18 Ways to Increase Conversion for Dropshipping Store in 2021

Your dropshipping store is as good as “not launched” if your prospects don’t visit and place orders. Surprisingly, you could have the best store designs and functionalities with little or no conversion. This is where the need to increase your conversion comes to play.

In this article, we’ll show you 18 proven ways to increase conversions for your dropshipping store in 2021.

Before we show you these methods, here’s why you need conversion.

Why Do We Care About Conversion?

For your online store, the conversion is a percentage of people who buy on your website in comparison to all your visitors. The idea to boost conversion rate may be said in simple words “sell more to the same number of visitors.”

Better to attract 100 people to your website and sell to 20 of them than attract 100 people and sell to 5 of them. It is a conversion rate of 20% VS a conversion rate of 5%.

What conversion rate is considered to be good for online stores? About 3% is good. At least, a purchase from 50 visitors. So, to make 100 sales a month an average eCommerce business should attract 50000 visitors, or raise the conversion rate.

Even if your store conversion rate is higher than 3% (congratulations!), it can be improved.

Here are 18 things to focus to improve the conversion rate:

• 1. Main page — Influence Consumers’ Confidence with UX
• 2. Strong & Clear Call To Action
• 3. Impressive Images Speak More
• 4. Engaging Product Description
• 5. Build and Showcase your Customer Testimonials and Reviews
• 6. Good Product Videos
• 7. Cross-sell Products you Market
• 8. Countdown Timer Hastens Buying Decisions
• 9. Discounts
• 10. Cart — Free Shipping
• 11. Payment — Provide Alternatives
• 12. Use Email Opt-In with Irresistible Offers
• 13. Offer a Free Gift for Multiple Orders
• 14. Add Live Chat Feature
• 15. Spot Your Rockstars
• 16. Make Your Contact Information Clear and Easy-to-find
• 17. After the Purchase — Referral Programs
• 18. Go for a Better On-site Search Engine

1. Main page — Influence Consumers’ Confidence with UX

According to Rachel Botsman, trust is a confident relationship to “the unknown.”

New visitors will always question themselves if it is safe to buy at a new store.

Appropriate design of your online store is the way to lower customers anxiety and help them to feel more confident – this increases conversion rates.

2. Strong & Clear Call To Action

Your copy matters a lot for improving conversion, and the use of actionable and friendly ‘call to action’ crowns it all.

Your choice of calls to action can leave a lasting impression on your visitors, and can even make them come back to buy from your store.

CTAs like – Buy Now, Order Now, Click Here To Proceed – are strong and tell your shoppers what to do next. Of course, you wouldn’t want to get your buyers confused or use very unclear words to direct their next step. Imagine using – “you can click here to go to the next page and proceed.” That’s not cool!

Primarily, you need to focus on informing visitors about your offerings, evoke emotions that make them take action, and build long-lasting value and relationships.

Crafting copies with clear and strong calls to action is not all about the use of fancy words. Understanding and communicating your brand and products’ key values nail it!

Ensure you hone your focus on calls to action as they inform your visitors on what next to do – where to click next, how to surf your site, and buy in the end.

Strong and clear calls to actions are ideal for increase in conversions.

3. Impressive Images Speak More

Let me take a wild guess…

You’re online, trying to shop some items.

What makes you follow up on a product and possibly buy it? Images!

Product images are an eye-catching instrument that helps to attract customers when compared to texts. They have a great impact on conversion rates.

Though all the information the store gives about a product is important, images are the first point, and they are more influential than descriptions and even discounts.

Choose the most magnetic and high-quality images that the manufacturer provides and make your own cool photos.

We recommend to use two types of images:

• The product on a white background to show the thing from all sides,
• The product in real life: on a desk, in the kitchen, in the garden. Show how people use your product — how they hand it, what emotions they feel.

As customers can’t touch products before they purchase, they need to look closely and examine the details. Use high-quality images that can be zoomed and rotated. This will give them a better understanding of what your product looks like. Do well to use human images in cases where they fit in as they create a better connection with your prospects.

4. Engaging Product Description

Detailed and engaging product description helps to build credibility. Best descriptions that sell and increase conversions are not wrapped in the hype; you must know this.

People like to buy from someone who cares. And you can show your deep understanding of the product and the problems it helps to solve with a good description. If your website visitors find it in tune with them, they will buy.

Do not describe only product features; write about the benefits the user will get with it.

