Online Shop Optimisation: Use the Potential for Optimisation

With online shop optimisation, online merchants want to improve the shopping experience and thus strengthen their business. They have enough reasons for this, because about 70% of filled shopping carts are abandoned. This high abandonment rate means missed sales for online merchants and, in many cases, even dissatisfied customers who do not return. Don’t miss out on the sales potential and counteract this by optimising your online shop!

In this blog article, we will show you where the critical points of contact between shop and customer are and what measures you can take to optimise your online shop – regardless of which shop system you are using. After all, there is a lot of optimisation potential in every online shop.

Shopping Cart Abandonment and Shop Optimisation throughout the Customer Journey

Whether on the homepage, on product pages or in the checkout: abandoned purchases occur everywhere in the online shop. For example, a missing payment method or even just a missing piece of information on the product page can quickly lead to an abandoned shopping cart and thus to a loss of revenue. To prevent this from happening, there are a number of optimisation options available to you as a shop owner.

But first it is important to find out where exactly these optimisation potentials are located in your online shop. Your visitors pass through several pages and sub-pages before they complete or cancel the purchase. Trip hazards lurk everywhere, which can quickly lead to shopping cart abandonment.

The following illustration shows an excerpt of an exemplary customer journey within the online shop – from entering to leaving the website. It varies from customer to customer and does not necessarily end with an abandoned purchase or a successful order.

If you want to optimise your online shop and successfully increase orders, you should know the individual touchpoints in the buying process very well. Since each page has its own functions and is structured differently accordingly, the optimisation options also differ to a large extent.

Online Shop Optimisation: Homepage

“The first impression counts” also includes your online shop. With a good first impression, you not only communicate professionalism to your visitors, but also build trust – the basis of the relationship with your customers and the first step towards online shop optimisation. Without this trust, no visitor will place an order.

a. Reduce Loading Times

The impact of loading times cannot be overlooked and is directly related to the shop performance. Today, we expect websites to be available within milliseconds.

If an online shop is too slow, this can have serious consequences. While the loading time increases, the patience of the customer decreases. Ultimately, the customer will leave and possibly switch to a competitor. Accordingly, you should also optimise the loading speeds. With a loading time of 1-2 seconds, you are faster than the average German website (2.6 seconds).

Improve the loading times by…

… optimising images.

… using Gzip compression.

… minimising CSS and Javascript files.

b. Cookie Banner

The GDPR requires consent to the collection, processing and use of personal data. As soon as a visitor is to be tracked on a website, she must give her prior consent – regardless of whether cookies, pixels or other technologies are involved. Most online shops use so-called cookie consent banners for this purpose.

If the cookie consent banner looks dubious, it will deter visitors. Therefore, a well thought-out cookie banner is part of an optimised online shop. Be transparent here, as this is sensitive data and transparency inspires trust.

In addition to the legal regulations, also pay attention to the banner design:

• Corporate Identity (CI): The Cookie Consent Banner should fit seamlessly into the corporate identity of your business. This includes font and colour as well as background and button colours.
• Cookie groups: The categorisation of the individual cookies determines how much space of the cookie banner is taken up by this information. The following rule is applicable: the fewer the categories, the more appealing the design. Of course, the categorisation must be legally compliant.
• Text: Adapt the tonality to your target group. If it is a service in the insurance or real estate industry, a serious tone is suitable. If the target group is younger, the tone can be more casual.

c. Navigation

Whether the visitor is on the homepage or elsewhere in the online shop: With a complicated navigation, the number of abandoned purchases increases. Consequently, it is important to design the navigation in a user-friendly way. This way, the visitor knows right away where to find the required products. Therefore, make it easier for your visitors to search for the required products and to browse through your online shop.

In addition to the global navigation bar, the breadcrumb and contextual navigation can provide a better overview. How these look in detail depends largely on the page structure.

• Navigation bar: This is the main navigation of your online shop. Visitors usually return to this navigation element again and again. Arrange the categories in the navigation bar according to relevance so that the most popular categories can be found quickly.
• Breadcrumb navigation: Breadcrumbs are another navigation element that allow visitors to return to the same path. This makes it easier for them to search without losing their orientation. In addition, thanks to breadcrumb navigation, the visitor knows which pages he has already visited.
• Context-related navigation: Context-related navigation also animates and facilitates browsing. However, the aim here is not to give the visitor the greatest possible overview. Rather, contextual navigation gives the visitor the opportunity to look at similar or matching products. You, as the shop owner, in turn have the opportunity to up-sell or cross-sell.

d. Search Function

Closely linked to the navigation is also the search function. Up to 30% of visitors of an online shop use it. These are people who know exactly what they want and search for it purposefully.

