Conversions

Hello all,

I have steadily been getting more hits to my site. Through analytics I have determined that the hits are of more quality than in the past.

The problem is in converting these hits to sales. I have alot of people shopping and putting product in the shopping cart but not converting to a sale.

my website is http://www.crosshairgolf.com

Could you take a look and see what might keep folks from making a purchase. Last year I had less hits but more sales. I understand about the economy and whatnot, but my distributor is really doing well, so I know I should be doing better.

Thank You

Al

At a quick look.....

I like your one page checkout, it seems to be working fine. People are most likely putting items in your cart, checking shipping rates, taxes, coupon codes..etc to get a total price. Then they are shopping you, or have decided not to spend the money.

What will help is to continue to pump up the SEO on your site so you get better rankings. This will give people the idea that you are THE place to buy golf stuff.

I found that when I didn't select options it brought me to a separate page and simply told me I had to select required options. No additional detail as to what options or where I missed them.

I suggest that particular error occur on the same page as the options to select instead of a separate page where I have to hit my back button... and try and figure out what options your talking about.

And another thing... you need to figure out what makes you special. Why should I buy golf clubs from you rather than going to my local shop or some other internet shop... You can't always just be cheaper, you need to have the whole package working for you better than your competition... Can I call you and ask for advice, can I easily return things I don't like or mis-order, do you have better pictures, better discriptions than what the manufacturer gives...etc...

Are people abandoning after putting things in the cart or after seeing the checkout page?

If the latter... can your logs tell you if they saw the shipping cost?

Also... if sales are not increasing... how do you know the traffic you are getting is 'better'? Is it converting better but not as well as you would like? If so... what is your conversion rate expectation after people put something in their cart? How far off are you?

Hello

Thank you for responding.

We have Free Shipping so, the potential customer will never see a shipping charge.

We used to have a 2-3% conversion rate, now it is not even 1%

We think the traffic is better becasue it is more focused. We used to get the lions share of our hits from "clone golf clubs" and variations of it. Now we get very specific traffic for our brands, particular clubs etc. our traffic from "clone golf clubs" has not dramatically dropped, it is pretty much the same. Our total trafic has doubled since last year.

We used to get quite a few phone calls, and email inquiries, now nothing. We have searched the net for negative statements about us and nothing. We give great customer service and have never had a customer un happy.

I thought it was the economy but our distributor is going full out.

we did change the design of the site a little, you can check our site from last year on the way back machine. I really do not think that has anything to do with it but who knows.

Thank you for any help

Al

Lots of factors influencing the conversion rate of the site that includes:

a. Does your site offers the best current price? It may in the past but some sites may beat your current pricing that makes it more attractive to current buyers.

b. Does people currently prefers golf clone clubs compared to other brands? Popularity of golf clone clubs seems to be less compared to the past: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=Clone%20Golf%20Clubs&cmpt=q

c. I just click "Add to cart" on the homepage and the next page won't load with Firefox, I waited and still not loading (1 minute past), I click again and then transferred to what seems like a product page with "Add to cart" button again..I click the button, this time an error shows: http://www.crosshairgolf.com/error.asp?error=19&catalogid=135

This shopping experience may be causing some serious issues with your customer using Firefox (this browser is becoming increasing popular today). And they are not technical and may not be interested in reporting these errors to you, they may simply leave the site and go to your competitors.

Great. Though you might want to advertise that a bit more. At least we can eliminate it as a possibility.


Ok so we have a definate large drop. How fast did the drop happen?


Ok. Normally more specific terms convert better... but... it also means the customer knows what they want and it may indicate they are shopping around strictly on price.

One thing to check (if whatever package you are using lets you) is how the specific terms convert vs. the more general ones.

In addition you should check to see if the original more generic traffic dropped in conversion rate.

That should help narrow down the problem.



Well I don't know anything about the golf club market. Never mind that for specific clubs.
Did the drop in conversion rate coincide with the site changes?

I did not have the same problem as Emerson in Firefox 3 but his issue points out two things you should check for.

1. Is the conversion rate different depending upon the browser used?

2. Do you have any site wide stability problems like a flaky server?

I recommend testing the entire site in firefox. But you should also check for any intermittent problems that could be chasing off users.

As far as browsers go, I use Firefox almost exclusively. So, all my testing is done first in Firefox and I have had no problems with that.

wow..a conversion issue...nice to see here first of all...

I agree mostly with previous posts that have mentionned price as an indicator that the visitor "surfed" before hitting "checkout."

while I'm not a golfer I can only offer that the latest buying stats from Nlelsen, show that more'n 88% of buyers surf to research and find the best deal.

so....here's what I'd do. I'd use the keywords/phrases you're targeting, run serps, then check every competitor and compare pricing. if they're cheaper, you know why your cons are lower. if they're not, then it's some other factor....

not a complete answer but a start....

:-)

Jim

PS like golf eqt is expensive yes....so it's no wonder that folks "shop!!!"