Understanding website conversion rate optimization specifically for Shopify (CRO for Shopify) & Shopify Plus
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) for Shopify/Shopify Plus is a process by which experts aim to increase revenue from existing traffic on a Shopify store.
Conversions can be classed as several events, but typically the purchase event is the most popular and one that many clients want to optimize. This is not always the case, however, as a lead could be the primary conversion for some sites depending on the business. In 95% of cases the primary objective of a Shopify store is to create a sale conversion online, there and then. The process of CRO (conversion rate optimisation) is one which aims to increase the percentage of people converting on a website. It can take many forms and experiments to perfect and is never the same on all websites. There are common drivers of conversions (e.g. solid reviews or free shipping thresholds) but there are also ones which are unique to your audience (for example the placement of sustainability and product environmental impact may drive a higher conversion rate with some audiences.)
Small changes in conversion rates on a Shopify / Shopify Plus store can mean huge changes in revenue for your business. Fractions of a percent can mean 10’s or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, which is seen on many of the sites we typically work with. Increasing a conversion rate by a small fraction of a percent may sound like a small win, but ultimately when looking at the data, and especially over the long term it’s clear that it can be worth it.
For example; say your baseline conversion rate is 2% (filtered for spam & admin traffic) and you are a fashion retailer and your business’s monthly revenue is $1 million per month. If we increase the conversion rate to 2.2% – a small 0.2% increase – it would total a monthly $100k boost in revenue. Many clients are surprised when we show them the data from split testing, as it proves how much extra revenue we can bring in with a small conversion increases. Our goal in CRO with any Shopify store is not to boost your conversion rates from 2-10% overnight (on a realistic level – that never happens, ever). We’re often working on fractional increases which are based on experiments, data, experience, common sense, a huge amount of user and browser testing and intuition.
Overall conversion rate optimization pays for itself very quickly & people with a solid long term business strategy will invest heavily in CRO. Sometimes resolving bugs for certain browsers / devices can can bring in 10’s of thousands of $ per month in extra revenue. Sometimes promoting free shipping or changing free shipping thresholds does the same thing. Sometimes pagespeed, sometimes improving ui/ux or onsite customer reviews. There are around 100 different parameters to play with here and many will need split testing.
The key point to take away is that CRO is not something quick and simple and there’s no magic bullet which fits all businesses. You need a lot of data, you need to be prepared to test and split test and you need to be aiming for fractional increases in most cases (there are exceptions where big changes to conversion rates can happen but these cases are few and far between). For example the below experiment showed that by promoting free shipping in a different & more concrete way increased revenue by 6c per session over 400k sessions whilst the baseline conversion rate increased by 0.07%. To an inexperienced retailer that may not sound like much. 6c per visitor and 0.07% uptick in conversion rates. But that’s a huge win when it’s at scale.
Doing these kinds of experiments with solid date enables us to say with near certainty what is a better converting experience. By doing this many times over a long period we can reach what we call “peak optimisation”. This experiment took a number of hours to setup and monitor (probably 5-10 hours) resulted in a net $50k gain for a 3 month period (once the change is made the benefit from the experiment is double as in the experiment it’s only 50% of traffic which sees this experience). Other experiments we have done have even resulted in 6 figure gains over the three month view (3 months is typical to run split test). When you combine many of these small fractional gains you have a significant return on your investment.
As you can see in other experiments we’re getting similar results – fractional increases from small changes. Which ultimately usually add up to 6 figure sums over the 12 month view when on higher volume stores which we typically work with.
What is e-commerce conversion rate optimization & how does it matter for a Shopify store?
CRO for a Shopify store is an ongoing process and typically involves:
- Full Shopify site & analytics data audit (so we can see hot exit points & problem areas)
- Traffic acquisition audit (e.g. adwords / facebook)
- Full browser & device test
- Pagespeed audit (pagespeed is a common problem on Shopify with the number of apps causing most problems)
- Split testing & development changes (where we take everything we know and split test experiences on site)
- Ongoing site monitoring (for e.g. downtime / app issues etc)
- A long timeframe: the typical timeframe for each split test is normally around 2-3 months. CRO is a process that is never over quickly. We usually expect to get decent results within an 18-month timeframe when working on a retainer with a client.
What is the typical conversion rate for Shopify & Shopify Plus stores?
There is no such thing as a ‘typical’ conversion rate for a Shopify store. It all depends on the market you are in and the country of sale. Conversion rates vary massively and looking for benchmarks can only come from knowing your competitors conversion rates in the same market (unlikely). What is typical for a new dropshipper selling cheap products thousands of others sell is totally different to that of an established site selling custom products. The former maybe close to 1% and the latter close to 8%.
Conversion rates can range from 0% – 12% (rarely higher), but the majority of stores (B2C) will fall in the 1-5% bracket unless they are selling unique products with little competition. Shopify sites selling fashion tend to have a lower conversion rate compared to those selling unique and specialized equipment for example, as there isn’t high competition and not many people may sell that item. Conversion rates are impacted by so many factors from the age of brand to onsite experience, traffic acquisition, pricing, price of products on amazon and even country of sale.
A large part of the conversion rate is determined by factors outside of a business’s control, however, there are still many things that are within control. This is the area in which an experienced Shopify CRO expert can help.
A team offering Shopify conversion rate optimization services will be able to make calculated experiments to see what parameter changes impact conversion rates and help guide merchants toward making sensible on-site decisions – backed up by concrete data. A lot of the things we do here at Liquify can only be achieved by deep diving into data and processing experiments that can sometimes feel counterintuitive.
We have deep data experience with enterprise Shopify Plus brands and e-commerce Conversion rate optimization. We help brands optimize their e-commerce conversion sets and gain huge bottom-line revenue gains. We’re even in the process of building a market-leading AI-powered conversion optimization tool for Shopify & Shopify Plus stores! So yeah – if you’re interested in doing some serious CRO which takes time, effort and money but which ultimately pays for itself. Then talk to us.
Interested in our conversion rate optimization agency?
If you are looking at conversion rate optimization companies, talk to us and our Shopify experts can run through your options for CRO for your Shopify or Shopify Plus store. We can’t tripe your conversion rates overnight. But we can make significant fractional gains over a longer time period. Our CRO experts, Shopify designers & Shopify developers can help you scale to the next level.
FAQs about Shopify & conversion rate optimisation
Is Shopify suitable for conversion rate optimization services?
Shopify Plus & Shopify are totally suitable. We help brands optimize and improve conversion rates on the Shopify platform. We’re currently in the process of building a market-leading AI-powered conversion optimization tool for Shopify & Shopify Plus stores too!
How long does conversion rate optimization take on Shopify?
Conversion rate optimization services are an ongoing action. The typical timeframe for split testing for example is usually around 2-3 months. We usually expect to get decent results with CRO on a Shopify store within an 18-month timeframe when working with retainer clients. Higher volume stores are easier to test with as experiments can be conducted quicker and the conclusions are more concrete.