To ensure that they do not abandon their purchase in annoyance, pay attention to the following functions within the search function:

• Sufficiently large product selection ( implement search function only from approx. 100 products)
• Error-tolerant search function (for spelling and typing errors)
• Intelligent search (for long-tail search queries)

e. Testimonials

Whether in private or when shopping: we always like to draw on the experiences of others. Testimonials are evaluations that attract attention and increase the chances of a purchase in the online shop. Therefore, testimonials are an effective instrument with which you can optimise your online shop.

In addition to the widespread customer reviews for individual products, you can also use other proven testimonials:

• Influencers
• Customers
• Experts
• Celebrities

The testimonials can refer to different objects:

• Online Shop
• Product group
• Product group

f. Newsletter Popups (Voucher Variant)

The goal of online shop optimisation is not only to increase orders, but to pick up all visitors at the point where they are at the moment. This also includes those who are interested but not yet ready to buy. In order to also cover this visitor segment and use it meaningfully for your business, you should convince the visitors who are not ready to buy to subscribe to a newsletter – if you already offer a newsletter or a newsletter is planned.

In this way, you use the expensively generated traffic with a sustainably designed strategy instead of simply letting the visitors pass by. With the help of the newsletter, you then have the chance to convince the newsletter subscribers to make a purchase at a later date.

To do this, place the newsletter form cleverly on your website:

• in the footer
• in the blog
• with the help of popups

Online Shop Optimisation: Category Pages

Although many visitors either land directly on the product pages (also: product detail pages) or use the search function, category pages are the start of the product search for many visitors. As an important link between the start of the product search and the product pages, the category pages not only give these visitors an overview of the products, but also attract them to them. Consequently, with optimised category pages you prevent purchase abandonments in your online shop.

Your visitors use the category pages for two different purposes:

• Goal-oriented search
• Inspiration search

a. Category Title

Add the category name not only in the navigation, but also in the title of the corresponding category page.

• The visitor gets a better orientation
• The search engine ranking of the category page increases

b. Header Pictures

Header pictures on category pages inspire the viewer. The header picture gives them a visual impression of what to expect on the category page. Whether you place several products of the corresponding category or one exemplary product on the picture and how exactly you present the products on the header picture depends on your target group.

Attention: Header pictures take up space and cause the individual products to move down a little. You can find out whether and which header images are actually advantageous for your target group with simple A/B tests.

c. Powerful Product Pictures

Product pictures have a great influence on whether someone switches from the category page to the product page. In contrast to the pictures on the product pages, the visitor only looks at the pictures on the category page for a relatively short time. Therefore, the pictures should be as appealing and meaningful as possible.

• High quality
• Product details
• Show products in use
• Several pictures in the slider
• Add effects (e.g. mouseover)

d. Product Information in the Product Preview

You probably have a lot to tell your visitors about each individual product. Unfortunately, there is not much space left on the category pages. So the information presented needs to be well thought out. What information does the visitor expect? What information is needed to arouse his interest in a product or even to convince him? This depends very much on the industry and the products.

Use the little space available for the individual products on the category page by optimising the online shop accordingly.

e. Disruptor

Visitors looking for inspiration in particular can be excellently guided through the online shop. With the help of disruptors, you draw attention to certain products. This increases the probability that the visitor will visit the corresponding product detail pages.

Use the following disruptors for online shop optimisation:

• “New”
• “Reduced”
• “Sale”
• “Top seller”
• “Popular”

f. Newsletter Popups (FOMO Variant)

Category pages also provide a good way to attract visitors who are interested but not yet ready to buy a newsletter subscription. While goal-oriented visitors land relatively quickly on a product page, inspiration-seeking visitors take longer. Because of the lower purchase probability, the use of newsletter popups is advisable.

In contrast to the voucher variant, the FOMO variant of newsletter popups uses the human fear of missing out on something. When generating newsletter subscribers, an online merchant could create the effect, for example, by pointing out that subscribers are always up to date on the latest discount promotions.

Online Shop Optimisation: Product Pages

The product pages in the online shop give visitors a detailed picture of the required products. Give your customers the necessary information here that they need for the final purchase decision. If important information is missing or the product presentation is not attractive enough, the product will not be added to the shopping cart and, in the worst case, the purchase will already be abandoned on the product detail page.

In principle, the following structure is suitable for the product page, although not all components necessarily have to be included:

a. Product Title

With the help of the product title, your visitors identify the product by its name. The optimal design of the product title is an important part of online shop optimisation, as it can convince the visitor both on the category page and on the product detail page.

