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21 CRO Best Practices
for
eCommerce

About the Author
Smriti Chopra is a Marketer at VWO and also
helps with VWO’s demand generation initiatives.
She's responsible for handling social media and
creating content offers, including eBooks and
guest posts.
She’s passionate about experimenting with new
techniques in the marketing arena.
LinkedIn | Twitter | Google+

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
Reduce Form Fields
CHAPTER 2
Use A Contrasting CTA Button
CHAPTER 3
Get Rid of Automatic Image Slider
CHAPTER 4
Don’t Use Cheesy Stock Photos
CHAPTER 5
Test CTA Button Text
CHAPTER 6
Place CTA Above The Fold
CHAPTER 7
Add a Video
CHAPTER 8
Craft a Clear Headline
CHAPTER 9
Create Urgency
CHAPTER 10
Display Phone Number

Table of Contents
CHAPTER 11
Change CTA Link to Button
CHAPTER 12
Use the Magical Word ‘Free’
CHAPTER 13
Add Value to Your Offer
CHAPTER 14
Flaunt Testimonials
CHAPTER 15
Identify and Communicate Your
USP
CHAPTER 16
Show Off Award Badges
CHAPTER 17
Add Trust Badges
CHAPTER 18
Use Recognizable Security Seals
CHAPTER 19
Add Live Chat Widget
CHAPTER 20
Give a Price Match Guarantee
CHAPTER 21
Use Better Images on Product
Pages
CONCLUSION

Introduction to
Conversion Rate Optimization

Introduction
If you own an eCommerce website, you
know how challenging it is for you to
squeeze out revenue from your website
visitors. Conversion Rate Optimization
(CRO) helps you do precisely that!
CRO is essentially the science and art of
getting a higher percentage of your visitors
to take the desired action on your website.
For an eCommerce business, this desired
action can be getting more visitors to click
on the ‘Buy-now’ button. In this case, every
single click counts since it directly affects
the bottom line of the company.
Getting more visitors to your website
becomes futile once you realize that those
visitors are not taking the desired action.
Moreover, focusing on your existing visitor
base and getting them to convert more is a
far more effective strategy than simply
getting more people to visit your website.
In the most simplistic terms, CRO helps in
bridging the gap between a visitor showing
interest in your product and an interested
visitor finally becoming a customer. It helps
your identify what visitors are looking for
when they arrive at your website such that
you can optimize key parameters on your
website to suit the needs of your visitors.

1. Reduce Form Fields
From a marketer’s perspective, forms are a
great source of collecting data about
prospective customers. The more
information we have about our target
audience, the better we can reach out to
them. However, we often get carried away
with this vast pool of information. It is
important to understand that in the
process of getting more information, we
might just be losing out on a set of audience
that is simply too lazy to fill out too many
details in our forms.
According to a research, forms with only 3
fields receive 25% higher conversions.

1. Reduce Form Fields
Flying Scott, an airport car parking
company, conducted a test on their website
where they removed all unnecessary form
fields from their details page of their
booking process. As a result, they saw a
35% increase in form submissions.

Use A Contrasting CTA Button
CHAPTER 2

2. Use A Contrasting CTA Button
There is no one-color-fits-all rule here. The
basic idea is to have your CTA attract
attention. Using colors and images that are
in contrast with the page background
usually helps the purpose.
Flipkart.com, online retail store, uses
contrasting CTAs on its product pages to
direct visitors to take the desired action.

Get Rid of Automatic Image
Slider
CHAPTER 3

3. Get Rid of Automatic Image Slider
Even though those image carousels on your
homepage look ‘cool’ design wise but they
actually might be costing you conversions.
A usability study by Neilson Norman group
confirmed that auto-forwarding carousels
annoy users and reduce visibility. The study
highlights a couple of reasons why these
believed-to-be “cool” design element are
actually not good for your site’s usability or
conversions:
1. Automatic rotation makes the user lose
control of their interaction with the site.
This is especially annoying for users with
motor skill issues.
2. They create banner blindness and are
often easily ignored by users. The eye
tracking example below from another
source also validates this. You can see how
the image slider (the black area in the
picture) hardly gets any attention by site
visitors.

