Do you want to increase your Jewellery eCommerce sales without increasing the marketing spend on driving additional website traffic? You can do this by increasing the Jewellery eCommerce conversion rate.
The eCommerce conversion rate is measured as the total number of paid transactions divided by the total number of website visits for a specific period.
The average eCommerce conversion rate across industries varies in the range of 1 – 3 %. Usually, the higher the product price, the lower the conversion rate.
“eCommerce Conversion rate is less than 1 % for most high-value precious jewellery retailers.”
This means less than 1 % of the traffic into a Jewellery eCommerce website converts into a transaction.
A low conversion rate means that the website is losing out on prospective leads or customers. Although there is no set benchmark for jewellery eCommerce conversion rate, Jewellers need to first measure their website’s existing conversion rate and then continuously improve the same.
The above diagram shows the three stages of eCommerce sales: Traffic generation, Conversion, and Retention.
This article focuses on the conversion stage and drills down into each step of the eCommerce sales funnel. It explains the various levers that Jewellers can use to maximize their jewellery eCommerce conversion rate.
Understanding the Jewellery Ecommerce Sales Funnel
The above diagram represents a typical eCommerce sales funnel and shows the journey of customers from visiting an eCommerce website to completing an online purchase.
Brand Awareness
This is the pre-sales or marketing stage of eCommerce. In this step, the objective is to create brand awareness through various online and offline marketing activities and drive traffic to the website.
“It is important to note that getting traffic is one thing, and getting the right traffic is another.”
Jewellers should do targeted marketing and bring the right audience that they want to sell to. The more relevant traffic that comes to the website, the higher the chances of conversion.
Ecommerce Sales Funnel
In the above example, it is shown that for every 10,000 visits to the website, around 50% drop off from the landing page itself and only 5,000 reach the product page. Out of the 5,000 visits to the product page, only 600 reach the add-to-cart step, 200 reach the payment gateway step, and only 50 complete a purchase.
Note that this is just an example to illustrate the eCommerce sales funnel of a Jewellery website and not a benchmark to follow.
“Even a 0.5% increase in conversion rate can potentially double the eCommerce sales.
Jewellers can measure their existing jewellery eCommerce conversion rate by using tools such as Google Analytics. Then they need to continuously optimize various steps of the sales funnel to maximize the flow of traffic from the landing page to the final stage of purchase.
Increasing the Jewellery Ecommerce Conversion Rate
The above diagram shows various levers at each of the 4 steps of the eCommerce sales funnel that can be optimized to increase the eCommerce conversion rate.
1. Optimizing Website Landing Page
This is the first step of the eCommerce sales funnel.
“Most customers that visit a website are simply seeking information and may not be ready to buy.“
The objective of the landing page is to provide relevant and complete information that the customer is seeking and direct them to the relevant product pages.
Following are tips to optimize the website landing page:
Relevant Landing Page
- Drive traffic to the landing pages (usually category pages) that are relevant and consistent with the search keywords or ad campaigns
- Use banners to make the landing page visually attractive and create a good first impression
- Display rich and relevant content to showcase domain authority
- Provide a clear call to action to direct the visitor to the next step of the funnel (product pages)
Website Speed
- Reduce the website load time
- “53% of consumers abandon a site that takes longer than three seconds to load.”
Website Design
- Make the website mobile-responsive so that it is aesthetically pleasing to browse in different screen sizes
- A clean and clutter-free website reduces distraction to visitors
Brand Video
- Showcase a brand video explaining who you are and what you stand for. Videos are a great way of storytelling and creating a great website experience
- Videos help in building an emotional connection and trust with the visitor
Navigation and Search
- 50% of visitors know what they are looking for and would prefer a Search option that directs them to the desired results. You can use advanced features such as auto-suggest or drop-down menu of textual results to make it easier for the visitors
- Another 50% of visitors are simply browsing. A proper navigation menu makes it easier for them to explore the sections of their interest. Provide as many categories and sub-categories such by type of Jewellery, Price range, Occasions, Gender etc.
Product Filters
- If the website has too many products, then providing multiple filters would help narrow down the selection according to price, metal, purity, product category etc. Too many choices make it hard for the visitor to decide
Lead Capture
- Add newsletter subscription forms on the homepage, which is usually the most visited page for a website
- Use sign-in offers or exit pop-ups to capture the email addresses of visitors
- The email list can be used for subsequent follow-ups using newsletters or marketing campaigns to bring the visitors back to the website
Retargeting
- Showcase display retargeting ads to re-engage customers who visited the website and dropped off without buying. Retargeting helps in a more targeted ad campaign and thus increasing the website conversion rate
2. Optimizing Product Page
A product page is a page on a website that showcases specific products with all the details required for a customer to make a purchase.
