is-your-diamond-jewelry-e-store-not-converting-9-and-a-half-questions-to-ask-yourself
Your jewelry e-commerce store has a great designs, exquisite jewelry, competitive pricing but visitors are not converting into buyers. You are baffled and dont know what to do. You are burning a lot of cash on Google ad-words campaign, still visitor conversion rate is low.. What could be the reason?
Based on my companys years of experience in designing and developing e-stores for diamond and jewelry industry here are some insights and a list of Nine and a half(9.5) questions to ask..
Is your e-store slow ?
A typical online jewelry buyer spends lot of time surfing within a jewelry site. She goes though almost all available designs and metal options. If there is “build-a-ring” feature than considerable time is spend on making combinationsof ring design with diamonds. If your website is sluggish it is an instant put-off. Frustrated with slowness, a prospective buyer will never visit your store again. Jewelry stores need to be fast with lot of ajax based features.(without page re-load).
Get a speed audit done from various geographical locations. Use online speed testing tools like webpagetest.org. Do a user testing from third party sites like usertesting.com. Invest in server or cloud hosting with CDN.
Speed is important.
Are enough Trust cues displayed ?
Trust cues are logos of accreditation which help to instill trust in a prospective buyer.
They may include your membership logos with various industry organizations, or security related badges which certify PCI DSS compliance.
Diamond Jewelry buyer is not an impulsive buyer. Buying jewelry online is serious shopping. As a buyer surfs through your site she verifies that the website is a credible place to do purchase.
Trust cues can be broadly divided in following categories : Industry specific, security specific and Press mentions.
Industry specific trust cues for jewelry and diamond industry include: British Jewelers’ Association ( BJA) , GIA , ASSAY Assured.
Press related links could be permalinks to press references to your company in reputed publications.
Security related cues may include third part security auditors certifying your site as safe to do business with. These may include Trustwave, Comodo ,Verisign , Geotrust etc.
Ensure that all these logos are pulled from concerned body website with link which will provide info on your company’s membership/certification details. Simply pasting the logo is out-right illegal and will be counterproductive.
If you don’t have adequate security certification hire a consultant to get these through due diligence auditing of your site.
Does you site has link/ design sharing feature ?
An online jewelry buyer doesn’t buy on first visit. She finalizes a design then adds it in the wish list. Picks-up it’s permalink. Circulates the link to friends and family and so on…
Do you have “share” or e-mail a friend provision on product pages. It’s one of the most essential features in a jewelry website design.
If you are using e-commerce framework like Magento, OpenCart, Prestashop or wordpress Woocommerce than they have ready to deploy plugins for sharing.
Is your physical office address and phone number prominently displayed with real world shop photographs ?
Jewelry and diamond buying online perhaps has biggest “assumed trust” factor. Based on your website a buyer, before making a purchase need to develop enough trust within your business. One of the biggest factors is assurance of physical presence. Do you have your phone number and office address with Google map pinned location prominently featured on your site? Are your office / showroom photographs available? Do you have appointment scheduling form available wherein a prospect is invited to visit your showroom?
Get your brick and mortar presence well represented on your e-store.
Are you displaying shipping packaging details ?
As per our estimate, as high as 60% of purchases on jewelry websites happen for gifting. Very special gifting to loved once. No one would like to send and receive these exquisite jewelry items in business like packaging.
A buyer would like to know what packaging are you offering ? Is it complimentary or chargeable? Do you provide a choice for packaging? Have you displayed the photographs of gift box ? Do you provide customizations on gifting like not printing item cost. Display the packaging details prominently they help in conversion.
Does your e-store display customer reviews and testimonials ?
Prospective buyer consistently checks for product reviews and testimonials. Do you have enough product reviews and authentic testimonials on your site ? Instead of publishing reviews yourself; link them to third party review sites like TrustPilot, Yelp, reviews.co.uk, BBB and Google reviews. They carry more trust factor over self-published testimonials.If you don’t have client reviews yet; start building them by requesting your existing customers.
If you already have few testimonials on your website, evaluate them for trust worthiness from a buyer’s point of view.
Is your “About Us” section a Boiler Plate display ?
About Us section on a jewelry e-commerce is one of the most important pages and works as make or break page for final conversion. Over the years of studying Analytics and conversions for a jewelry e-store we have observed that as high as 90% of time a buyer checks “Above Us” page before making a final purchase.
About us should show real faces with key functionaries name photographs and direct e-mail ID should have a comprehensive backgrounder on your company.
Have you provided a statement on How your diamonds are sourced ?
Are your diamonds sourced through ethical channels? Have you provided a statement/declaration that they are not “conflict diamonds”.
If you have made a pledge through “The Campaign for Ethical jewelry ” or are members of “Stop Blood Diamonds” display the logos prominently. As per our experience buyers from US and Europe are very sensitive about this.
Is your “Return Policy” well defined ?
Is your “return policy” clearly defined? Or does it have too much small print ?
It’s essential that jewelry e-stores have a liberal return policy which should include “ 30 Days Money back Guarantee” Make your policy well defined in case of custom engraved items. Your return policy should also consist of step by step guide on how to return merchandise and care to be taken during return packaging. Check with your competitors return policy to see if you can do better.
In a jewelry, Diamond , color stone e-store return policy is of paramount importance.