In addition to the actual product name, special features of the product can appear here. But be careful: keep the product title as short as possible and only as long as necessary. It is all about identification and a quick impression.

b. Product Description

Use the product description to provide the visitor with a short and convincing text about the product. A classic product description consists of about 200 to 300 words. Be creative and arouse emotions, because products sell much better on an emotional level than on a rational level.

• Approx. 200 to 300 words per product description
• Avoid cannibalisation (findability in the search engine)

c. Bullet Points

In order not to leave behind a desert of text and to give visitors a compact overview of the product, bullet points are ideal. The white space around them makes the bullet points stand out and thus generates attention. In the bullet points, therefore, summarise the most important features and characteristics of the product in order to convince the quick reader.

Depending on the product category, the most important elements include:

• Size
• Dimensions
• Weight
• Colour
• Technical details
• Scope of delivery
• Additional information
• References to possible accessories

d. Product Pictures and Videos

Since we cannot hold the products in our hands when shopping online, information in text form is usually not enough for us – no matter how detailed it may be. Pictures and videos, on the other hand, offer an optimal solution for product presentation to give us a better impression of the products and also to present the visual characteristics. With meaningful and qualitative product pictures and videos, you have a direct influence on the purchase decision.

There are a few things to consider here:

• Size: At least 1000 x 1000 pixels
• Zoom option to assess the fabrics, materials and details used
• Highlighting the product to direct the focus on what is important
• Show the product in everyday situations
• Several pictures from different perspectives
• Video or 360 degree view

e. Product Selection

Whether clothing, electronics or food: sometimes you have some products in your range in different colours, sizes and performances. In such cases, online shoppers expect to be able to make this selection directly on the product page. Usually, this element is located directly next to the product pictures, so that they change automatically with the corresponding selection.

If you make the product selection available in the next step instead, for example, it will irritate your visitors. Therefore, a product selection that meets the users’ expectations is definitely part of an optimised online shop.

f. Product Reviews

Social proof is an effect that can be observed in almost all areas of society. It says that we humans orientate ourselves by the evaluations of others.

Applied to e-commerce, it means: positive reviews highlight the advantages of the product, which are emphasised in the product description. These back up the statements and create trust. This helps to strengthen the customer’s intention to buy, because 45% of online shoppers trust the recommendations of previous buyers.

But negative reviews can also have a positive effect, because they underline the authenticity of the other reviews. Accordingly, your business even benefits from negative product reviews, provided they do not predominate.

g. Call-to-Action

Once the visitor has been convinced by the product, he must intuitively know what the next step is. This is why it is important to implement final calls-to-action on every product page. Colour-highlighted buttons with the words “Add to Shopping Cart” or “Order Now” are suitable for this.

Call-to-Actions are a central element on every single page of your online shop. If you want to optimise your online shop, place a lot of emphasis on optimising the call-to-action buttons.

h. Product Seal of Approval

Is the product sustainable or does the production meet certain social standards? Let your customers know! With our buying and consumption behaviour, we practice sustainability and social commitment. Especially the younger generation attaches more and more importance to this.

With product seals of approval placed on product pages, you give potential customers another reason to buy your products. There are a variety of quality seals for a wide range of products.

Some well-known examples in Germany:

• Der blaue Engel
• FSC
• Global Organic Textile Standard
• Viabono
• EU Energy Label

i. Exit-Intent Popups (Service Variant)

By providing detailed information, building trust and creating emotions on the product page, you prevent many customers from abandoning the purchase at this point. However, it is impossible to address the problems and needs of each individual visitor on just one page. But these must be recognised, solved and covered so that a successful purchase is made.

For this purpose, exit-intent popups can be used, which appear shortly before the customer leaves the online shop and provide the person who abandoned the purchase with an individual service with considerable added value.

Online Shop Optimisation: Shopping Cart

Before customers make a purchase in an online shop, they place the products in the shopping cart. This procedure is similar to stationary shopping in a supermarket and is familiar to the visitor in everyday life. For the online shop, the shopping cart is an elementary and at the same time critical component of the purchase, because it is the link between the product selection and the checkout.

If everything is correct on the shopping cart page, the visitor will take the next step to the checkout and thus begin the actual checkout. If, on the other hand, the shopping cart does not provide the required information, the visitor may quickly abandon the shopping cart.

a. Product Information

Give the visitor an overview of the products in the shopping cart. In addition to a preview image in the form of a thumbnail, the overview should include the number, sizes, colours and, depending on the product type, further information. With a single look, the visitor knows which products she is ordering and whether the order corresponds to her wishes. Only with this certainty is an order possible at all.

