7 Research-Backed Tips to Maximize Revenue and Make More Profit
The average ecommerce conversion rate stands at 2%.
However, the top retailers achieve a higher number. Amazon, for example, boasts a whopping conversion rate of 13%.
So what is it they’re not telling us?
In this post, we’ll cover seven expert tips you can implement today that’ll help you maxieditmize your revenue and make more money in 2021.
Ready to go? Let’s jump in.
Maximize Revenue Hack #1: Optimize Your Store for Mobile
Mobile shopping is growing at an astronomical rate.
Research shows that a whopping 67% of consumers admit to “digital window shopping” for fun on their smartphones, with 77% of those making impulse purchases when they do.
What’s more, Google research shows that 73% of consumers will switch from a poorly designed mobile site to one that makes purchasing easier.
So, not only are consumers shopping on their phones more, but their expectations for mobile shopping experiences are rising too.
Thankfully, Shopify does a lot to make your store mobile-friendly. But there’s much you can do also.
Here are two tips that’ll directly impact your conversion rate:
a) Make the next step obvious
The smaller screen on mobile means you’ve got to be careful how you allocate your store’s visual real estate.
Since your call-to-action buttons guide visitors along the buying journey, you need to have these displayed as prominently as possible.
To maximize revenue and conversions, ensure that buttons like ‘Shop Now,’ ‘Add to cart’ and ‘Checkout’ are visible above the fold on mobile (or use a sticky add to cart button)
Here’s a great example from bidet retailer Tushy going left to right from their landing page to cart page:
Other things Tushy display clearly above the fold are:
- Product title
- Main product image
- Additional images
- Variants
- Quantity picker
- Collapsable details & features menu
While Tushy’s product page is generally superb, there’s one thing they forgot to feature prominently that can improve conversion rates and maximize revenue: social proof.
b) Flaunt Social Proof
A mind-boggling 88% of consumers trust user reviews as much as personal recommendations.
But displaying reviews’ above the fold’ on mobile can be tricky, especially if you’ve got many other things to include.
The best solution is to add a small star rating and the number of customer reviews. Case in point Allbirds:
This seemingly insignificant addition to your product pages (and collection pages) tells people that others approve of the product they’re looking at.
That goes a hell of a long way towards boosting conversion rates and maximizing revenue.
Maximize Revenue Hack #2: Improve Your Website Speed
If you’ve ever done battle with a slow website, you know how frustrating it can be.
And for lots of consumers, a fast website is a must-have for online shopping.
For example, Google showed that 40% of consumers would leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load.
To test your store’s loading speed, hop over to Google’s PageSpeed insights tool.
This free tool will allow you to determine your loading speed across mobile and desktop while also suggesting ways to improve.
You’d be surprised how many big brands aren’t maximizing revenue with a speedy mobile site.
If you’re unsure how to make any of the improvements Google suggests, there’s plenty of freelancer developers who’ll help you out on sites like Fiverr or Upwork.
Developers aside, two of the most common pitfalls that slow Shopify stores down are:
- Having too many apps that aren’t relevant
- Using uncompressed images
These can two issues can be quickly resolved by:
- Removing apps from your store that aren’t helping you maximize revenue
- Using a tool like TinyJpg to compress images before uploading them
- Alternatively, using an app like Image Optimizer to minimize image file size on your store
Never underestimate the importance of a speedy store for increasing the number of conversions you make on a day to day basis.
Maximize Revenue Hack #3: Implement Multi-Channel Cart Recovery
Research from Business Insider suggests that 63% of abandoned cart revenue is potentially recoverable.
And unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard of the importance of sending abandoned cart emails.
But to maximize revenue, you need to go beyond a single email and reach customers across multiple touchpoints.
You want to create a sequence of cart reminders over channels like Facebook messenger, SMS, push notifications, and WhatsApp alongside your traditional email.
This kind of approach is much more effective at reminding the shopper about their abandoned purchase and keeping your products at the front of their minds.
And that’s key because Moosend found that people who returned to their abandoned cart converted at an eye-watering rate of 11%.
Such a high conversion rate means that getting abandoners to convert can literally be the difference between your business's success and failure.
Pro Tip: Apps like Carti make running a multi-channel recovery campaign easy. Start sending abandoned cart messages via push, email, SMS, and messenger in just a few clicks. Plus, it’s free until you $100 in extra revenue!
Maximize Revenue Hack #4: Multiple Payment Options
According to Ingenium web, having the top three most-used-by-customers payment options available can boost your sales up to 71%.
And when it comes to boosting conversions, you want to offer as wide a variety of payment methods as possible.
Go beyond basic Shopify Pay and think about adding manual options like cash-on-delivery or pay-over-time options with an app like Affirm.
Plus, bonus points if you can enable accelerated payment options like:
- Google Pay
- Apple Pay
- Amazon Pay
- Shopify Pay
These frictionless checkout methods allow customers to complete orders in a single click.
Meaning you’ll seriously pump up your conversion rate by removing all of the pesky forms that act as a speedbump at checkout.
Maximize Revenue Hack #5: Focus on the Entire Funnel
Lots of ecommerce merchants tend to focus on one specific area of their ecommerce sales funnel to the detriment of other aspects.
For example, you might spend hours creating a killer Facebook ad that drives lots of traffic, but if your product page sucks, you’ll struggle to make sales.
Similarly, areas like your homepage or thank-you page might not be firing on all cylinders, which means you’ll be leaving revenue on the table as visitors move through your funnel.
Here’s a quick run-down of how to optimize each of these stages:
a) Homepage Optimization
Your homepage is where the bulk of your search traffic will land.