Following are tips to optimize the product page of your website:
Merchandising
- The product page conversion rate heavily depends on the Jewellery designs available on the website. If the designs are not appealing enough to the target customers, they wouldn’t sell
- Usually, 20% of designs bring 80% sales. Hence, it is important to promote and highlight the top-selling designs to increase the overall site conversion rate
Images, Videos, AR
- Provide high-quality images, multiple angle images, model shoots
- Provide 360 degree images to increase conversions by 30%
- Product videos can increase the conversion rate by 64%
- Virtual try-on can increase conversion rate 40%
Descriptions, Guides, USP
- Provide short and crisp product titles with rich keywords relevant to the product
- Provide professionally written product descriptions to communicate features and benefits of the product and the reasons to buy. Use bullet points to improve readability
- Provide detailed product attributes describing additional product characteristics such as size, material, purity etc.
- Provide guides on how to use the product
- Highlight your value proposition (USP) explaining why a visitor should buy from you
- Offer 3rd party product certificates to establish trust in metal purity and diamond quality
FAQs, Sales support
- Provide FAQs (frequently asked questions) that proactively answer all potential questions of customers
- Use Chatbots that can help in directing customers to the right products
- Provide clear contact details (phone, email, address) to increase the website’s credibility. It allows users to easily contact whenever they need any help
- Provide a live chat option. 38% of customers buy with Live chat support
- Provide video chat, Home try-on, and visit nearby store options, especially, for high-value Jewellery that requires touch and feel before purchase
Personalization
- Provide product recommendations based on on-site behavior or past site visit history
- Offer options to select metal color, purity, diamond quality, engraving etc.
Pricing, Offers
- Offer competitive and transparent pricing; In online, it is very easy for customers to compare prices across competitors
- Offer options at low price points to make it easy for first-time buyers to try out ordering from your website
- Offer deals and discounts to encourage buyers to order online. 47% of buyers select only discounted products
- Provide limited-time deals to create a sense of urgency and encourage visitors to buy before the deal ends
CTA (Call to Action)
- Prominent placement of the Call to Action (CTA button) on the product page makes it easy for visitors to take action
- A simple change of color of the CTA button can increase the conversion rate by 20%
Reviews
- Showcase positive customer reviews, ratings, and testimonials as social proof to build consumer trust
- Product-specific reviews can increase conversion by 10 – 20%
Return policies / guarantees
- Offer easy returns (example: 30 days no questions asked return policy) to reduce risk in the buyer’s mind
Free & fast delivery, BOPIS
- Free shipping has become a must criterion for making an online purchase
- Offer faster delivery to maximize conversion
- Provide option to buy online and pick-up in-store (BOPIS)
3. Optimizing Add-to-Cart
Once customers like a product and decide to purchase it, they add the product to the shopping cart and move to the checkout stage. At this stage, they have to provide a detailed address for billing and shipping purposes. On average, around 70% of customers drop off at this stage because of a long or complicated checkout process.
Following are tips to optimize conversion rate at the Add-to-Cart page of your website:
Easy checkout
- Remove unnecessary form fields on the checkout page
3rd party sign-up
- Give customers 3rd party sign-up options such as login using Google or Facebook
Fast checkout
- Offer guest checkout option. Allow visitors to checkout without mandatory registration
Cart-abandonment email
- Use software that can send follow-up emails to users who abandon a site after adding a product to the shopping cart. You can regain 3 – 15% of the lost sales by sending cart-abandonment emails
4. Optimizing Payment Gateway
This is the final step of the online purchase where customers make the payment. Customers may leave at this stage due to the absence of a preferred payment mode or due to a lack of trust in the legitimacy of the website.
Following are tips to optimize conversion rate at the payment gateway page:
Multiple payment options
- Provide multiple payment options including net banking, credit card, debit card, digital wallets, Cash on delivery etc.
EMI option
- For high-value Jewellery, you can allow customers to buy Jewellery on the EMI option using their credit cards. They need to pay a nominal amount upfront and the remaining amount in instalments of 3, 6, or 9 months
Payment Security and Trust seals
- Showcase security badges as secured transaction signals and communicate that their credit card or debit card information is protected
- Trust seals can increase conversion by 40%
Conclusion
Not all customers that visit an eCommerce website are ready to purchase in the first visit itself. While it is important to optimize the eCommerce sales funnel to maximize conversion, it is also important to use retargeting or remarketing to bring back the visitors to the website as potential future buyers.
The third stage or the service stage of eCommerce sales is also critical in terms of delivering a delightful post-purchase experience to the customers. Jewellers need to keep their existing customers engaged so that they come back as repeat buyers as well as refer new buyers.
It is 6 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing customer. An increase in repeat purchases significantly reduces the overall cost of customer acquisition and further increases the conversion rate of a website.
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