The miraculous spectacle of e-commerce (Seriously!)

There was some breaking news on a blog the other day – that the average ecommerce site had a conversion rate of 2%.

That’s not breaking news, that’s old, stale news.

I forwarded it to a friend who is considering getting into e-commerce and he wondered why conversion is so low.

So I broke it down for him as a series of miracles and showed him the how and the why of it.

Here’s what I told him.

1. The first miracle happens when a visitor is convinced that all the big guys like Amazon, Ebay, WalMart don’t have what they need.
2. The next miracle happens when the visitor finds your e-commmerce site from the thousands and millions of sites out there. This is usually half the battle – getting found by this shopper.
3. Having found you, most visitors will not click to visit your site. So yet another magic of luck, planetary alignments will lead this visitor to clicking on your site and checking it out. Apparently the angels rejoice and blow horns in celebration of this 3rd miracle.
4. And if only the journey was over and our adventure could wind down. But no! You still have to expend mighty efforts to convince the precious visitor of the following truths:
   1. That Your business is not shady. That it is indeed reputable and trustworthy.
   2. That your product is the one that they should lust for.
   3. That your pricing is one that pulls at their hearts and they click on Add to Cart.
5. Now we are close to the end and yet the story may have a tragic ending. Turns out that more than half of the folks who made the long trek to this check out page end up changing their minds because they did not like the shade of the submit button, or they were surprised that you do not offer free shipping, or whatever else gets them annoyed. And just like that, yet another heartbreak in e-commerce land. But sometimes, the magical journey concludes with the visitor buying and becoming a customer.

After reading this story of miracles, my friend did understand the 2% mystery.

It’s tough out there. And you are a centurian for going to battle each day.

Make your battle a little easier, by getting these adventurous customers to return and buy again from you.

Check out a demo of RewardCamp to learn how to reward your customers and keep them coming back.