Plus, customers from other traffic sources often navigate to your homepage to get an overview of your brand. Here’s how to nail it:
- Have a headline with a clear value proposition
- Include an eye-catching banner image showing your product
- Add an ‘above the fold’ CTA to encourage visitor action
- Display categories, collections, and offers for easy navigation
- Feature your best customer reviews
- Design for mobile first (see hack #1)
To see a fantastic product page that’s designed to drive visitors down the funnel, check out this one from dental-care brand Quip:
b) Product Page Optimization
The product page is where the magic happens. It’s where customers switch from being ‘interested’ in an item to buying it. There’s a whole lot that goes into product page optimization, but here’s a quick list to get you started:
- Use unique, professional product images
- Include customer reviews
- Remove clutter for a clean design
- Write short, sharp copy for your ideal buyer
- Have a clear CTA
- Include all information customers need to buy (shipping, product details, etc.)
To see these tips in action, check out this minimalist product page from Dollar Shave Club:
c) Checkout Optimization
There’s not a huge amount you can do to customize Shopify’s checkout page, but that doesn’t mean you have to accept the super plain standard template. Here’s how to optimize it:
- Upload your logo and brand colors for continuity
- Test different shipping costs (free works well!) and personalize the name of your shipping options
- Offer express checkout options, so customers don’t have to fill in forms
- Include a progress bar, so customers know where they are in the checkout process
d) Thank You Page Optimization
The thank-you page is the most unexploited opportunity to make more money in ecommerce today.
Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, understands this.
Look at the options to share your purchase on social media, as well as personalized product recommendations on their order confirmation page:
But the vast majority of Shopify stores, including many large brands, make no effort to offer product recommendations, post-purchase upsells, or shopify cross-selling to their customers.
This is crazy when you think about it because the people who’ve just bought from you are arguably are the folks who are most likely to buy again.
According to data from the back-end of ReConvert, optimizing your thank-you page can take your thank you page conversion rate from 0 to 2% and increase your returning customer rate by 10%.
In other words, if you're not leveraging some sort of landing page offer, you're likely leaving serious money on the table!
✍️Editors Note:
Every merchant wants to maximize revenue and make more profit.
But the problem is doing so often involves buckets of trial and error and wasted energy.
A customized thank-you page is the easiest, most painless way to boost your store's revenue.
Setting it up will probably be the best paid 20-30 minutes of work you'll ever do (we're talking Elon Musk-level hourly rates)
Get started with a ReConvert and claim your 30-day risk-free trial today.
Maximize Revenue Hack #6: Focus on Retention
It’s natural to want to attract new customers to your business.
But if you look at the data, you see that acquiring new customers costs about six to seven times more than retaining your existing ones.
In other words, once you’ve acquired a customer, you’ve done most of the hard work; turning existing customers into repeat buyers is how you get on the train to profit city.
Hat’s because sixty percent of loyal customers will talk about their favorite brands with people in their social circles.
Meaning that if your customer base happy, your business will start to grow itself.
There are a few great ways to sell more to your existing customers:
- Re-targeting: Facebook ads and Google ads both allow you to re-target customer segments with personalized content and offers
- Email marketing: Send automated emails like birthday offers and re-engagement campaigns to keep customers coming back for more
- Social Media: Engage one on one with followers, provide support, and feature customers on your social media profiles
- Loyalty Program: Ofer rewards for your best shoppers and encourage customers to spend more with loyalty program membership tiers.
Maximize Revenue Hack #7: No Hidden Costs
Tell me if you can relate:
You’re shopping online. You spot a great deal. You add to cart. Your hit checkout.
Your excitement is building until you fill in your personal information, and BAM! $45 shipping charge and $20 sales tax is slapped onto your order.
So, you close your browser and go do something else.
If you know the feeling, you’re not alone.
In fact, research shows that unexpected charges like shipping and tax are the number one reason why shoppers abandon their purchases.
Companies like Aliexpress, Amazon, and eBay have mastered the art of cost transparency.
Their goal is to show you the total cost of your order as early as possible in the buying process.
Because it’s not necessarily high costs that cause people to abandon their cart, it’s the fact that they’re hidden until a later stage that miffs people off.
So, as a merchant, try showing all associated costs on the product page or the cart page.
You can give shipping estimates using their IP address (apps can help with this).
Alternatively, just write the shipping costs to the most common countries you ship to. Same thing for taxes if you charge them.
The idea is to frame the purchase properly upfront, so customers don’t feel like they’re getting a bad deal later.
Always Test Everything
Maximizing your revenue comes down to figuring out what’s working and what’s not.
But in eCommerce, it’s not enough to have a guess or rely on a hunch.
Instead, you need data. That means you should be using A/B testing to determine the most fruitful CRO tactics for your store.
A/B testing means you’ll split your traffic and show each half a product page or homepage with a single difference between them.
This allows you to determine which pages convert better.
Apply A/B tests to things like:
- Images on your product pages
- Product titles and descriptions
- Call to action buttons (text and color)
- Shipping fees
- Product prices
A couple of Shopify apps on the market allow you to swap your store elements every few hours and compare results.
We haven’t used them yet, but they might be worth a look if you’re interested.
In Summary
And that’s a wrap! To recap, the seven tips for maximizing revenue we covered were:
- Optimizing for mobile (Place your CTAs above the fold)
- Improving your website speed (use Google’s free page speed tool & hire freelance developers on Upwork)
- Using multi-channel recovery (install Carti abandoned cart recovery)
- Offer as many payment options as possible (especially accelerated options)
- Make your entire funnel watertight (use ReConvert to pull revenue form your thank-you page)
- Build a retention strategy (Create a loyalty program, send birthday reminders, etc.)
- Don’t hide any costs; make everything transparent for the customer
Now over to you! Have we forgotten anything? Do you have any tips to share of your own? Let us know in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!
