usability problem,converting only 1 a day [Archive]

teamonfuego

02-03-2010, 05:10 PM

dangdatkat

02-04-2010, 09:42 AM

I'm having the same problem with our website. We currently get about 500 to 600 visitors daily but we're only converting about 1 a day. We can't figure out what the problem is. We have been in business for 8 years and have always had this problem. Our company name has the word "sex" in it so we're thinking it might be because of that so we bought another domain sleekandmodern that we considering redirecting our site to to test out the conversion rate.

Any advice?

our company domain is sexy furnishings.

both domains above end in coms

Whats with that "update price" button. I think it is really confusing and distracts from what you really want the customer to do, continue down the checkout funnel. I would get rid of it.

I would edit out content if not needed. Shipping info on the cart when the products have free shipping.

Also, try removing top and side nav on your checkout page. I like how it is only one page.

teamonfuego

02-04-2010, 11:22 AM

"Whats with that "update price" button. I think it is really confusing and distracts from what you really want the customer to do, continue down the checkout funnel. I would get rid of it.

I would edit out content if not needed. Shipping info on the cart when the products have free shipping.

Also, try removing top and side nav on your checkout page. I like how it is only one page."

I wish I could make the Update Price button go to the checkout page but it is a volusion template and there is no way I can do that. So this button is only used to update the cart total after choosing your shipping location. I can change it to say "Update Total". We have the "Checkout" buttons below this so is it really that confusing?

So do you think the note on the first page of the cart about free shipping is too much?

ronchalice

02-05-2010, 04:09 PM

Seems to me that going under the covers to eliminate the Update Price button and anything else that doesn't need to be there would be worth the effort and cost if you're only getting 1 conversion a day.

Dubbya

02-05-2010, 04:44 PM

While yours appears to be a pretty standard online store, I don't see anything that, from a coding, layout or usability perspective, would cause such a high abandonment rate.

One problem you've not tackled is establishing confidence. As a buyer, I'd want to know who you are and where you're located. There's no "About Us" page and no location in your "Contact Us" page. Show me your warehouse or storefront.

Get your "PayPal Verified" logo... I mean actually go through the process and do it properly so that users can click on the image and see your PayPal report.

Add some actual customer testimonials asap.

Even if I put an item in the cart, I'm not giving you my payment information unless I know that I can show up at your door and meet you face to face if something goes wrong. That's a major issue.

On the checkout page, things seem pretty straightforward and standard. Nothing major to note except the shipping choices. If I choose "Canada" as my country, the only option I see for delivery of the chair I'm ordering is "Online Delivery / No Shipping".

That doesn't appear to be right since, at the top of the page, I read "Free Shipping to Continental US". This would infer that there is a fee to ship outside the continental US where Canada happens to be located.

Again, errors and oversights such as these cause users to lose confidence. Precisely what leads to dropped carts and abandonment.

In my experience, users seldom part with hundreds of dollars on an initial visit. Try to find some "loss leaders", aggressively priced, popular and unique items that you can sell for under $19.99. Realize that from a customer's perspective, pretty much anyone who shops online can stand to lose $20 and that they'll be a lot more patient and understanding than they would with a larger ticket item.

Do everything you can to establish trust and to ensure a positive experience and your customers will come back for the more expensive items. Do this on a consistent basis and they'll come back in droves.

.02

teamonfuego

02-05-2010, 06:25 PM

Thanks for the response. I have a few questions / comments: we actually do have our address at the bottom of our website (on each page) as well as an "About Us" linke and "Contact Us" link. Do you think we should move these to the top then?

Regarding Paypal, you said:
"Get your "PayPal Verified" logo... I mean actually go through the process and do it properly so that users can click on the image and see your PayPal report. "

I checked and the only thing I could get is a logo standard paypal logo. I called Paypal up and they don't have anything that lets you click on the logo and allow customers to see our paypal report. How do we get this?

Regarding testimonials...I agree. We will make sure to include these throughout.

cw1865

02-05-2010, 09:18 PM

Volusion store, nice, I do volusion too. Checked out your site, it looks good, I don't see any immediate deal breakers there. Are you checking this traffic through volusion's stats or through the dashboard through the site where you can 'track ROI' - DO THE LATTER! The stats offered are just absolutely meaningless, I just can't say it any other way.