3. Low-literacy users and international
users (whose native language differs from
the language on your website) often read
slowly. A user clearly expresses his
frustration in the study when he says, “I
didn’t have time to read it. It keeps flashing
too quickly.”
Image carousels are often thought to be an
easy way to display multiple offers on the
homepage. However, if you look at it from a
conversion perspective, proposing multiple
offers in one place ends up confusing your
visitor. Prioritize your offers and then
direct visitors to take the desired action.
Now that we know how image carousels
can be seriously dangerous for conversions,
let’s have a look at a few alternatives to use
in place of carousels:
1. Focus your homepage on your
primary offer
Since you have already prioritized your
offering, let your most relevant offer get
the maximum share of visitor attention.
You can add a few offers that consistently
perform well as secondary offers. Ben
Sherman, an online clothing store and
implemented this very well on their
homepage.

2. Convert Each Slide into a Targeted
Homepage
Let’s say, you have a global clothing store
online. Now, countries often have different
clothing trends. So, you can segment your
visitors on the basis of their geographical
location with the help of your A/B testing
software. You can easily use pre-set
segments in VWO to set this up in just a
few clicks. Once you have segmented your
visitors, show them the homepage that
promotes an offer about the most popular
clothing trend in their country.
This means that instead of showing your
visitors an ever-rotating image slider that
lists maybe even one offer per slide for the
5 different countries from where you get
majority of your traffic, you are only
showing them their location-specific offer!
Doesn’t that make a lot more sense?

Don’t Use Cheesy Stock Photos
CHAPTER 4

4. Don’t Use Cheesy Stock Photos
Conversion Scientist Brian Massey calls
stock photos ‘business porn’.
Stock photos are high-quality, yes. But they
look staged. They are irritatingly perfect.
Studies have shown that they are often
ignored by people. They make visitors
browse the site and not experience it. Only
real or relevant images engage visitors.
Using images for ornamental reasons (like
the below example of T Mobile) does more
harm than good to your landing page.

Images on your landing page play an
important role in building online trust for
your website. You don’t want to come
across as fake and ignorant to your visitors
when they first discover you online. Real
images let your website interact with your
visitors.
The next big question is if not stock photos
then what? Try replacing stock photos on
your homepage with real human images
and test it out for better conversions!
Medalia Art, an online art store, decided to
test what happens if the paintings on their
homepage are replaced by the artists’
photos.
Control
Variation

Replacing the paintings with human photos
led to a 95% increase in conversion rate
from 8.8% with paintings to 17.2% with
artist photos.
There are hundreds of research studies
online that talk strongly about using human
images on websites. Real images not only
establish an online trust for your brand but
also help build a strong emotional connect
with your visitors.
However, human photos are not panacea
for all websites. Best is to A/B test photos
v/s no photos on your website. Many
research papers proved that in some cases,
human photos may actually have a negative
impact!

Test CTA Button Text
CHAPTER 5

5. Test CTA Button Text
This is one of the easiest tests to set up and
can drastically lift your conversions. The
relevance of your CTA copy influences
decision making at the Zero Moment of
Truth (ZMOT). It essentially answers the
most critical question “Why should I click
this button?” Hence, the more value your
CTA conveys, the more conversions you
get!
Let’s have a look at a live example of how
CTA copy can impact conversions.
Pcmbtoday.com, an online learning book
store, experimented with a more culturally
relevant CTA on their product page.

5. Test CTA Button Text
Here are a few things you should keep in
mind while creating the copy for your CTA
button:
1. Don’t use the word ‘Submit’! It’s been
overused for its worth and doesn’t convey
any value to your visitors.
2. Use a valuable and actionable copy. Let
your CTA tell the visitors what they should
expect after clicking on it.
3. Add urgency to your CTA. The idea is to
make your visitors click on the CTA there
and then.
4. Begin with a verb. Adding an action verb
to your CTA will induce visitors to take the
desired action.
5. Make sure your CTA copy is relevant to
the primary goal of your landing page.

Place CTA Above The Fold
CHAPTER 6

6. Place CTA Above The Fold
As we have seen already, your CTA is the
most important element on your landing
page. This is where you want your visitors
to focus on. Whether it is your website
homepage, a product page or the checkout
page, your CTA should be visible in a single
glance.
Don’t ask your visitors to put in extra effort
i.e. scroll down below the fold to reach your
call to action. Place it above the fold, at a
prominent position on your page.

