If you’ve gone through the effort of building your own Shopify store, spent hours choosing your colours and writing your content, it feels like a kick in the crotch when no one actually buys anything.
If that’s you, don’t shut it down just yet. It happens to everyone and we can fix it.
Let me hold your hand through this.
In this article
Step one
Are you getting the right traffic?
Firstly, I’m assuming you’ve checked your analytics and can see you’re getting traffic but no sales.
Rule of thumb
Don’t forget you need to get at least 100 site visitors to make one sale, so if you’re not getting any views, that’s where you need to start.
Next, if you do have a decent level of traffic, let’s make sure it’s the right crowd for you. We need to make sure it’s not bots or people who are there for something completely different.
In your Google Search Console, you will be able to see what keywords people are using to land on your website. If you sell candles and they’re searching for ear wax, for example, that’s mystery solved. Also, I would want to know what you wrote on your website to trigger this keyword, but let’s not get into this now.
If you’re running paid traffic to your website and/or your organic traffic aligns with what you’re selling, then we know the problem is with the website itself.
I’m sorry, I know this is not the news you wanted to hear.
Step two
The most common online store icks
It’s hard to see a website you’ve built yourself, or even just had for a while, with a fresh eye.
The list of most common online store icks includes:
- Spin to win gadgets. Just ew.
- A bare bones, unmodified Shopify template that makes me wonder if you’re going to steal my credit card details and run.
- Bad product photos, or AI generated product photos.
- Lack of trust signals like payment processing icons, easy contact and info on delivery and returns.
If you have any of these on your website, it’s back to the drawing board for you! Time to put some work into your store. If you’re unsure about the design, ask a friend for honest feedback or send it to me. Honestly, I would be interested to see your website if you feel it needs a professional’s eye on it. I’m nosey like that.
Step three
Level Pro: the 4 things that need to happen before anyone buys
If you’re certain these basic fixes are all covered, we can move on to Level Pro of website investigation.
For a person to make a purchase online, 4 things need to happen. I need to:
- A. be able to find the product
- B. believe the product will fix the issue I’m trying to fix
- C. trust you will deliver the product
- D. know you’ll take it back if for some reason it doesn’t live up to your promises.
A. Can I find the product?
A is a matter of navigation and site structure. You just need to click around on your website and count how many steps a person would have to take before finding the product they’re looking for.
B. Do I believe it will work?
B is the stuff of good copy and photos. Your site content must answer every question I might have before I decide to type out my credit card number. Does this work with my existing routine? Is the size what I think it is? Do you have any proof to confirm it works? If any of these questions remain unanswered, that creates doubt, and that likely means I won’t be buying.
C. Do I trust you?
C is for independent reviews, endorsements, publications as well as payment and delivery safety. Especially if I’ve never heard of you before, I need to know you are safe to buy from.
D. Can I send it back?
For many shoppers, if they can’t tell how to return the product they’re about to buy, they’ll give up on buying it altogether.
Over to you
Your homework
I know this is a big list of homework, but we didn’t get into the Shopify business to have free time, did we! If you have any questions, find me on Instagram and ask away, or email me here!
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And don’t forget to join my weekly newsletter, 1% Better Shopify Store, where every Wednesday I tell you one small thing to improve on your site.