Furniture is thought of as bulky, so you might, depending on the overall competitiveness of the industry, etc, want to allay that concern right up front with 'Everything Ships Free' and of course make sure you account for the cost of freight in the price.

SEOMG

02-08-2010, 05:40 AM

I'd say images are one of the most powerful tools you have to try to overcome the trust gap (especially with relatively high-value products such as those on your site) are images. For many of your products, your images do little to show the detail and workmanship which will give people the confidence to drop their card details in...

Good photography is not cheap, but start to get it done on your bread & butter products... You'll see a difference which should perpetuate the rest of the range.

Dcrux

02-08-2010, 08:05 AM

Ahem. Anybody suggest a user test? With people who are actually the user? (FYI, that would be not designers)

Que crickets. I love how you can improve use without ever consulting with users.

User centered design question : Where are you losing users? This may indicate where the trust issues might be.

Finally, yes you're having a problem on the front end conversions. What is happening with customers and back end sales? ...Returns?

There are a tremendous amount of unknowns when users are surgically removed from the feedback loop. Yes, I know a lot of you got into this because of the user firewall, but this calls for an actual methodology and properly done user testing.

Dubbya

02-09-2010, 05:22 PM

Dcrux, a usability test by end users is always a great idea so I wouldn't discount that advice, but the advice presented here was offered by people who have already dealt with similar issues in their own sites.

In my case, I actually went all the way through the shopping process, created a customer account and went as far as I could without entering my actual payment information.

It's my opinion that the problem exists prior to the payment screen anyway.

IMHO, it's a trust thing.

teamonfuego, I'd absolutely recommend putting the contact phone and about links right at the top of the page, directly under your header, right where people can see it. Make it easy for them to find out everything they want to know about you and your company.

Something like this should work:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phone: (xxx)-xxx-xxxx Fax: (xxx)-xxx-xxxx Toll-Free: xxx-xxx-xxxx contact us About Us
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding the PayPal Verification Logo, here's what you need know:
Verification FAQ - PayPal (http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/verification-faq-outside)

this is where you can find the "Verified" logo:
Verified logo - how do I get mine - PayPal UK - PayPal Developer Community (http://paypal.lithium.com/pdn/board/message?board.id=uk&thread.id=779)

hope that helps.

byronc

02-09-2010, 05:51 PM

I'm having the same problem with our website. We currently get about 500 to 600 visitors daily but we're only converting about 1 a day. We can't figure out what the problem is. We have been in business for 8 years and have always had this problem. Our company name has the word "sex" in it so we're thinking it might be because of that so we bought another domain sleekandmodern that we considering redirecting our site to to test out the conversion rate.

Any advice?

our company domain is sexy furnishings.

both domains above end in coms

it depends where your traffic is coming from, ie what is bringing people to your site. Buyers or some other sort of traffic you have marketed through some means?

teamonfuego

02-09-2010, 06:41 PM

100% of our traffic is coming from Google and the other search engines through organic listings. We're #1/2/3 for a few decently trafficked terms, like "cool furniture", "funky furniture", etc. Our traffic is legit. We have google analytics installed. I'm thinking we should consider doing a complete overhaul of our design.

One of our competitors, InMod (com), has similar products and pictures as us but they're getting a good deal higher conversion rate (like 4 or 5 times higher). Not sure what the deal is...

We do own a couple of other domains: modernloungefurniture (com) and sleekandmodern (com) and we're also contemplating the idea of duplicating our site and redirecting all of our traffic to each page to a corresponding page on the new domain. The thinking is the word "sexy" in our domain is either (a) blocked by corporate domains; (b) turning people away from buyng; and/or (c) forcing emails from our email marketing campaigns into the trash bins of our customers.

Does anyone have experience with 301 redirects? Should we expect to lose our search rankings? If so can we undo the redirects and go back to biz as usual?

deepsand

02-09-2010, 09:13 PM

One of our competitors, InMod (com), has similar products and pictures as us but they're getting a good deal higher conversion rate (like 4 or 5 times higher).
How do you know that?

Are you also in a position to compare absolute conversion counts and average sale values?

teamonfuego

02-10-2010, 10:53 AM

Based on conversions I have had with people in the industry over the years.

