Actions for maximizing sales on your online store

The conversion rate is one of the key metrics to evaluate the performance of an online business. 

Shopify is one of the main e-commerce platforms used by online merchants in general and eyewear is no exception. The average ecommerce conversion rate observed by Shopify is 1.4%. That means that 1.4% of visits to the online store are converted into orders. Out of 100 visitors, 14 are placing an order. Monitoring this conversion rate is a good way to see the success of your online store. You can see if the optimizations of the way you showcase your catalog and products on your store are improving or not this conversion rate.

If your Shopify Store has a conversion rate below 0.5%, you likely have room to improve. If you are above 3.3%, you are already in the top 20% of all Shopify stores, according to what Shopify has observed. You can of course use this benchmark even if your store is not built on Shopify.

To convert more visits into orders, you need to focus on the main pain points of glasses online shoppers.

Here are the main reasons why consumers don’t buy glasses online, according to a study Fittingbox conducted in 2022 on 214 individuals aged 18+ who wear glasses, in France and the USA:

• 67% of shoppers need to check that the glasses fit them properly. In other words, they need to try them on before buying them.
• A little bit more than half of them need to hold and touch the glasses. They need to handle the actual product to be convinced.
• 35% of glasses wearers find choosing lenses online is just too complex. There are too many options, and not enough advice at this stage.
• 18% of them need to be convinced by online shopping at all.

The first three pain points have solutions if you enhance your online shopping journey to remove some factors that make shoppers doubt. 

Let’s take a step back and have a look at the usual online shopping journey for eyewear. Eyewear being a specific category, the general idea here is to ease the shopping process as much as possible, to convert the cart into an order, and deliver it as fast as possible, all while minimizing returns to increase profitability:

• Awareness: How to get people to know your brand, by showcasing your collections on Search Engines (Google at first), Online Ads, Social Media platforms, TV Campaigns. How you manage to drive traffic to your online store.
• Inspiration: Engage consumers by providing inspiration to purchase frames on the visited website.
• Frame Selection: Engage consumers by allowing them to easily find the suitable frame(s) and try them on even with strong correction, virtually.
• Lens Selection: Complete the engagement by helping users to choose the right lenses.
• Configuration: Collect prescription. Capture users' measures to finalize the configuration of the glasses.
• Purchase: Make the cart validation steps easier.
• Retention & Upsell: Entertain consumers to sell extra frames or accessories and have them come back for their next frames.

Which steps of the online shopping journey to enhance to increase conversions? What is the impact of a “try-before-you-buy” experience on your online sales?