So, you’ve decided to start an online store. The design, planning and late-night tweaks have finally been put to good use. The store’s live, and traffic is flooding in – all looks good! But that excitement takes a nosedive when you realise that traffic isn’t turning into sales.
Published on September 27, 2023
Don’t fret! Let’s find out what’s going on.
In the early stages of running an online store, it’s common to see traffic kick off with a bang. After all, consumers need to flock to your site to learn more about your product. Some will stay and make a purchase…
… but many won’t. When all that traffic isn’t converting to sales, it’ll leave you scratching your head.
Generating traffic is the easy part. Converting traffic into sales is where many Shopify store owners run into trouble.
The good news is that this problem isn’t unique. In this post, we’ll look at every reason under the sun why your Shopify store is pulling in traffic, but not sales.
Let’s turn your Shopify store into a booming business.
How To Diagnose The Problem
We shouldn’t discount the value of traffic. High-five to traffic! Without the traffic, you wouldn’t have a single potential sale.
But why are people coming to your site and not buying anything?
Diagnosing the problem starts with taking a few steps back and analysing your site from the customer’s perspective.
Using your dashboard’s valuable metrics, you can learn about visitor behaviour and why there’s such a large discrepancy between your traffic and sales. Shopify shows where the problems lie and which areas need attention.
Analysing Shopify Metrics
Shopify provides real-time data to show where to focus your efforts.
Average Order Value
The average order value is the total sales divided by the total number of orders. Understanding the average customer spend helps to guide fair pricing policies.
Store Conversion Rate
This is the percentage of online sessions that lead to a sale. The conversion rate metric also shows how many customers abandoned their orders at Cart or Checkout. It’s common for numbers to decrease at each stage of the conversion funnel (cart – checkout – sale).
Device Used For Sessions And Sales
See what devices your customers use to visit your online store, i.e. mobile, tablet or desktop.
Number Of Sales And Sessions Via Social Media
See how many sessions originated from each social media channel – Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or Twitter. This will help you tailor your marketing efforts to suit high-performing social channels.
Traffic Source (Direct, Search, Email Or Social)
Find out where your traffic is coming from. How many of your visitors find your online store through search, social media or email? How many use your URL to access your store directly?
Customer Locations
See what countries your customers are coming from to learn more about your target audience.
Repeat Customer Rate
The repeat customer rate is the percentage of customers who completed more than one sale on your online store. RCR shows your level of customer loyalty.
Most-Visited Landing Page
A landing page is the first page your visitors ‘land on’ when they come to your online store, whether the home page or a product page. Shopify’s dashboard shows the URL of the first page visited in each session.
Top Products Sold
See what products deliver the most sales for easier inventory management.
Reasons For High Traffic And No Sales
Now that you’ve taken a good look at your Shopify analytics, it’s time to find out why you’re not seeing sales.
So, what’s causing the problem? We’ve compiled every possible reason. Let’s get straight into it.
#1. Your Store Is Difficult To Navigate
Navigation and design are the first things your visitors will notice when coming to your Shopify site. If they can find what they need, they’ll stay. If they can’t, they’ll leave. Although Shopify’s templates make it easy to set up an online store, you’ll need to inject it with some creative flair to make it as user-friendly as possible.
Here are some ideas for quick navigation improvement:
- Include a search field.
- Use uniform colours and fonts throughout your site.
- Categorise your products in primary navigation menus.
- Clearly define each category and subcategory.
- Include a “You May Also Like” section at the bottom of each product page.
#2 Your On-Page Copy Is Hard To Read
Short, succinct paragraphs are the way to go for on-page copy. Visitors come to Shopify sites to shop, not to be bombarded with a whole lot of words. Get straight to the point when describing your product and calling shoppers to action.
#3 Your Mobile Site Is Poorly Designed Or Disabled
Mobile sales now account for 63% of online shopping orders, making it critical to ensure your site is mobile-friendly. While making your site mobile responsive is vital to achieving high sales, it’s also important to ensure your mobile design is as good as your desktop version… if not better.
Optimising your site for mobile will also improve your SEO efforts. Google switched to mobile-first indexing in 2019, meaning it now uses mobile content for determining search ranking. Shopify makes it easy to optimise your mobile site with several hacks to make the process quick and easy.
#4 Your Site Appears Untrustworthy
Trust signals are a big deal these days. Shopify offers a selection of trust badges that reassure visitors that the site is secure. Install a Shopify trust badge to show your customers you take their security seriously. Shopify provides badges for quality assurance, payment security, money-back guarantees, third-party endorsements and many more.
#5 Your Product Images Are Limited
Customers want to view a product from every angle before purchasing it. Shopify allows for up to 250 images per product. Don’t go too crazy, or it will affect your site speed, but make sure there are plenty of images to persuade your visitors to make a purchase.
#6 Your Site Is Too Slow
Site speed is one of the main reasons visitors will abandon your online store. As we’re accustomed to super-fast loading times these days, patience wears thin fast. Studies show that 40% of visitors will leave a website if loading takes longer than three seconds.
