It's an old myth that you have to choose between conversion rate and creativity.
That myth has now been busted. Better design = better conversion rate.
Pulling off such a feat used to be considered impossible back in these old days. But now, you have trailblazer and frontier-define-er to inspire you. These are stores that are doing brilliant jobs in designing stunning web pages that convert.
Take a look at how they’re doing and apply the lessons learned to your own online store.
E-commerce Store Case Study: BIG BUD PRESS
BIG BUD PRESS is a Los Angeles based label specializing in size-inclusive, unisex everyday goods. It has 35,6% organic search traffic (compared to the market average rate of 33,9%) and a bounce rate of 22% (compared to the market’s average rate of 37,5%).
In this article
Above the fold area: Unique and Eye-catching
Super high-resolution hero image
The above-the-fold-area is what store visitors see right upon entering your website, without scrolling down the page. It’s critical to customize this area so that visitors take in the key points within a few seconds and have a great first impression.
The above-the-fold area is where you introduce your brand personality and pique visitors' intrigue to ultimately convince them to scroll down and have a look through your products. It sounds like a lot of work, but look how BIG BUD PRESS effortlessly orchestrates the awe factors.
This is how BIG BUD PRESS designed its above-the-fold section.
First, they use non-professional models. Right off the bat, you're welcomed with a diverse group of people who defy the skinny-6’ft-tall stereotypes. In a fashion world saturated with skinny, 6’ft tall models, they root for being comfortable in your own skin. It's simple, it's direct, it’s storytelling at its finest.
Take a look at BIG BUD PRESS and admire their super high-resolution hero image. You can even spot the little wrinkles in the left-most girl’s arm. With such a great investment in photography, the brand at the very least has delivered a clear message to visitors: regardless of what we are selling, we’re dedicated to it.
Clear Navigation Bar
You might be tempted to include every link in the navigation bar. That’s actually what many brands are doing. To clarify the effectiveness of the approach, just ask yourself as an online shopper:
What are you looking for when entering a brand’s homepage?
Well, there’s a high chance you will come to a website to browse the nearest store, sometimes to request a refund and/or complain about a bad experience. However, placing a Signup to Newsletter link in the homepage’s navigation bar seems to make little sense. People just don’t come to your store to sign up for your newsletter.
In its navigation bar, BIG BUG PRESS makes it so clear what they have: Product categories, Sales information, Store Addresses, and Cart Information. It’s simply an overview of the store without any needless distractions.
Homepage: A Trusted, Unique Brand Appearance
Unique Styling
The word “unique” might come to mind when searching around the BIG BUD PRESS homepage. With solid colors, a primary orange tone, and a consistent theme in their photography, it’s just impossible to confuse BIG BUD PRESS with any other store.
Brick and mortar stores
Showing off their two brick-and-mortar stores - and providing detailed directions - significantly increases the page’s credibility. It tells shoppers they can come to test the products first-hand. It also drops a hint about the prosperity of the brand. Well, brands cannot get prosperous without being trusted.
Product Page: Transparency
A Serious Investment In Product Photography
Go ahead and take a closer look at some of their product pages, you’ll see that the super high-res hero image is just a part of the brand’s dedication to visualizing products. If there’s anything you can do to ensure customers about the quality of your products, taking high-quality photos is it.
From a shopper’s point of view, being able to zoom in to small stitches with fabric details proves the merchant's transparency and good product quality, which is a considerable advantage.
Strong Product Description Game
The product description can be more than just ‘fill-in-a-blank’ content.
BIG BUD PRESS product descriptions are written with sincerity, a pin of humor and an original voice. They anchor their visitors down and let them love BIG BUD PRESS, without throwing intrusive ads or trying to wheel them in with huge discounts.
Detailed, genuine product descriptions will help you to rank your product pages higher. BIG BUD PRESS ranked at #4 on Google for the Jumpsuit keyword, just below Amazon and Etsy!
Payment Options
More than allowing various payment methods, BIG BUD PRESS collaborates with Afterpay, a digital checkout service that allows you to take now and pay later. Although just temporarily, this gets rid of hesitation caused by shipping cost and product price, and as a result favors the store’s conversion rate.
Shipping And Payment Methods
Despite being such an obvious thing, this still deserves a mention: Offering a variety of payment methods significantly improves your conversion rate.
Customers have traveled a long way from the homepage, through your product page, checkout page, and they’ve even filled out their address and other details. It’d be such a shame to lose them at this final step because their payment method isn’t supported.
Popular payment methods like VISA, MASTER, AMEX DEBIT, and PayPal are indispensable and you just can't afford to lack any of them.
What could be better?
If you were to improve something in this store, what do you think you’ll suggest?
BIG BUD PRESS is a brand with a strong offline presence, so there’s a high chance that driving traffic to their brick-and-mortar stores is also a priority for them, making their website not fully optimized for a kick-ass online conversion rate.
It’s important to always treat your website as a separate - and even dominant - platform for sales. If you’re a sizable business, then you should employ someone specifically to manage the website. E-commerce is fast becoming the top dog - even in the world of fashion - so doing this is essential.
Mobile Loading Speed
Fast and slow are relative concepts, but in this day and age, the old fast is now considered a snail’s pace. A loading score of 77 is pretty good - but it could always be better to satisfy those impatient shoppers.
Google combines a variety of factors to generate the final score - we can have a general idea of whether the website’s load speed is good or bad by looking through them. In general, 77 is considered average, so some optimization in this field is necessary.
A 77 score is the average score for mobile load speed
In the Opportunities section, Google suggests many optimizations that can be applied to speed up the page load. Primarily, they are to do with CSS and image optimization, which can be implemented without much difficulty by your technical specialist.
No add-to-cart buttons
Placing an add-to-cart button under each item won’t occupy too much space and it means that you’re not sacrificing the chance to convert visitors quickly from your homepage.
This holds true to the SHOP ALL page, as well. Some people, like returning customers or the ones that previously came to the physical stores, simply have no doubt about the product quality. They are on the go and just want to pick some of these products. An add-to-cart button within reach makes this super convenient and thus increases your conversion rate.
Shrinkable product descriptions
As you can see, there’s no way to view the full photo and select different variants. This is a matter of customer experience. Not only would adding this create a sense of convenience, but it would also save time.
Wrapping content within the above-the-fold area also adds to a better design. Try it out for yourself.
Conclusion
Making a fantastic online store with a high conversion rate is easier said than done - we know. That's why we won't stop at simply inspiring you, but we’ll also show you the way to have an excellent online store!
Check out our most-read resources on how to build an online store that converts!
- Ecommerce Landing Page Best Practices For Higher Sales
- Shopify Product Page: The Ultimate Customization Guide
- Enhance Your Shopify Store Conversion Tracking: Best Practices and Guidelines
- Customer Acquisition: Guides, Tips and Best Practices
Know a store that you think is brilliant and has a high conversion rate? Let us know and we’ll take a look and see what we can all learn from it. Cheers!
