Is your store converting as much as you would like?
The answer to this question will (almost) always be no. No matter how successful your eCommerce store is, a higher conversion rate is always desirable.
That’s why Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is one of the main focuses of any eCommerce store and something that often underpins various other brand, product and marketing decisions.
Despite this, the vast majority of eCommerce stores struggle with CRO. You have probably tried improving your conversion rate, but, to what success?
You’ve run A/B tests that generated inconsistent results.
You’ve changed page layout, colour schemes, website copy…
Experimented A LOT with all sorts of different tactics hoping something would stick.
The reason why you have found inconsistencies and perhaps a less than desirable improvement in your conversion rate, despite all the effort, is usually down to one factor.
The most common cause for eCommerce stores having a mediocre conversion rate is a lack of research.
The vast majority of eCommerce stores (as much as 75%) rely on vague best practices, irrelevant case studies and cringe “X number best tips to improve your conversion rate” style blogs.
What stores fail to realise is that every store is different, every product category is different, every niche is different, every store's customer type is different, the list can go on.
Essentially what works for these ‘case studies’ or industry best practices may not be applied to your store or the way in which they are applied could be completely different.
Even if you do have a robust data analytics function, I am sure your store is overwhelmed with data and there is still a struggle to convert that data into actionable insights.
This is where surveys can help.
In this blog I will go through why surveys are important for eCommerce stores and the benefits they can bring.
Why Are E-Commerce Surveys Valuable?
E-Commerce surveys are not a widely used tool by online retailers. This is largely due to the feeling that surveys come with an associated time and effort to sift through the data. Although true, what eCommerce stores often don’t fully realise is the time, effort and money surveys can save in the future.
Let’s get back to CRO for a second. As we discussed, a lot of eCommerce decisions from web design to marketing is largely aimed at improving customer conversion rates. Usually this is done through a series of A/B tests to get the right ‘formula’.
The hypotheses that create the grounds for these A/B tests are where the problem lies. You may run several A/B tests based on several different hypotheses, but, as mentioned above these hypotheses are often coming from external sources which may not be relevant to your store or from brainstorming sessions among internal staff. Nothing tangible to back these hypotheses/
It may be the case that you are putting time, effort and money into A/B tests to find the optimal solution from what may be hypotheses that are not optimal in the first place. Picking the best from a bad bunch.
You may be running A/B tests across different ad campaigns. You find after several tests you have found an ad that is working well and improves click through rates and slightly improves conversion ratios. But, you are not learning much, if anything, about customer behaviour.
To create effective hypotheses you need to learn about your customers behaviours. I'm not talking about the huge amounts of quantitative analytics you have, they can only tell you so much. I am talking about real, qualitative insights direct from your customers. This is where surveys can help.
Using the example above, it might be the case that you are opitmising your ads for the wrong audience. You are attracting more customers but what is the quality of the customers you are attracting? You might be attracting a higher number of still low quality customers ie. those with low purchase intent.
Surveys will help you identify the attributes from the right type of customer, those with high purchase intent. Learning from these customers will help you make decisions to optimise processes and make changes to bring in more high quality leads which result in higher conversion percentages.
Once you have these customers coming on to your website, surveys can help convert the. They are an important tool for maximising your stores ability to create positive experiences for your customers and improve your products as well as the general customer journey.
Customer Feedback Can Provide Positive Influence Such As:
Segmentation: E-Commerce surveys can help eCommerce stores better understand customer behaviour. This allows marketers to better segment their customers and target/serve specific groups differently.
Marketing: Surveys offer eCommerce stores an opportunity to learn more about their customers, inform who they are, and provide insight towards their preferences and requirements. This will help guide marketing decisions across all channels.
Customer Experience: Surveys act as a channel to understand how satisfied customers are along their ‘customer journey’. Surveys can help identify product or website issues and provide insights that could help with up-selling or cross-selling opportunities.
Reviews:Reviews are everywhere on eCommerce websites. They are used as a tool to demonstrate social proof, an important factor in people's purchasing decisions. Using surveys you can identify areas of the store experience that could be improved or identify aspects of the shopping experience that are important to customers. Improving on such areas will lead to more positive reviews.
By now we have discussed why surveys can be valuable for eCommerce stores, so let’s now look into the benefits they can bring.
Benefits of Using Surveys
There is a reason why pretty much all large and established retailers conduct surveys. Big brands such as Asos, Glovo, Hollister and Boohoo all invest heavily in surveys. The data they collect from the answers to these surveys is invaluable for understanding their customers better and ultimately improving their offerings and customers purchasing experience.
For smaller retailers, it can seem like a daunting task. You are already overwhelmed with data, but, remember when done correctly the benefits surveys can bring will far outweigh the time and effort associated with extracting insights from the results. In fact, you will likely find that survey data provides insight that will align with your existing analytics and help you extract value from your existing data sources.
Listed below are some benefits surveys can bring:
Create a Detailed Customer Persona: Surveys can help you identify your customers demographics, interests, goals and challenges to help you build a detailed buyer persona.
Improve Your Marketing Strategy: Leveraging your improved buyer persona, surveys can provide additional insights to help you improve your marketing strategy and focus on the right people/channels.
Improve Engagement Rates With Paid Ads: Surveys can help you identify the right people to target and determine what type of ad content is important to them. Segmentation can make a big difference here, with segmented campaigns based on interests improving engagement rates significantly.
Stay Ahead of Trends: Surveys can help you stay ahead of the competition and identify trends such as popular products. Invest in these trends and reap the rewards.
Improve Your E-Commerce Website: As discussed above, surveys can be used to help you understand what areas of your website could be improved and what type of improvements would see the biggest results.
Segment Your Buyers: We mentioned how this can benefit paid advertising above, but understanding your customers based on segments can be used to introduce personalisation across paid ads, social media, email marketing, website experiences and much more.
Summary
Customer surveys are an easy and cost effective way to gain considerable insight into who your customers are, what they think about you and what interests them.
All the larger retailers invest heavily into surveys and you can see the impact it has with all the customer centric changes they make. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you can copy your larger competitors' changes and expect them to create results for yourselves.
Customers are shopping with you for a reason and not your competitors. What your customers want and how that can influence your store’s offering is unique to yourself. You need to invest into learning more about your customers and in turn see the benefits it can bring.
If you want to learn more about how bazar’s survey tool can help you gain meaningful insights about your target customers then get in touch with us here.