• Quantity
• Size
• Colour
• Further information

b. Product Modification

Sometimes visitors accidentally put the wrong products or too many products in the shopping cart. In such cases it is helpful if he can modify the order directly in the shopping cart. This gives him the option of changing the number of individual products or removing the product from the shopping cart without having to leave the shopping cart immediately. This is user-friendly and prevents shopping cart abandonment.

• Changing the number of individual products
• Removing products from the shopping cart

c. Shipping Costs

How much will the order cost me in the end, including shipping costs? Place this information visibly, because the costs are the first thing many visitors pay attention to. If you offer free shipping (e.g. from a certain order value or for new customers), communicate it prominently. If the visitor pays for shipping, it is a good idea to additionally display the total costs plus shipping.

• Prominent placement for free shipping
• Integration into the total costs for paid shipping

d. Delivery Times

The information about the delivery date also has a positive effect on the purchase decision, provided that fast delivery times are offered. Legally, it must be possible for the customer to clearly estimate when the delivery can be expected by stating the delivery times.

You can provide delivery times in different ways. However, for legal reasons, among other things, you should pay attention to a few things:

• No unrealistic delivery times
• Information about when the package is ready for dispatch is not sufficient

e. Logos of the offered Payment Methods

Although the payment methods are not yet selected in the shopping cart, but only in the next step in the checkout, the presentation of the payment methods offered in the shopping cart can have a positive effect on purchasing decision. This way, the customer knows immediately that her preferred payment method is offered.

• Place logos of the payment methods offered in the shopping cart
• Provide a wide range of popular payment methods

f. Logos of the Shipping Service Providers

Every year, shipping service providers report new records in the number of parcels shipped. So it’s no wonder that some customers have negative experiences with shipping. Similar to the payment methods, customers often prefer certain shipping service providers. So also present the shipping service providers you work with. A positive side effect: the familiar logos build trust.

• Place logos of possible shipping service providers
• Provide a large selection of possible shipping service providers

g. Service Contact

Even if you provide all the important information in the shopping cart, some customers will still have problems and questions. So make sure you also provide information about the service. This way, the customer will immediately know which contact options are available in the case of possible questions arising.

• Integration of the telephone service
• Information about availability

h. Entering Voucher codes

If you want to optimise your online shop, you should also think about supposed ” small things”, such as the input field for voucher codes. There are a few things to consider when it comes to entering voucher codes. On the one hand, it should be easy for the customer to find the input field, otherwise it can quickly lead to frustration and thus to an abandoned shopping cart.

On the other hand, the input field must not be placed too prominently. Customers who want to complete their purchase without a voucher and are about to check out will not get the impression that vouchers are common. In this way, you prevent the visitor from abandoning the shopping cart to explicitly search for vouchers.

• Visible, but not too prominent placement of the input field
• Dropdown element for the input box

i. Call-to-Action

What is the next step and how does the customer start the checkout? Call-to-Actions also play an important role in the shopping cart.

If the customer does not know straight away what to do next to continue shopping, they may quickly leave the online shop and move on to the competition. From the shopping cart, there can be several paths that visitors want to take.

• Call-to-Action “Proceed to Checkout” to start the checkout process
• Call-to-Action “Continue Shopping” to search for further products

j. Exit-Intent Popups (Voucher Variant)

You have optimised the shopping cart and thus prevented many shopping cart abandonments? Congratulations! However, there is still some potential in the shopping cart. After all, it is impossible to create the shopping cart in such a way that it meets the needs of each individual visitor.

With the help of personalised exit-intent popups, you communicate individually with every single shopping cart abandoner. For example, price-sensitive visitors who are about to abandon a purchase receive a voucher code that convinces them to complete the purchase. There is no random distribution of voucher codes, as this approach leads to missed sales. Instead, a targeted distribution of voucher codes is only effective for the segment of price-sensitive shopping cart abandoners.

Online Shop Optimisation: Checkout

The visitor enters your online shop, picks out specific products, puts them in the shopping cart and decides to start the checkout. What reads like a guaranteed purchase quickly turns into an abandoned shopping cart in reality.

Like the product pages and the shopping cart, the checkout is also an extremely critical moment in the ordering process. This last hurdle must therefore be made as simple and appealing as possible with the help of online shop optimisation.

a. Short Ordering Process

Today, we have less and less time and online ordering must also be accordingly fast. Ideally, the purchase is completed in a maximum of five steps. At the same time, you should make sure to reduce the data queries to a minimum.

