Conversion rate optimization works. And sometimes the smallest changes bring the biggest gains. One small tweak to the shopping cart experience gave Cry Baby Ranch’s online store new life and started delivering results immediately.
Cry Baby Ranch is a western boutique with an established retail store in Denver’s historic Larimer Square. For years they have had an online store selling some of their classic and modern western wear, jewelry, and accessories. There was just one problem: nobody seemed to be buying.
Despite an attractively-designed site with professional photography of the high-quality merchandise, the store’s Cart Abandonment rate was over 90% and the average order value was a fraction of the retail store’s.
In an initial Conversion Rate Optimization audit, dbdc identified the probable culprit: shipping costs. Higher-than-expected shipping costs are the cause of 61% of all abandoned carts. One way to address this is to making shipping costs visible to the customer earlier in the shopping process, so that the customer doesn’t experience sticker shock when shipping costs appear suddenly on the checkout page.
Conversion Rate Optimization Round One
dbdc recommended making it easier for customers to see the expected shipping costs earlier in the ordering process by placing a shipping calculator both on the Shopping Cart page and in the “Mini Cart” dropdown that appears when you add an item to the cart.
The result made it possible to see how much an item will cost to ship right away:
What were the Results of the Conversion Rate Optimization?
Since adding the Shipping Calculators to the Mini Cart and Cart page, Cry Baby Ranch has seen a 18% decrease in abandoned carts, and their Average Transaction Value for orders placed on the site is up 47%:
Evidently, showing customers shipping fees up front is not only making them more comfortable with purchasing, it is encouraging them to spend more by making it easy to see how adding items to their orders affects shipping charges.
An Encouraging Start
The first round of dbdc’s Conversion Rate Optimization on Cry Baby Ranch’s site showed immediate and positive results. Those results show the power of changes that might seem simple, or even invisible, to the average site visitor. Conversion Rate Optimization is no magic wand; it’s an ongoing process of iterating on small changes that collectively produce big results. And it’s never too late to start!