Q&A: International markets, lost customers, and conversion rates
A user of LinkedIn recently asked a question regarding broadening/expanding his international market. Currently the site supports Italian (the native tongue for the business location) and the primary sales channel is online. Statistics provided were 150 visitors per day, with 7 to 10 orders. The user also wanted to know where his lost visitors are going and if the product was too niche — and how to overcome these issues.
Here’s my answer:
Is the 7 or 10 orders a daily or a total order count? I’m going to assume it’s a daily purchase count…
At 150 visitors per day, and 7 or 10 orders, you’re looking at a conversion rate of 4-6%. Not bad, considering the average online retailer converts 2-3% (see URL below.)
Just a few suggestions:
Try Chinese, English and Spanish versions of your site (Chinese, English, and Spanish languages being the most widely spoken and used for the Internet. See URLs below.) Make the site auto-detect the language of the browser, and render for the user — with the ability to select a preferred language (little flags or text links to the alternate languages.)
It seems that you’re already using Google Analytics (GA.)1 Make sure you’re using the tools available through that service to analyze your user clicks and navigation to improve your service.
Using GA, Pay particular attention to your exit pages and traffic sources. Add content to exit pages to keep the user on your site, and try to encourage more users from sites where your conversion rate is better by well placed advertising, blog content, etc.
Also using GA, Pay attention to your visitor loyalty — are the same users returning time and time again, making repeat purchases? If so, reward them. Word of mouth is more powerful than any other form of advertising — especially in niche industries.
Are people missing your best products? Move your popular, higher margin, products up to the top of the front page. If you have a product you wish to sell more of, move it to a more prominent position.
For niche products; start talking about common and not-so-common uses, provide tutorials to increase your product user base (which it already appears you do!) or step-by-step directions.
If you have a niche product, and want to invite new customers, think about lowering the barrier to entry. do you have a “newbie” kit? Provide a startup kit or complete packages with detailed instructions — and identify them as “complete.”
Lastly, be creative! Your product seems to be based around screen printing, start printing products with your name and website URL on them! Provide these as marketing collateral and advertising. Flaunt your product in places other than online. Be proud of your brand and your products! The goal here is to drive traffic to your site from non-web based sources. Trade shows, schools, and industry groups that are more likely to make a purchase.
Good luck, and I hope this helped!
The reference links provided were:
Conversion Rates
Spoken Languages
Internet World Users By Lanugage
Comments? Thoughts?
1: Google Analytics can be detected/discovered by viewing the source of the website, scrolling to the bottom, and looking for urchinTracker(); and the surrounding javascript provided by google when setting up the service.
