Everyone loves a success story, so I’ve put together my top ten tweaks smart retailers have made to successfully boost conversion.

These are just a few steps that every retailer can make to their site to see their conversion rates rise:

  • Many large retailers, including B&Q, Laura Ashley and The Hut Group run multivariate testing on their sites, making slight changes to components like text, colour, layout etc., to see which combination best boosted conversion.

    This increased B&Q’s sales by £3m and Laura Ashley’s conversions by 11%.

  • House of Fraser implemented technology that highlights critical product information and gives detailed product zooms to achieve a shopping experience that is a close as it could be to shoppers in its brick-and-mortar stores. 

  • Comet launched online product demo videos: the videos act as a knowledgeable sales assistant and allow customers to see both the true size of the product and how it works.
  • Many retailers including ASOS, The Book Depository and Farfetch implemented an email remarketing strategy to increase conversions, with varying degrees of success. 
  • Both Zavvi and Figleaves introduced customer support that enables customers to chat to an agent 24/7 at any point during their shopping experience. Frequently asked questions include anything from stock enquiries and finding the right product, to difficulties inputting a discount code. Both retailers saw their conversions boosted by 50%.

  • Wilkinson upped its conversion rate by 23% and average order values by 16% by adding an intelligent recommendation tool to the site. The tool recommends products to each site visitor based on their internet preferences, what they add to their basket and what they’ve purchased before.
  • MandMDirect.com launched mobile marketing campaigns that offered its active customer base various discounts and deals. 6% of customers that received text messages then went on to make a purchase.
  • In response to a customer feedback survey on the functionality of its site, Selfridges allowed customers to click through to products more quickly by reducing the number of clicks before checkout.
  • By adding product ratings and review functions to sites, retailers can build up trust and in turn conversion rates. These functions allow retailers to open communication with customers, while allowing them to make ‘more informed’ purchases.

  • Ramping up email marketing frequency in the run up to Christmas and Valentines can pay dividends. As shopping is top of the customer’s minds this doesn’t have the negative impact it might have done out of season.

Encouragingly, there are many things retailers can do which don’t cost the earth and are quick to implement. One thing to take away though is: don’t stop testing.

Any new strategy to improve conversions should be continuously tested and evolved to ensure you’re getting the best results. If the success of these retailers is anything to go by, these tweaks are clearly working.

Do you have a favourite tweak that you’ve made to your site or digital marketing strategy that has boosted your conversion rate?