Yes, you read that right. You have three seconds… max.
The longer you keep your visitors waiting, the less likely they’ll move to the next step in the purchase process.
#7 You’re Targeting The Wrong Audience
Your target audience is those who are most likely to purchase your products. If sales are low, it could indicate that you’ve misidentified your audience.
Identifying your target audience should happen long before the launch of your online store, but we don’t always get it right.
Now that you’ve spent some time in the eCommerce space, you can use your site’s analytics to your advantage and discover more customer information. With these insights at your fingertips, you can focus your marketing efforts on the right people and convert more traffic to sales.
#8 Your SEO Attracts The Wrong Visitors
There’s no denying the critical role SEO plays in converting your website traffic to sales. If you’re not seeing the sales you want, it could mean your SEO is working against you, not for you.
Audit your SEO strategy to make sure you’ve selected the right keywords for your target audience. The wrong keywords and phrases will attract the wrong visitors, causing a spike in traffic and a dip in sales.
What do we mean by the ‘wrong’ keywords? Finding the right keywords is often a process of trial and error. We don’t always get it right at first, but we can use conversion metrics to understand the impact of your keyword strategy.
Updating your content with new keywords and phrases will optimise your conversion rate. Make sure your new keywords are easy to rank for and relevant for your online store.
#9 Your Competitors Are Outperforming You
It’s a competitive world out there, especially on the internet. What do you offer that your competitors don’t?
If the answer is nothing, you’ve got a lot of work to do.
High traffic and low sales indicate your visitors are going elsewhere to find what they need.
Whether visitors are put off by your product prices or your site’s clunkiness, you’ll have to find out how your competitors are outdoing your efforts. Research competitor websites, reviews and marketing campaigns to find out what’s attracting customers to their store.
#10 Your Site Has No Calls To Action
Customers need prompting to move to the next stage of the purchasing process. What action do you want your visitors to take? Tell them through compelling CTA text and buttons, such as:
- Sign Up For Free
- Buy Now
- Book Now
- Shop Now
- Find Out More
- Go To Cart
You can create your own clickable CTA buttons on Shopify to make it easy for your customers to enter the sales funnel.
#11 Your Prices Are Too High
Many online store owners try their luck with higher prices only to find that this technique is never the answer to higher revenue.
Research competitor prices to gauge the fair market price for your products. Your prices must also reflect your target audience’s budget. If you’re pitching luxury prices to budget-conscious shoppers, you can kiss those sales goodbye.
#12 Your Store Has Too Many Popups
There’s another word for this: spam. Nobody likes a spammy website.
Popups and notifications are incredibly annoying, but they also get in the way of your site’s content.
There’s a time and place for some popup features, such as a countdown timer on a sale, a chatbot or large promotional text. Don’t activate them all at once, and make sure they’re all out of the way of the mobile ‘thumb zone’. Sites heavy with popup GIFs and ads are also much slower to load, resulting in more visitors bouncing out early.
#13 Your Shipping Costs Are Too High
There are few things more frustrating than adding high shipping costs at checkout. Shipping costs are the number one reason shoppers abandon their carts.
It may seem like shipping costs are out of your control, but there are many ways to reduce the cost on your end and benefit the customer.
- Research delivery providers – Delivery costs are based on many different variables. Shop around for lower rates or negotiate with your provider for discounts on higher shipping volumes. Many delivery companies will also offer a discount rate in exchange for loyalty.
- Reduce costs on packaging supplies – Materials such as boxing, bubble wrap, and airfill significantly increase your overall shipping costs. Reducing the average shipment cost will also reduce shipping costs for the customer.
- Minimise average packaging size and weight – The larger your package size, the higher the shipping costs. Maintain the item’s original size and weight where possible.
#14 Your Checkout Page Appears Unsecured
A lot of trust goes into entering credit card details at checkout. Shoppers want assurance that their credit card information won’t be captured while on your site. Shopify adheres to the highest standards of server compliance, protecting all customer data. However, visitors like to see security assurance before handing over their details.
Adding a Shopify security badge near the Add To Cart button will give shoppers peace of mind that their details are secure early in the purchasing process. Shoppers can click on the security badge to see complete documentation of Shopify’s commitment to Payment Card Industry (PCI) standard compliance.
#15 You Don’t Offer Enough Payment Options
Shoppers can be very particular about their payment preferences. Some will only purchase through Paypal, and others prefer to use their credit card directly.
It’s a good idea to offer as many options as possible, including payment plan services such as Laybuy and Afterpay. Providing several options increases the likelihood that visitors will complete their purchase.
What to do next…
Do you want to achieve sustainable sales results for your eCommerce site? Take a look at how we grew client sales by 87% in 6 months! We can do this for you, too! Take a look at our many insights and guides, or book a free consultation with the Found team today.
Emily Bodman
Content Marketing Specialist
Emily is a Content Marketing Specialist at Found whose focus is to craft SEO-optimised content that engages audiences and drives results.
