Why it is ridiculously hard for eCommerce businesses to work on conversion rate optimization

While every e-commerce business owner knows just how important conversions are when it comes to building their bottom line, many have difficulty figuring out how to raise their conversion rates efficiently. Conversion rate optimization takes time, money, knowledge, and patience, and it can still be a challenge for businesses, especially those without the resources of enterprise businesses.

Here are some reasons why small and medium-sized businesses struggle to improve their conversion rate optimization:

Cost

As much as we hate to admit it, the old adage, “it costs money to make money” is absolutely true. In order for e-commerce retailers to improve their conversion rates, they often need to spend a lot of money upfront for the different tools and resources necessary for optimizing their conversion rates.

Here is just a glimpse of what it can potentially cost an e-commerce business to step up its conversion rates:

Web optimization specialist salaries

A web optimization specialist is someone who is able to pinpoint issues and inefficiencies in a client’s website and make any changes necessary in order to improve search engine optimization, conversion rate optimization, and profitability. These professionals are important because they have the knowledge and expertise necessary to determine what aspects of an e-commerce website are helping to increase the number of conversions and which ones are hindering website visitors from converting.

However, this expertise comes at a cost. According to Indeed, the average annual salary for a web optimization specialist in 2020 is $66,233. While this is fair, especially considering the benefits that hiring a web optimization specialist will bring to an e-commerce business, it is still a significant amount of money for small and medium-sized businesses.

A/B testing

One of the most important tools that e-commerce retailers can use in order to improve their conversion rates is A/B testing. A/B testing allows e-commerce businesses to create multiple versions of a website and test each version with live traffic. This is a critical part of the conversion optimization process because it allows business owners to gauge which parts of their website are leading to conversions and which parts need to be improved upon in order to increase conversions.

While there are countless different A/B testing tools available for e-commerce businesses to use, they all come at a price. Depending on the number of unique visitors that browse an e-commerce website, the cost for A/B testing tools can range from $50 to over $1,000 per month.

The costs incurred on this tool do not end, even after the experiment has concluded. In order to actually make a difference in the business’ conversion rate, they have to actually implement the hypothesis that led to the highest number of conversions. This often means additional costs.

Product recommendation engine AI

Product recommendation engines have been shown to improve conversion rates and offer a significant return on investment. Research shows that 73% of consumers prefer personalized shopping experiences, and those who receive relevant product recommendations are far more likely to make a purchase or otherwise convert.

While no successful e-commerce business owner will deny the value of incorporating a product recommendation engine on their website, many e-commerce retailers do not add this feature because it can be costly.

Additional costs

In addition to paying for a web optimization specialist, A/B testing tool, and a product recommendation software, there are a host of other tools and resources that e-commerce businesses need, to make sure their website is optimized for conversions:

• Social proof
• Browse and cart recovery
• Dynamic push notification
• Recovery emails
• Landing page design
• Website copy

Conversion rate optimization is not a one-time activity, it is rather an ongoing process. Because of the costs involved, many small and medium-sized businesses find it very difficult to work on their conversion rate optimization.

Knowledge and implementation

Even if money were no object, many small and medium-sized businesses would still struggle to improve their conversion rate optimization because they would not know where to begin. While e-commerce business owners are experts in their field and knowledgeable about their products, many do not have the expertise of web optimization and conversion optimization professionals.

Business owners might see that their conversion rates are less than desirable, but they often are unable to pinpoint, exactly what they need to change or improve in order to give their conversion rates a boost. Furthermore, without knowledge of best practices for conversion rate optimization, some business owners end up implementing changes that actually harm their conversion rates.

For instance, a business owner may not know exactly how the location, size, color, and copy of their call-to-action can make a significant impact on their conversion rate. While they may think a button saying, “If you want a copy of our e-book, please click here” is an effective call-to-action, they may be completely unaware that changing it to say, “Download our e-book” will yield greater results.

Moreover, even when businesses are aware of different strategies for increasing conversions, they may not know how to actually put these strategies into action. Without the ability to create these solutions and implement these methods in-house, many small and medium-sized businesses have difficulty improving their conversion rate optimization.

Efficiency

As we mentioned earlier, conversion rate optimization is a process. This process involves multiple steps, and each step needs to be performed efficiently in order to garner positive results.

For instance, business owners that want to use A/B testing to improve their conversion rates will not find success if they just choose a random element to test. They have to approach this A/B test methodically and with efficiency.

After deciding to track and increase their conversion rates, e-commerce merchants need to:

• set up analytics, so they can begin to gather data surrounding this metric
• analyze this data
• create a hypothesis
• form multiple designs to test the hypothesis
• run A/B testing
• use the insights from this design to make changes to their website.

Once this is done, they need to start all over again and continue this process in order to continuously improve their conversion rates.

Skipping any of these steps will hinder a business’ progress towards a higher conversion rate, which is where many small and medium-sized businesses struggle the most.

Results

Even when businesses follow every single step in this process, they may not see high levels of success right away. It can take weeks to successfully run an A/B test or properly utilize other conversion rate optimization tools, and then it can take additional time for changes to be implemented and conversion rates to improve.

Because using these tools can be costly for small and medium-sized businesses, many are tempted to give up when they do not see success in the first couple of months. It does not help when some businesses boast about seeing significant boosts in conversions after making one tiny change to their website.

While it might sound discouraging, most of the time, conversion rate changes will be incremental. Businesses have to put in time and money to see small bits of change, only to have to run another test or fix a failed hypothesis. When businesses do not see the incredible results that they thought would occur, they stop working on conversion rate optimization altogether, missing out on the opportunity to boost their conversion rate over time.

How ConvertCart can help

If you relate to any of these issues, or you have the first-hand experience with any of these four key challenges standing in the way of your conversion rate optimization, ConvertCart offers the perfect solution.

ConvertCart helps small and medium-sized business owners boost their conversion rates without breaking the bank, and they provide the tools and resources necessary for these e-commerce retailers to achieve the results they want to see for their business.
Learn more about how ConvertCart can help your business when you visit our website.