Back to our dilemma:
We do own a couple of other domains: modernloungefurniture (com) and sleekandmodern (com) and we're also contemplating the idea of duplicating our site and redirecting all of our traffic to each page to a corresponding page on the new domain. The thinking is the word "sexy" in our domain is either (a) blocked by corporate domains; (b) turning people away from buyng; and/or (c) forcing emails from our email marketing campaigns into the trash bins of our customers.

Does anyone have experience with 301 redirects? Should we expect to lose our search rankings? If so can we undo the redirects and go back to biz as usual?

deepsand

02-10-2010, 09:34 PM

Based on conversions I have had with people in the industry over the years.
Was that in response to my two questions?

How do you know that?
Are you also in a position to compare absolute conversion counts and average sale values?

If so, are we to then presume that you've actually no empirical conversion data re. said competitor?

teamonfuego

02-10-2010, 10:01 PM

Was that in response to my two questions?

How do you know that?
Are you also in a position to compare absolute conversion counts and average sale values?

If so, are we to then presume that you've actually no empirical conversion data re. said competitor?

Back to our dilemma:
We do own a couple of other domains: modernloungefurniture (com) and sleekandmodern (com) and we're also contemplating the idea of duplicating our site and redirecting all of our traffic to each page to a corresponding page on the new domain. The thinking is the word "sexy" in our domain is either (a) blocked by corporate domains; (b) turning people away from buyng; and/or (c) forcing emails from our email marketing campaigns into the trash bins of our customers.

Does anyone have experience with 301 redirects? Should we expect to lose our search rankings? If so can we undo the redirects and go back to biz as usual?

deepsand

02-10-2010, 11:16 PM

Why do you rudely evade easily answered questions, particularly ones whose answers may serve to be useful? :confused:

teamonfuego

02-10-2010, 11:27 PM

Why do you rudely evade easily answered questions, particularly ones whose answers may serve to be useful? :confused:

Didn't mean to sound rude...just trying to get some opinions about 301 redirecting.

deepsand

02-10-2010, 11:35 PM

Ignoring the questions, including the last one re. why you evade answering, is the rudety. :rolleyes:

teamonfuego

02-10-2010, 11:52 PM

Ignoring the questions, including the last one re. why you evade answering, is the rudety. :rolleyes:

I'm sorry, I just don't see how explaining my rationale for why I believe our competitors are getting better conversion rates is that important when all I'm looking for is a little advice from people on how to increase conversion rates and how 301 redirects impact your search engine rankings. I don't mean to sound rude, I'm just trying to stay on topic. I do really appreciate everyone's feedback.

deepsand

02-11-2010, 12:26 AM

A man walks into the doctor's office, complaining of a particular pain.

The doctor proceeds to begin an examination, whereupon the would be patient protests, insisting that all he requires is a prescription for penicillin, despite the fact that it's yet to be determined that his is a condition that both requires an antibiotic and is responsive to penicillin.

Since you're insistent on having penicillin, using this site's Search function, with the query string 301 redirect, will yield more than an ample amount of information.

teamonfuego

02-11-2010, 09:19 AM

Dubbya

02-12-2010, 03:06 PM

deepsand

02-12-2010, 07:14 PM

It's good to know that at least one other understood and appreciated the points being addressed.

cw1865

02-12-2010, 11:08 PM

I understand what you're saying too, Deepsand, but I think you're still being a little rough on teamonfuego. He was initially posting here to discuss a low conversion rate. Obviously he has a perception, formed in one way or another, that his competitor is enjoying a higher conversion rate. I would suggest that he is not privy, or even legally entitled, to have access to that very specific information. So, I understand what you're saying, ie. 'You're worried about your conversion rate, but how do you know that your competitor actually enjoys a higher conversion rate?'

Fair enough, but in a market where decisions need to be made based on imperfect information; action still needs to be taken. Perhaps Teamonfuego is wrong, perhaps the competitor's conversion rate truly is no better, making this inquiry pointless, but at the end of the day, Teamonfuego deals in this industry on a daily basis and is in the best position to make that determination.

deepsand

02-13-2010, 12:21 AM

Note that the opening statement says that that the current state of affairs is 8 years old.

For the OP to ask for advice, then suddenly jump to his own conclusion, declining to even recognize requests for additional information, is both unwarranted and rude.