7. Add a Video
Adding a video to your website provides a
passive engagement medium where your
visitors can experience your message
through an interactive platform. According
to a study by eyeviewdigital.com, using
video on landing pages can increase
conversion by 80%.
Using a video on the landing page not only
offers a more detailed description of your
product, it also helps engages visitors for a
greater period of time, allowing your brand
message to sink in well.
Here’s a list of different ways in which you
can use videos for your ecommerce
website:
1. Create a personalized product advice
video for your visitors. This will help your
visitors select the right product out of a
plethora of offerings. To give you an
example, Morrisons, the online groceries
store, added a video survey to its wine
section to help shoppers identify what kind
of wine they like.

7. Add a Video
2. Use instructional videos for complex
products. For products that require set up
and installation, add a how to video to your
product page.
3. Educate your visitors about a new
product category. This is an easy way to
give your audience more information about
a product category without making them go
through huge chunks on online content.
4. Use a simple product video to give your
audience a live experience of the product.
For example, Simply Beach, an online store
for swim and beachwear, embeds a video
on each of its product pages allowing
visitors to see a brief clip of a model trying
out the clothing item.
Last year, the company changed its videos
last year from a catwalk style to a new HD
static style to enable customers see a
better view of the product. This change led
to a 20% increase in conversion rate and
5% reduction in returns.

Craft a Clear Headline
CHAPTER 8

8. Craft a Clear Headline
Headline is usually one of the most
noticeable things on a landing page and
getting it right can boost your website
conversions to a great extent. Make sure
your headline is clear and to the point.
According to an eyetracking study by
Nielson Norman Group, users prefer
straight headlines to subtle ones. Don’t
beat around the bush, get straight to the
point with your headline.
Make sure your headline is crisp yet
detailed to instantly let the prospects know
what they can expect on your website.
There’s no scope for ambiguity since you
have only 10-20 seconds to make an impact
with your headline.
Movexa, a joint-supplement manufacturer
that sells supplements online,
experimented with making its headline
clearer by adding the word ‘supplement’.
This change led to an 89.97% increase in
conversions.

7. Craft a Clear Headline
Here’s a comparison of the control and
variation to summarize the test conducted
by Movexa:

9. Create Urgency
A study was conducted in 1975 where
researchers wanted to know how people
would value cookies in two identical glass
jars. One jar had 10 cookies while the other
contained just two. Though the cookies and
jars were identical, participants valued the
ones in the near-empty jar more highly.
And that’s the scarcity principle at play. It
essentially means that people tend to place
higher value on an object that is scarce and
a lower value on one that is available in
abundance. When combined with Urgency,
which is essentially the other side of the
same coin, the two make for a potent
weapon for increasing eCommerce sales.
Here’s how you can create urgency among
buyers to make them act now!
1. Stock Scarcity
Displaying your stock meter on the
eCommerce product page is always a good
conversion practice. Not only does it
ensure there are no last-minute
heartbreaks for the customer, it also
speeds up the buying process. A user might
be convinced to make a purchase, but
he/she might not be always willing to buy
right away. They might want to compare
the prices on other websites, look for
discount coupons or simply forget about
the product — thanks to the myriad
distractions of the web.

9. Create Urgency
Boticca.com, an online store for fashion
accessories, almost urges visitors to
complete the purchase right away. The use
of an active verb like ‘Act’ is used to drive
immediate action.

9. Create Urgency
2. Size Scarcity
Intimating the buyers when a particular
size goes out of stock is killing two birds
with one arrow. Not only is it a huge favour
for the prospects, the information also
works as a positive reinforcement of the
product.
Zappos.com, an online retail store, shows
how many items are left for a particular size
and color combination to induce visitor
action.

9. Create Urgency
3. Time-Bound Purchase for Next Day
Shipping
When you ask the visitors to make the
purchase in a specific amount of time, you
not only make them more proactive
towards the purchase, it also eliminates any
kind of confusion at their end as to when
they will receive the order.
Amazon shows the exact number of
hours/minutes within which the purchase
needs to be completed to qualify for next-
day shipping.