One option for optimising the checkout is the single-page checkout. Here, all fields are on one and the same page and the customer can clearly place the order in just a few clicks. However, multi-page checkouts are used more frequently. In this case, make sure that the customer is visually guided through the process.

• Single-page checkout
• Multi-page checkout (max. 5 steps)
• Limitation to the most necessary data

b. Guest Order

It is often a deterrent to have to create a customer account before the order can be placed. Fewer and fewer online shoppers are willing to register in an online shop without first having at least some trust in the shop.

With the guest order option, you give your customers the option to conveniently order without registering, which significantly reduces the abandonment rate. From a legal point of view, you should also enable your visitors to place guest orders.

• Guest ordering for hesitant customers

c. Trust with Quality Seals

Whether the Trusted Shop seal, a TÜV certification or the EHI trade seal: quality seals inspire trust. If a potential buyer starts the checkout and still has some uncertainties, the trust-building effect of quality seals can provide the final impulse so that she completes the order. Consequently, quality seals deserve a closer look if you want to optimise the online shop.

In contrast to product quality seals, shop seals refer to the online shop itself and should therefore not only appear in the checkout, but along the entire shopping process. The footer of the website, among other places, is a good place for this.

• Quality seals in the checkout and along the entire shopping process

d. Shopping Cart Timeouts

There are plenty of shoppers who fill a shopping cart, then interrupt the process to continue at a later point. From the customer’s point of view, nothing is more annoying than an empty shopping cart when the order is resumed. The chance that the customer will now start again from the beginning is quite small.

The abandonment rate in the checkout can be reduced if you allow preferences to be saved and the shopping cart to be used for the next customer visit. Here it depends on the shop system whether and which configuration options exist for the shopping cart timeout.

• Do not create a shopping cart timeout that is too short

e. Payment Methods

To avoid shopping cart abandonments in the last step, it is important to offer customers all common and preferred payment methods. PayPal is a must nowadays, but the classics are also still very popular in parts. Offer your customers a good selection of payment methods that your target group prefers.

Because there will certainly be new and innovative payment methods in the future due to the strong growth of e-commerce, it is also advisable to integrate them via a payment service provider (e.g. Klarna).

• Mix of payment methods preferred by your own target group
• If necessary, cooperation with a payment service provider

f. Mobile Commerce

The ordering process of your online shop should definitely be optimised for mobile devices. The worldwide revenue generated via mobile devices is continuously increasing. If mobile visitors are not considered from the beginning, you will have to reckon with falling revenue sooner or later.

To achieve this, content must be adapted to the small format of smartphone screens. Among other things, you need to pay attention to larger buttons, short checkouts, high loading speeds and, of course, a flawless responsive design. Solutions such as exit-intent popups are also ideally optimised for mobile devices – whether smartphone or tablet.

• Larger buttons
• Short checkouts
• High loading speeds
• Responsive design

Online Shop Optimisation: After Shopping Cart Abandonment

Have you already optimised your online shop in detail and always kept an eye on the conversion rate and shopping cart abandonments? It won’t be long before you are rewarded with satisfied customers and higher revenues!

Nevertheless, there will still be shopping cart abandonments. They are a part of online commerce and cannot be completely avoided. But even after a shopping cart has already been abandoned, there are some optimisation options for your online shop with which you can reactively bring the shopping cart abandoners back into the buying process and thereby maximise your revenue. These are off-page measures that take effect outside of your own website.

a. Classic Retargeting

The best-known off-page measure is classic retargeting. Here, visitors of your online shop are tagged. After a purchase has been abandoned, they are shown advertising banners on other websites. In this way, your online shop remains present outside of your own website.

b. Social Media Retargeting

Social media retargeting works on a similar logic as classic retargeting, except that the banner ads are displayed on social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn. With a social media penetration of 46% (38 million users in Germany), social media retargeting is correspondingly promising as an offpage measure.

c. E-Mail Retargeting (Abandoned Cart Emails)

Email retargeting, on the other hand, describes the sending of abandoned cart emails that guide the abandoners back into the shopping process after they have abandoned a shopping cart. In contrast to the other retargeting measures mentioned, with mailings to shopping cart abandoners you rely on direct communication (one-to-one marketing). Because of their high acceptance, these mailings have a high click-through rate. In this way, you reactivate up to 30% of your shopping cart abandoners.

Don’t miss out on the optimisation potential!

Whether with a shop system such as Shopware and Shopify or a self-built online shop: Use the optimisation possibilities of your shop and strengthen your online business. Even if you cannot avoid manual online shop optimisation, automated tools such as uptain will help you to optimise your online shop in critical points. So don’t miss out on the optimisation potential and get the most out of your online shop.