www.Morebrownies.com has been live for about a week now and we have been getting great feedback on our concept. We've had a few blogs write about us, generated thousands of unique visitors and taken a number of orders, but our conversion rate is terrible. Far less than 1% of our visitors have placed an order. What in your opinion are we doing wrong? Is there something specific on our site that turns you off from ordering?
Ask HN: Why is our eCommerce store converting poorly?
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Re: Ask HN: Why is our eCommerce store converting poorly?
#2So I'm not quite sure who it's for from the homepage, and further - I am confused as to how brownies equate to buying expensive things at first glance. When I opened the homepage my first instinct was to get home delivered brownies on a regular basis.
Re: Ask HN: Why is our eCommerce store converting poorly?
#3I'll qualify myself by saying I've done a lot of ecommerce, roughly $1.5M on my own ecommerce stores over the last few years.
Also, I am probably your target customer. Married, 3 kids, gift giver.
At first glance, great idea and great execution. I like the design, and the concept seems to make sense. It gives you a sort of "aha, that is smart" moment. I felt like you need to move your Get Started button under the 1-2-3 steps, where I actually decided I wanted to get started.
In addition, the gift choices look like good ones. Limited choice, high quality, decent value for the price.
Now let me tell you why I probably won't convert, and maybe you can apply this to other customers: I naturally feel inclined to put this decision off until later. The idea of making these choices now and forgetting them in a few weeks is a bit scarry. Will I remember what she's getting on V-day? Birthday? What if I find another great present later and buy it, then this seems like an awkward side gift? Could I get a better deal if I just pick these up at a florist myself? The jewelry seems pretty inexpensive, is it any good? Ahh I think I should just put this off. Too much thinking when the deadline is so far away.
So, I don't want you to respond to these thoughts, but consider what they mean for the business and your conversion rate. The best way to increase conversion is to understand the target customer.
Re: Ask HN: Why is our eCommerce store converting poorly?
#4So I'm not quite sure who it's for from the homepage, and further - I am confused as to how brownies equate to buying expensive things at first glance. When I opened the homepage my first instinct was to get home delivered brownies on a regular basis.
You've never heard of the term "brownie points"? Are you from outside of the US?
Re: Ask HN: Why is our eCommerce store converting poorly?
#5So I'm not quite sure who it's for from the homepage, and further - I am confused as to how brownies equate to buying expensive things at first glance. When I opened the homepage my first instinct was to get home delivered brownies on a regular basis.
I'd guess every single one of the target customers know the term 'brownie points'.
Re: Ask HN: Why is our eCommerce store converting poorly?
#6I'll qualify myself by saying I've done a lot of ecommerce, roughly $1.5M on my own ecommerce stores over the last few years. Also, I am probably your target customer. Married, 3 kids, gift giver. At first glance, great idea and great execution. I like the design, and the concept seems to make sense. It gives you a sort of "aha, that is smart" moment. I felt like you need to move your Get Started button under the 1-2…
This was very helpful. I agree that there are a lot of decisions to be made that don't seem necessary for something so far in advance. That may be a tough nut to crack. I'm going to dig into this more and see if the feedback is consistent.
Re: Ask HN: Why is our eCommerce store converting poorly?
#7So I'm not quite sure who it's for from the homepage, and further - I am confused as to how brownies equate to buying expensive things at first glance. When I opened the homepage my first instinct was to get home delivered brownies on a regular basis.
You've never heard of the term "brownie points"? Are you from outside of the US?
I'm from the US and know the term. I was merely giving a first glance impression. This is all very relevant to conversion... Even on the homepage.
Perhaps the wording on the submit button is what's throwing me off. Something more explanatory like "View our gifts", etc. that would help drive the point home to the visitor about what clicking that button will actually do.
Re: Ask HN: Why is our eCommerce store converting poorly?
#8Where are you losing people? If no one is clicking get started, address the homepage first. If people look at products but still don't buy, start with your products page.
1. Are you performing split testing on major components of your landing page?
"Increase your brownie points!" strikes me as awkward and mathematical (makes me think $browniePoints++). Ask a few friends in your target market to help you brainstorm.
2. I almost missed the arrows to see more products per category. Make them more prominent and switch the circles in the top right for page numbers.
Re: Ask HN: Why is our eCommerce store converting poorly?
#9Where are you losing people? If no one is clicking get started, address the homepage first. If people look at products but still don't buy, start with your products page. 1. Are you performing split testing on major components of your landing page? "Increase your brownie points!" strikes me as awkward and mathematical (makes me think $browniePoints++). Ask a few friends in your target market to help you brainstorm. 2…
Ah, forgot to say where the drop-off is. We lose most people on the gift selection page.
- 60% make it from the homepage to the gift selection page (not bad).
- 3% make it to from the gift selection page to the billing page (eeeeh).
It's a huge drop-off and we are trying to pin-point why. It may be a product issue, but most people have given us good feedback on our selection of products. We are going to mix in some other brands to see if it helps at all.
We have split tested the landing page and were able to increase the click-through rate by 20%. No other split tests are running at the moment.
Re: Ask HN: Why is our eCommerce store converting poorly?
#10One problem might be you seem "too new" to trust to give money to, and the site doesn't have the following 'signals' that will help someone trust you ... (the site could just be a shell designed to siphon credit card numbers from folks ...)
- no customer service page with email address or method for inquiries
- generally no contact info that includes legal company name, address, local phone number
- No 'login' link on the home page that would indicate an account is set up after the first order, that would allow you to manage orders once placed.
- A blurry photo with only twitter IDs for contact
- No references or recommendations or affiliations that help me trust you.
- No conditions of use, or copyright, or privacy notice which are kind of standard on commerce sites.
I get you are probably in a YC cohort based on the orange Y background in the fuzzy photo. But unless you are only marketing to others in YC, the 800# and lack of all other ways to contact you is not at all confidence inspiring in terms of giving money to you, to the general public.
All that, combined with a business model where you bill it all up front, it could be perceived as a little suspect. So not one specific thing, for me a bundle of indicators. Hope that helps.