How likely is it that one should know of a "problem" for 8 years, not know the solution, ask for help, and, when asked for additional details re. such problem, suddenly have an epiphany that reveals the solution?

Furthermore, having decided on a course of action, now asking a frequently repeated question, one that is easily answered with a but small effort on the part of the OP, is a bit over the top.

IMO, the OP is guessing about both the severity and/or nature of the "problem" and its "solution."

Dcrux

02-13-2010, 11:03 AM

For the OP to ask for advice, then suddenly jump to his own conclusion, declining to even recognize requests for additional information, is both unwarranted and rude.

And this is why no user test. Users might interfere with preconceptions. You can dismiss someone else's advice. It is exponentially harder when you invest time and effort and do the user test -- even when it shows the exact same thing.

It's not all about dealing with a technical problem on a site. Very often the site is merely the symptom of a problem that isn't being dealt with.

Getting into the habit of finding the answer (through a dedication to user testing) is a huge mental shift from getting the answer from the "back of the book." Yes, you can just ask and someone who's done a similar test can just tell you the answer, and you go off and do what they tell you.

It's rarely that simple. There's always a "well you sold pilfer grommets and I sell boxcar prongs" argument until YOU do The Exact Same User Test everyone and their brother did a thousand times before. When you aren't doing the user test, it's rarely about finding the answer easier through other means.

mjtaylor

02-13-2010, 04:23 PM

It's good to know that at least one other understood and appreciated the points being addressed.I am afraid no one addressed the points of the OP, actually. He asked about redirects and people jumped in with great suggestions, advice on the conversion problem. It was easy to get the wrong impression because the post title referred to the problem - lack of conversion. His post, however, was all about the solution - redirecting to a new domain.

So while we were trying to fix his site, he was trying to bring the topic back to his question.

:lol:

Webnauts

02-14-2010, 01:58 PM

I am afraid no one addressed the points of the OP, actually. He asked about redirects and people jumped in with great suggestions, advice on the conversion problem. It was easy to get the wrong impression because the post title referred to the problem - lack of conversion. His post, however, was all about the solution - redirecting to a new domain.

So while we were trying to fix his site, he was trying to bring the topic back to his question.

:lol:
MJ thanks for your PM about this thread. Looks like many members here do not want to help and behave very rude.

I have a lot of questions and I already see some issues, but I do not have the time to post all that here.

Therefore I guess I can find an hour to give him a hand over the phone if he wants. How about that?

mjtaylor

02-14-2010, 03:30 PM

Looks like many members here do not want to help ...

To be fair, I think they were overeager to help, so much that they weren't really paying attention to the question. And, yes, it got out of hand. *And* I think it stemmed from the confusion over the topic. The title was misleading.

The actual topic is advice on redirects. The members were addressing the problem stated in the title; the OP was asking about the solution he settled on before he wrote the thread.

Therefore I guess I can find an hour to give him a hand over the phone if he wants. How about that?

That's wonderful! I had hoped you would do exactly that! You are so generous with your time!

Webnauts

02-14-2010, 03:55 PM

About the redirects here are excellent tips about that: 301 redirects - Webmaster Tools Help (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93633)

Still my offer is valid if needed.

deepsand

02-15-2010, 01:47 PM

Looks like many members here do not want to help and behave very rude.

To be fair, I think they were overeager to help, so much that they weren't really paying attention to the question. And, yes, it got out of hand. *And* I think it stemmed from the confusion over the topic. The title was misleading.

The actual topic is advice on redirects. The members were addressing the problem stated in the title; the OP was asking about the solution he settled on before he wrote the thread.
To put this in context, it is important to note that this thread did not begin here, but rather as a sub-thread of Website Not Converting (http://www.webproworld.com/google-adwords-discussion-forum/97436-website-not-converting.html#post490338)

Notice the opening statement "I'm having the same problem with our website." along with "We can't figure out what the problem is." The problem referred to is that of a perceived low conversion rate, not one relating to 301s.

Furthermore, in the original thread, the OP of this sub-thread made no objection to inquiries aimed at trying to diagnose the problem of low conversion rate. It was only here, in this new thread, that he balked at having that line of inquiry pursued; and, this in a manner quite rude.