Take for instance; sellers A and B sell the same product (Female Night Wears), but with different descriptions thus;

Seller A – This lingerie is shiny and made from the best quality material…
Seller B – Become the lady your man can’t stop admiring when you appear in this quality and shiny lingerie…
Obviously, almost every woman would want to check out Seller B’s offer.

You sell not just products, but an experience to each customer. It doesn’t matter if it becomes lengthy somewhat, as long as you format texts and use catchy designs.

How can your product make your customers happier, more productive, healthier, or smarter? What are the problems it can solve?

Write from user position. What will the person feel? Can they get the solution they desire? Is your product smooth, steady, or lightweight? Use such sensory words.

To make detailed long read descriptions friendly, use several sections of your text: what it is, design, how it works, features, characteristics. Make bullet points.

5. Build and Showcase your Customer Testimonials and Reviews

Often, customers are better convinced by other customers. It’s a general idea that sellers always want to sell, and might hype their products to make sales and increase conversion rates; this is where reviews and testimonials come to play.

Even you, as a seller, consider customer reviews when you want to make a purchase.

It’s a well-known fact that customer reviews have the potential of increasing conversion rates and building trust. They give prospects an insight into what others think about your products.

People tend to trust customer reviews and testimonials as much as they trust personal recommendations.

Here’s what to do:

• Put the reviews on the homepage
• Ensure your customer reviews reflect on your various marketing channels
• You can allow minor negative reviews to build more trust. Having 5 stars throughout can spark up doubts.
• Display your buyers’ reviews on Google.

Showcasing reviews on your store boosts your potential customers’ trust and proves to them that the products on your store have been tested and proven by people like them.

You may want to send your buyers emails to remind them to drop their reviews after making a purchase.

6. Good Product Videos

Videos can’t replace images in eCommerce but at the same time, they are really selling. That’s because they give an opportunity to see products in use.

Even Google is impressed with the number of YouTube videos for reviews, unboxing and the first use. Other people’s personal experiences help consumers to decide what’s right for them.

Here are some tips for using the videos below:

• The videos should support your goal (to sell the product)
• In the website design show that there are both photos and videos
• Add text description with the main ideas of the video, so that visitors who have no opportunity to watch it, do not feel that they missed something
• And use subtitles
• Like images, videos should demonstrate the product quality and show the people who use it and their emotions: comfort, joy, confidence.
• Use high-quality promotional videos and even good-quality user videos, if they work well for selling.

Use of videos can increase conversion rates and build trust.

7. Cross-sell Products you Market

For every other product in your store, there should be a way to cross-sell. One or more products that logically link to another product, and can go together help you cross-sell.

Some products work best with their complements. If you don’t know what to cross-sell your existing products with, you need to know this – cross-sell likely products.

Take, for instance, if you’re into the beauty niche, some products go hand-in-glove. An average lady who bought lipstick will most probably buy a lip gloss.

Cross-selling is one of the tricks that increase conversion rates. A customer who buys one product is likely to buy another. Likewise, a potential customer who might not want to buy a particular product but sees your cross-sell can easily opt for one or even the two.

8. Countdown Timer Hastens Buying Decisions

One of the ways to grab your visitors by the hand and make them purchase is by the use of a countdown timer on your product page. Countdown timer helps to increase conversion by creating a sense of urgency, and this pushes visitors to take immediate actions.

You risk losing a potential buyer to your competitors when you don’t convert them during their first visit. Leverage scarcity and urgency to make your visitors buy through the use of a countdown timer.

This idea informs the potential buyer that the special offer on your site will end soon, and they need to jump on it as soon as possible.

9. Discounts

To increase your dropshipping store conversion rate in this competitive eCommerce business, employ the discount sales strategy.

A part of the audience is looking for discounted sales. They’ll never buy for “full” price. To make the clients, not letting just pass by, there should be a discount at the store.

You may offer discounts always or spread coupons and announce specials, collecting your customers’ emails.

An AliExpress dropshipping store makes profits on sales, showing artificially high prices and a significant discount. No matter how you set the high price, carefully calculate the actual one to the safe margin for your store. Use our post about pricing strategies.

10. Cart — Free Shipping

A dropshipping business permanently has shipping costs, while consumers desire free delivery. If the shipping sum seems high to them, customers may turn to another store, leaving almost complete order. Such abandoned carts mean low conversion.

So entrepreneurs meet the expectations and offer free shipping, adding the postage expenses to the product price. Often people understand it, but the psychological power of free shipping leads them to purchase nonetheless, and this tends to increase conversion rates.

