Increasing Conversion Rates in Shopify – 9 Pro Hacks for Apparel e-tailers

If you notice low conversion rates in your Shopify fashion shop, don’t worry, you are not alone. Going live with your store is one thing, optimizing for conversions is a whole different topic.

The good news is that you have chosen Shopify, one of the best e-commerce platforms on the market, with plenty of options to increase your conversion rates and your overall results.

In this article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about increasing conversion on your Shopify fashion shop. Are you ready? Let’s get started!

1. First things first: what is a good conversion rate in Shopify?

The short answer is…it depends. Some factors that influence your conversion rate are your industry, your price point, your sales region etc. However, the Shopify analytics and benchmarking service Little Data ran several surveys and found an average conversion rate of 1.5% across industries/sales regions. A 0.4% CR would place you among the lowest performing 20%, and a 3.3% would mean you are in the top 20% of all Shopify shops.

For all fashion e-commerce shops (not only Shopify) an IRPcommerce study confirmed an average conversion rate of 1.7%.

2. Size matters

With a whooping 52% of returns motivated by the wrong fit, it is no wonder that sizing issues are one of the main drivers of hesitation when it comes to clicking the Purchase button. Our first tip, give your customers exactly what they want, and get yourself a solid sizing solution.

No, we are not just talking about a size chart, but about a comprehensive, user-friendly fit advisor. There are plenty of choices on the market, and many of them are very affordable, read here for more details.

3. Less opinions, more data

Shopify can be fully integrated with Google Analytics, which is great for conducting A/B tests and to identify the product pages that perform best in terms of conversion rates. But don’t limit yourself to that.

Instead, try to use the time between orders to anticipate future purchases.

Once you know the average time your users wait between purchases, you can segment your audiences and get creative with those ‘Hey, need a new skirt?’ emails and retargeting campaigns that match the buying habits of your users.

Among the analytics apps for Shopify, Conversific is one of our favorites. While Google Analytics and other apps can sometimes get cluttered, this app gives you clear insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your Shopify shop.

Conversific not only gives you a preview of your online store’s performance, but also makes a comparison of the performance of other shops similar to yours.

As a bonus, the app advises you on what steps to take to improve your performance. The weekly and monthly reports and “to do” lists contain specific tasks that you can act upon immediately.

4. Location, location, location

You have a great product, but do you also have great product pages? That’s where your product lives, and that’s what is going to show in the SERP.

The good news is, with Shopify you have full control over how to display your product listings, for example you can add multiple images – and it even supports GIF files and videos. Shopify also offers many ways to organize and publish your product descriptions. With full control over the look and feel of your online store, you can experiment and find the one that attracts the most customers and offers the best shopping experience. You can find some of the best practices for product page optimization here.

5. Don’t make them think!

Do you know this book? Steve Krug’s ‘Don’t make me think’ is the reference text for web usability and human-computer interaction. To recap it in a few words, your job is to bring the user from the landing page to their goal as quickly as possible (buy that skirt!), but you have to fight against: exit points, unclear purchase flows, TL;DRs etc. Each distraction, each opportunity to ‘think’ about anything other than completing the purchase, gives the user the chance of getting tired, leaving your e-commerce shop, and never coming back.

Keep your designs simple, keep your purchase flow clear, and bring them from point A to point B with as little cognitive overload as possible.

6. Negative feedback is the best feedback

Think about it: would you openly criticize someone you don’t care about? I know I wouldn’t invest my time telling them how to improve.

Negative feedback is gold, as it is the only kind of feedback that helps you spot your own mistakes, and fix them.

If a customer churns or leaves a negative comment, do send an email, reply to the comment or, even better, pick up the phone and have a chat with them. Those users, believe it or not, are key to your success.

7. Insert user-generated reviews

No, you won’t need to spend your weekends deleting negative reviews, few are ok and if anything, they will give more credibility to an otherwise too-perfect profile. Social proof is a thing and, quoting Adweek.com “Retailers that display online ratings see conversion rates rise as much as 270%”. Worth giving it a try, right?

The free Shopify application “Product Reviews“, one of the best Shopify Apps for clothing stores, allows you to add customer reviews about your products. In this way, your customers will be able to comment and motivate others to buy from your store. In addition, the content published in customer reviews can contribute to search engine optimization.

8. Explore Shopify Plus

It can seem pricey, but among other great features, there are several targeted at improving user experience and increasing conversion rates. Some examples:

• Social media login buttons, for an easy, one-step account login.
• Access to checkout.liquid file, to modify the checkout page designs and fields with custom CSS and JavaScript. You can also add dynamic content, such as shipping date estimates.
• Address auto-completion: with Google’s Autocomplete API, you can add this functionality to the chart, reducing the time needed to complete the check-out.
• Shopify Scripts: small snippets of code that, once inserted into your online store, allow you to create personalized experiences for your customers in the shopping cart and at checkout. For example, you can offer a discount or modify the payment options based on a specific behavior of the user. This helps reduce cart abandonment.

9. Slash cart abandonment

It is very common for online customers to fill their carts and then close your website until further notice. And it’s up to you getting them back.

With Smart Cart Recovery, you can combine email and Facebook messages to get powerful results and gain an edge over competitors.

This app allows you to create a sequence of messages like the following:

Message 1 (Email): Hi! We’ve saved your order – want to come back and complete it?

Message 2 (Facebook Messenger): Hi, {{first_name}}! We know you are interested in these products, so we’ve saved your order.

Also, it allows you to use discount codes to incentivize the sale.

As you can see, there’s plenty of options to optimize the conversion rates of your fashion e-commerce shop, and Shopify itself offers quite a few.

To summarize, the main points are: avoid distractions in the purchase flow and give users exactly what they are looking for, as quickly and smoothly as possible.

Sizing being one of the main reasons for hesitation at the moment of purchase, it might be worth considering the integration of a size recommender like Sizefox in your shop. Create an account and try the app in your Shopify store, it only takes 15 minutes, and it’s completely free of charge.

There is not one size fits all when it comes to conversion optimization, but any tool or strategy you use, even a little at a time, will always be worth a try.

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