9. Create Urgency
4. Limited-Period Discounts
The fear of missing out is a legitimate one. It
is the anticipated regret of not being able to
seize an opportunity. A limited-time
discount works exactly at that level. It
makes the offer look so tempting and
fleeting that one is compelled to seize the
opportunity.
MakeMyTrip.com, an online ticket booking
platform, shows an alert when the last few
discounted airline tickets are left in stock.
See how they use color psychology here to
instil urgency. The use of the color ‘Red’ is
not a mere coincidence. The color is
associated with energy, increased heart
rate and is often used in clearance sales.

9. Create Urgency
5. Limited-Time Free Delivery
This works the same way as limited-time
discounts. The desire to avail free delivery
could possibly offset the visitors’ tendency
to procrastinate the purchase.
6. Special Discount Hours
A two-day or a weekend sale has its own
charm but a special discount hour can be
used to galvanize excitement around that
specific hour. Zivame, an online lingerie
store, sent out this mailer to subscribers to
build up craze for its hour-long sale.

Display Phone Number
CHAPTER 10

10. Display Phone Number
It is usually a good practice to add your
contact number in your homepage header
so that it isn’t missed by your site visitors.
This adds credibility and also assures
people that you are easily approachable if
they have any problems or concerns during
their purchase process.
Also, people surfing through your website
on their mobile phone will easily be able to
reach out to you since the phone number
displayed will be clickable.
See how OzScopes, an online telescope
retailer, has its phone number noticeably
displayed on the homepage:

Change CTA Link to Button
CHAPTER 11

11. Change CTA Link to Button
In case your call-to-action is embedded as a
link to text, you should change it to a
clickable button right away! Text links are
often lost with the rest of the text, making
it difficult to spot them on the page. CTA is
the most important element on your
website to achieve higher conversions.
Hence, you don’t want your visitors to miss
out the CTA among huge chunks of
paragraph text.
Underwater Audio, an eCommerce
website, changed their text links to CTA
buttons and saw improvement in
conversions.

Use the Magical Word ‘Free’
CHAPTER 12

12. Use the Magical Word ‘Free’
The word free is a powerful emotional
trigger and a source of irrational
excitement. The moment you see the word
free, there’s an urgency to take action
created in your mind. Same is the case with
your visitors. People end up buying stuff
they don’t even need when it is offered for
free.
In this world of uncertainty, ‘free’ is a sure-
shot conversion booster. Way back in
1999, Amazon began offering free shipping
on orders of $99 or more. Since then they
have been experimenting with their
marketing strategy to best take advantage
of our desire for 'free.'
Gregory Ciotti of Copyblogger puts in
another perspective to the ‘power of free’.
She points to loss aversion and our natural
instinct to go after “low hanging fruit” as
the reasons why we are so susceptible to
snatching up free stuff.

Add Value to Your Offer
CHAPTER 13

13. Add Value to Your Offer
As long as the perceived value of your offer
is not greater than what you are asking
from your customers, you cannot make
them convert.
One great way to increase the perceived
value of your offer is to add benefits in your
copy. Answer the “What’s in it for me?”
question of your visitors, and they will
happily convert into leads or sales.
Urbanladder.com, an online furniture retail
store, add value to its offer by introducing a
lucky winner content for newsletter signup.

Flaunt Testimonials
CHAPTER 14

14. Flaunt Testimonials
Adding testimonials to your website is like
spreading word-of-mouth in the real world.
The more your happy customers talk about
you, the better will be your conversions.
Having big names or companies talking
about you is a huge conversion booster. It
adds credibility and assuages buyers’ fears.
However, in order to add testimonials to
your website, don’t forget that they have to
come from real customers based on their
experience with your website.
By testimonials, I don’t mean this:
I love your website. Your dresses are so
cool. ~ Amanda, USA
There are so many websites that display
fake testimonials like the one above.
Anyone can write and put them up. The
best testimonials are the ones that do the
selling for you by saying what is unique
about your offer and emphasize the
benefits of your offer.
Fabfurnish.com, an online furniture store,
beautifully uses customer testimonials on
the website. In addition to adding a quote
from the customer on the homepage, they
have a ‘Share your story’ section where
customers share their stories about their
experiences with buying products from the
website.

Identify and Communicate Your
USP
CHAPTER 15

15. Identify and Communicate Your USP
Your Unique Selling Proposition is the real
reason why you exist. To identify your USP,
answer these questions for yourself:
1. What is it that distinguishes you from
your competitors?
2. What gives you an edge over them?
Once you have identified your USP, make
sure you communicate it clearly to your
target audience.
For example, Zappos.com, an eCommerce
store, identified superior customer service
as its USP and they have been
communicating it well to their target
audience through their tagline which says
“Powered by Service”.
Also, they prominently display the ‘Free
Shipping and Returns’ badge on their
homepage to reinforce their USP of
superior customer service.