So, when next you want to put a shipping price, think about your dropshipping conversion rate and offer free shipping instead.

11. Payment — Provide Alternatives

Not to lose consumers at the payment point, use a secure payment gateway and add many payment options.

It will be disappointing if, after all the order-making process, a customer can’t buy selected goods, because there is no appropriate type of payment – disappointing for the seller and buyer. Someone prefers to pay by card; someone relies on PayPal, someone likes to spend their Webmoney. And even particular payment systems do not work in particular countries.

With multiple payment methods, your brand can go global as certain payment options don’t work in specific regions. If you seek to build a professional and dependable store, you should implement various payment options.

If you find that your AliExpress dropshipping store has a high number of abandoned carts, the cause may be in the payment options. So, fixing the problem may increase your conversion rate.

12. Use Email Opt-In with Irresistible Offers

Your online store should not just be where you sell but where you gather leads as well.

However, people don’t tend to sign up for any opt-in page. How do you get them to sign up? Present irresistible offers to your audience; this could be a free guide, ebook, or anything that relates to your niche and can entice your customers.

When you optimize your AliExpress dropshipping store to gather leads, you have great opportunities to market to these prospects and convert them over time.

13. Offer a Free Gift for Multiple Orders

No one would cheerfully reject gifts, and it yields better business results when you attach it to your business.

One of the tricks to increase conversion rates is offering gifts to customers who buy multiple items at a go.

It’s best to offer gifts in line with your niche and most probably, the items purchased. Take, for instance, if you’re into men’s wears, say shirts, you may want to offer gifts like a pair of cufflinks.

Depending on your pricing and the aggressive marketing strategies you adopt, you can do “buy 3 get 1 free.”

14. Add Live Chat Feature

One of the efficient ways to increase conversion rates is the addition of live chat to your store. This makes customers feel you’re more reliable and will help with answers to their queries.

However, if you have a good conversion rate, say 5% or more, a live chat feature might not be necessary as it might distract some potential buyers.

Live chat comes to play if your store has a 2% or less conversion rate, as visitors can chat up to make more inquiries and get clarifications to purchase.

With a functional live chat option, you can build a long-term customer relationship and get better insights about your customers.

For visitors who don’t buy immediately, live chat can make them return and purchase afterward.

15. Spot Your Rockstars

If you’re a marketer, then you can tell that finding your rockstars is key for your business. As a dropshipper, this will definitely boost your conversion rate.

Here’s the rule:

Find out if your products/offers truly fit the actual demands within your market

Check if they sell or not.

It all boils down to testing. Take your time to try various marketing to find out what your customers actually want to buy. Try to display various products and set up campaigns for each of these products. This way, you’ll find those that are sure to increase your dropshipping sales.

To start with, have it in mind that you must identify and solve your customers’ pain points. Find the products that can solve these pains. The power of copywriting can come into play to ensure the offer can entice your prospects.

16. Make Your Contact Information Clear and Easy-to-find

Making your contact information visible and placed where visitors see it easily can increase conversion rates.

If you’re just starting your dropshipping business model and have little or no reputation yet, it’s advisable to make your contact information visible as it helps build trust.

Your dropshipping store appears more like a real business when you have your contact details well positioned even at the header of your store.

17. After the Purchase — Referral Programs

A good frank recommendation is the most trustworthy channel of sale. We ask our friends for a recommendation, if we are looking for good service, or ask, where they have bought an interesting thing they demonstrate. So, a referral program can increase the conversion rate for a dropshipping store. This can be:

• Referral links,
• Coupons and codes that a client can send to his friends or readers (if the client is a blogger),
• Personal discount or present for Facebook share.

Referral programs and actions help to strengthen the relations with the store audience and widely spread the information about the dropshipping business. More satisfied clients — more good relations — more referrals — more buyers.

To spend less on the acquisition to your AliExpress dropshipping store, improve your conversion rate, so every advertising may bring you more sales.

18. Go for a Better On-site Search Engine

Your store visitors are not willing to navigate every page or correct their typos. In fact, almost every shopper wants a smart search suggestion. If you don’t refine your store search feature, you’ll be leaving a lot of money on the table, and this is one of the reasons why you can’t get more sales.

Unlike the traditional method of focusing on certain keywords, Machine Learning techniques boost internal website search ability to predict and understand each customer’s search intent.

You can take it up a notch by including voice and image search features. It shouldn’t just be a search feature; make it serve your shoppers like a real-life assistant.