To hold that anyone other than the OP is responsible for any perceived confusion is wholly without merit.

mjtaylor

02-15-2010, 02:17 PM

Okay, so it it was a continuation of another thread, but how does that change the question posed by the OP?

I've reviewed the other thread now, and in that thread teamonfuego's only references are to redirects there, too.

If I have this straight, teamonfuego's post was perhaps moved from the other thread by a mod? Perhaps he didn't create the confusing title.

In any case, I remain convinced that he has been asking about redirects as a solution to this problem from the get-go, and while the title and the original context may be about low conversions, the topic here is clearly advice on redirects.

No one person is entirely responsible for how this went awry, and yes, your analogy to the doctor's office is valid, but then a doctor with a good bedside manner might have suggested that the penicillin might not be needed. After all, doctors are presumed to want to help even when the patient is wrong about what they need.

So, perhaps someone could have offered:

Before you pursue a redirect, perhaps you'd like to consider that there might be another solution to your problem.

But I don't see anything like that ... I just see a lot of unsolicited advice followed by impatience and derision when the OP didn't understand what's being suggested.

deepsand

02-15-2010, 03:01 PM

Okay, so it it was a continuation of another thread, but how does that change the question posed by the OP?
To repeat, the OP here was originally presenting the same problem as the OP in the original thread where posted.

And, he'd no objection to anyone approaching his query in that context for 6 days and a dozen or so posts.

In any case, I remain convinced that he has been asking about redirects as a solution to this problem from the get-go, and while the title and the original context may be about low conversions, the topic here is clearly advice on redirects.
His posts during the first six days say otherwise.

He objected only when asked to quantify the data which gave rise to the perception of a problem.

mjtaylor

02-15-2010, 04:00 PM

His posts during the first 6 days reflected his polite and grateful responses to the advice he was given. You were not the only one who failed to actually read the OP and respond to that.

Yes, the context was as it seemed to you. The earlier thread was about conversion and the responses in this thread were about conversion, and the title was about conversion.

And the OP was NOT!

No one is saying anyone was egregiously out of line in missing his point, but everyone was missing the topic. Right before you came in, he again stated his question about redirects.

You responded with more on conversions, asking for details. And he tried again to return to it.

You are not entirely responsible for how this thread went, but you are responsible for your part in it. And that was, at the very least, ignoring the patient's communication.

deepsand

02-15-2010, 04:47 PM

His posts during the first 6 days reflected his polite and grateful responses to the advice he was given. You were not the only one who failed to actually read the OP and respond to that.
IMO, such does not so reflect; but, instead indicates that he changed his mind from considering using redirects to deciding to do so without the further delay that ascertaining the nature and scope of the actual problem might entail. I.e., he lost his patience.

Right before you came in, he again stated his question about redirects. You responded with more on conversions, asking for details.
Which he evaded and subsequently ignored, rather than politely clarifying his intent.

Were it the case that there were here but only the OP and one respondent involved, there might be a reasonable probability that said lone respondent misunderstood the OP's intent. However, with each additional respondent such probability falls exponentially.

Even where there a 90% probability of each respondent so misunderstanding, the probability that all 8 would do so falls to 43%. I.e., odds are that all did not identically fail to understand.

mjtaylor

02-15-2010, 11:32 PM

He says:

Does anyone have experience with 301 redirects? Should we expect to lose our search rankings? If so can we undo the redirects and go back to biz as usual?

You say:

How do you know that?

Are you also in a position to compare absolute conversion counts and average sale values?

He says:

Based on conversions I have had with people in the industry over the years.

Back to our dilemma:
We do own a couple of other domains: modernloungefurniture (com) and sleekandmodern (com) and we're also contemplating the idea of duplicating our site and redirecting all of our traffic to each page to a corresponding page on the new domain. The thinking is the word "sexy" in our domain is either (a) blocked by corporate domains; (b) turning people away from buyng; and/or (c) forcing emails from our email marketing campaigns into the trash bins of our customers.

Does anyone have experience with 301 redirects? Should we expect to lose our search rankings? If so can we undo the redirects and go back to biz as usual?

You tell him he's rude and he says

Didn't mean to sound rude...just trying to get some opinions about 301 redirecting.
And he says he is sorry ...

I am sorry you can't see any of your own side in this.