackets we make. And the best relationships we create with a customer.

PRODUCT PRICING DETAILS

After countless experiments these pricing strategies work for us:

• Round off with 9s
• Anchor products. We have some products which we used to anchor pricing and we sell these products full price never on a sale.
• Same product different color. Customer pays extra for color changes but some popular jackets have another listing in a different color for the same price. Most people get this and have a sense of beating the system, we get a sale. Everyone wins.
• Price tiers: We have defined different price tiers the lowest jackets act as low anchors and we sell them at a loss but the number is low, allows us to say “as low as”. The middle tier are our best sellers they have a price change of $30 among them. The upper tier are our jackets which take a while to make. And the last are our worst jackets which we serve as anchors.
• Sale prices: Sales affect certain price tiers or colors. Our sales are divided into types, flat sales, up to sales, color sales, 24 hour sales and so on. Each affects one or more price tiers and is tailored towards a certain audience.

Men category jacket listing

PAYMENTS IN INSTALLMENTS

Our products are around and above $200, and we’ve integrated a payment plan through zippay a third party company to allow customers to pay in installments or a lump sum after a certain period. This gives us an additional payment gateway.

EMAIL MARKETING

Email is the highest converting channel throughout the industry and for good reason. These are your highly engaged users / people looking for a bargain / your existing customer base. These people are more likely to convert. Previously no emails were sent to customer but order emails- so we changed that.

Variations of the email capture and checkout popups

• Email captures: We use optinmonster to capture emails, it’s a wonderful flexible tool. We did not annoy our users by showing constant blocker ads. So we only show popups to users who aren’t doing what they are supposed to be doing e.g leaving the page, scrolling to the bottom, spending too much time on product pages or abandoning cart. We experiment constantly with offers on emails captures to find the best one’s.
• Subscriber automations: We know it can take up to 30–40 days for people to convert and buy from us. To increase brand visibility and conversion, all new subscribers go through a series of emails which are a mix of leather information, brand values and offers from time to time. This series is optimized over months for best conversion.
• Customer automations: People do not buy leather jackets on a whim or monthly. So we don’t try to sell to our customers all the time. Instead, using an automation we create a relationship with our customers for a year. These emails are about how they can take care of their jacket, about jacket styles, leather, feedback and customer only discounts like free customizations and personalizations.

A view of one subscriber automation in Mailchimp

• Standard marketing emails: These emails are sent when we have new sales, introduction of new items in the store or special greetings on occasions.
• Abandon cart emails: These emails are captured from the cart page on exit or as a first step on the checkout. If the user does not buy he is sent a personalized message to ask about the issue and followed by a series of discounts and timed promotions.

CUSTOMER SERVICE & REPEAT CUSTOMERS

They say the easiest people to sell are your previous customers. But our previous customers were not buying from us, not due to the product but the service. We set out to change that and in turn increased our repeat customers by 30%

• Online chat: Integrated online chat with a customer advocate present online in the time when most of our sales happen. Chat’s are not always initiated by user but by triggers e.g if someone takes too long on check out, if someone visits the 10th time, if someone is looking at their order status and so on. With an under 30 seconds response time and 90% positive rating, we make sure each customer is helped.
• Offline chat: If we are not online a simple message button is always present online. 90% of contact is done through this by users not the contact page. Since we have the emails of these people it’s easier to talk to them directly and give them a personalized experience.
• Customer ratings: Recently we’ve integrated feedbacks in our email automations which allows us to get google local store ratings from users boosting our credibility as a local store and increasing conversion.
• Loyal customer discounts: Our old customers all get a gift card with their first purchase which can also be gifted. In addition, our customers mailing list gets exclusive loyalty based discounts and feedback emails.
• Phone Redirection: Customers over 40 buying an expensive item not only want to talk to someone online but they want to talk to a real person. So we try to redirect most local people to the phone or for a warehouse visit. Calls have almost 100% conversion rate.

RETARGETING

We know that most of our customers take 9–16 sessions to convert. We used our improved ecommerce and customer experience to make sure that the conversion rate gets better. Simultaneously it doesn’t hurt to try to bring back the user more frequently back to the website. So we started retargeting using adroll. Retargeting ads are served on the google network as well as Facebook.

Users are divided into multiple segments based on their interaction with the website and their buying status to optimize the retargeting campaign.

LEARNING AND INSIGHTS

• Customer data is the most important thing we have only by knowing who are your customers and how they buy you can improve their experience.
• It’s not essential that your customers want a twenty-something in a high end photo shoot different customers want different things cater to their needs.
• Knowing in which session customers converted was a huge thing for us, that helped us understand our conversion numbers and moreover focus on making sure people reached that session number.
• Low hanging fruit first: we tried to convert everyone first all we needed to do to be profitable was to convert the right people. Who want to buy but have little hurdles that we could take away by just starting a conversation with them automated or manual.
• Email: We still have to figure out how can we get more emails online and offline but we’ve optimized our email funnel to get the most out of the users we have.