Show Off Award Badges
CHAPTER 16

16. Show Off Award Badges
Displaying award badges on your website
helps eliminates online buyers’ distrust.
Bagservent.com, an online bags retail store,
saw an increase in conversions when they
added the esteemed ‘WOW’ trust badge to
their website.

17. Add Trust Badges
There are various ways to add trust
elements to your website. If you have got
great reviews from Glassdoor, Yelp or
Better Business Bureau don’t hesitate to
flaunt them. You can also look at adding a
Trust Pilot widget to your website and
boost conversions.
Express Watches, an online watch retailer,
saw a 58. 39% increase in sales when they
added the Trust Pilot widget to their
website.

Use Recognizable Security Seals
CHAPTER 18

18. Use Recognizable Security Seals
The greatest barrier to online sales is trust.
Since your online store doesn’t have a
human face that your visitors can interact
with, it is important to assure them about
the trustworthiness of your website. The
best way to do it is to add trust badges.
In case you are wondering which trust
badges you should try adding to your
website, here’s a report from a survey
conducted by Baymard Institute that
showed which badge gives the best sense
of trust during online payments.

Add Live Chat Widget
CHAPTER 19

19. Add Live Chat Widget
Live Chat can be a useful tool for providing
customers with answers at the most critical
moment. It has been observed that people
who use live chat have a higher average
order value than other customers.
According to study conducted by Forrester
Research, 44% of online consumers say
that having questions answered by a live
person while in the middle of an online
purchase is one of the most important
features a Web site can offer.
To give you a real life example,
supplygeeks.com, an online business
supplies retailer, added live chat to their
website and saw conversions increase by
17%.

Give a Price Match Guarantee
CHAPTER 20

20. Give a Price Match Guarantee
People want to be sure that they are not
getting ripped off. Assure them that you
can give them the best price in the market.
If possible, show them a comparison of your
prices with your competitor’s prices.
BestBuy.com, an online retail store, offers a
selective Price Match guarantee on their
items.

Use Better Images on Product
Pages
CHAPTER 2

21. Use Better Images on Product Pages
The battle of an eCommerce sale can be
won or lost on a product page. Visitors to
your website take their most crucial
decision on the product page. Hence, the
importance of structuring the page well and
presenting products clearly on the
products page cannot be over-stated.
When it comes to product page images, you
should use product images that are clear
and attractive. The image on your product
page is the hero of your movie. It’s the lead
singer of your rock band. It should be
enticing, zoom-able, definitely be placed
above the fold and must be of jaw-dropping
quality.

Conclusion
In the end, all methods to increase website
sales and leads come down to better
relevance, improving clarity, fewer
distractions, reducing anxiety, and
increasing urgency. When you take care of
these, you should have good hypotheses to
start off your tests and look forward to
better conversions on your website.
Some of the changes as described in this
eBook can be quickly implemented on your
website and immediately reap in more sales
while others may require more expertise.
However, I would recommend going with
one change at a time so that you are able to
analyze what’s working and what’s not in
your specific business scenario.
You can start implementing those tips
which you think are most relevant to your
business needs. But before you do that, I
absolutely insist that you A/B test them.

Built-in Heatmaps
Gain insights about your visitors. Find out what
they like/don’t like.
WYSIWYG Editor
Forget spending hours on coding. DIY without any
help from your developer.
Super Smooth Usability
Creating tests is a breeze
Quick Integrations
One-click integration available with GA,
KISSmetrics, Clicktale
Exploit our Idea Factory
Find A/B testing ideas to improve conversion rate
of your website
Intuitive
A/B Testing
for Busy
Marketers

About VWO
VWO is a leading website testing platform used
by more than 3,700 brands in 75 countries to
optimize their websites for generating leads.
Companies such as ShoeDazzle, Groupalia,
JustFab and Unibet use VWO to understand and
analyse online user activity and behaviour.
VWO offers marketers an easy-to-implement and
use, but highly effective A/B testing, multivariate,
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testing solution that requires no coding
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