How to Increase E-commerce Conversions Without More Traffic | Simon Peat

Getting traffic to your E-commerce store but struggling to make sales?

In this episode of The Website Growth Show, E-commerce conversion expert Simon Peat explains why most E-commerce stores fail to convert even when traffic is strong and how small fixes can lead to massive revenue gains.

Simon shares real examples where brands doubled conversions not by redesigning everything, but by fixing checkout friction, unclear messaging, and hidden trust signals.

If your E-commerce store looks good but customers do not complete purchases, this episode will show you exactly where to look first.

What You Will Learn

Why traffic does not equal sales in E-commerce
The number one checkout mistake killing conversions
How unclear messaging blocks buying decisions
Why social proof must be visible immediately
How one wellness brand doubled conversions from 2 to 3 per cent to over 5 per cent
Why ShopPay and frictionless checkout matter
How subscriptions increase customer lifetime value when done right
What conversion leaks are and how to spot them
Why mobile experience is costing most stores over half their sales
Which ecommerce data actually matters, and what to ignore

About Simon Peat

Simon Peat is an E-commerce conversion specialist with nearly 20 years of experience helping established online stores increase revenue from existing traffic. He focuses on data led optimisation, checkout flow improvements, and removing friction from the buying journey.

You can find Simon on LinkedIn, where he shares practical, real world ecommerce conversion advice.

Resources (mentioned)

Simon Peat (LinkedIn): https://bit.ly/4qLmBAk

Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:55 Why people trust people, not brands
02:20 Guest intro: Simon Peat
03:58 How Simon helps brands add £50K+ revenue
05:22 Why eCommerce sites fail to convert
06:35 Social proof & trust mistakes
06:55 How to identify conversion problems using data
08:02 Checkout issues killing conversions
10:31 Case study: Shopify wellness brand
12:27 Subscription optimization & Shop Pay
14:12 From 2–3% to 5–6% conversion rate
18:10 Traffic leaks explained
22:03 Using Google Analytics the right way
24:47 Mobile conversion mistakes
30:50 The discount trap
35:05 Quick CRO wins founders can fix in one afternoon
38:11 Where to find Simon Peat
38:43 Outro

Website growth
Ecommerce conversions
SEO and UX
Messaging clarity
Revenue optimization

 #CROeCommerce #IncreaseOnlineSales #TrafficButNoSales #MobileOptimization #EcommerceCaseStudy #CustomerLifetimeValue #ShopPay #WebsiteConversions #GrowthMarketing #DataDrivenMarketing 

Transcript

Rana (00:00)
People don't trust brands, people trust other people. So social proof is very important and often when brands are struggling, it's because they've hidden their social proof three pages deep and the customer coming to the site can't see it. For those e-commerce sites which are getting traffic but not sales, in your experience, what are the common things which are stopping e-commerce sites making sales? One is not making their message clear enough. As in, if I go to a website, I want to understand how that product or service can help me or I have a pain point and I want this product or service to solve that pain point.

And one of the biggest issues, which I think you've posted about on LinkedIn, is that that message isn't clear enough. Particularly if you can see that the customers are looking at the product pages, they're clicking the buy button, and then for some reason they're not going through to end. Quite often there's an issue in the checkout process. I've seen that very often. I was speaking to a client the other day and they hadn't thought about mobile and 75 % of their business was on mobile. So that was a huge chunk of business that basically couldn't convert because the mobile experience was bad. So went on a bit of a tangent there, but yeah.

What are the other common complications you see the founders or e-commerce owners are making on the websites to reduce the conversions?

Rana (02:02)
Simon welcome to the Website Growth Show. And I'm really excited to learn how e-commerce businesses can generate more revenue with existing traffic.

Simon (02:11)
Thanks for having me, I'm excited to be here.

Rana (02:13)
All right. Thank you very much. And can we start by asking, why are you passionate about helping e-commerce businesses increase their conversions and increase their revenue?

Simon (02:24)
I think really it comes from working nearly 20 years in the space. And when I decided to work for myself, there was only one thing I wanted to do because over that time I'd enjoyed, one of the things I enjoy is creating success stories. It comes from a very competitive nature. When I do sports and everything, I'm...

Rana (02:40)
and

Simon (02:45)
very competitive, want to win. getting things to improve in area I know a lot about, which is e-commerce, and getting those to win is really where the passion comes from. So that's why I wanted to help other clients or other businesses to achieve success.

Rana (03:01)
Amazing. I was reading about you some few things and I think you mentioned it all started with watching Ashes Cricket match back in Australia. So I think you mentioned sports. My grown up is playing cricket and all my life lessons come from with the competition and the cricket as well.

Simon (03:20)
Well that cricket trip wasn't a good one because that was England in the ashes and they lost 5-0 so it wasn't the best start but yeah I would have preferred to have been an Australian on that trip, put it that way.

Rana (03:35)
Well, in cricket we say better luck next time. So every day is a new day. So that's the biggest lesson. know, every day wake up, be motivated and try to win the next day. So brilliant. And you specifically mentioned on LinkedIn that you help businesses add 50k to their revenue from their existing traffic. Would you like to touch on that?

Simon (03:39)
Absolutely.

very

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean the figure of 50k comes really from the size of the business. So the size of businesses I tend to help are fairly established, so they're probably earning revenues in six to seven figures. They're at the growth stage, they're still looking to grow and they probably haven't reached the stage where they have a big team or they use a large agency, but they need help getting from

a sort of micro business to the sort of level where they're looking to grow their team and it's a much bigger business. I've had clients where they've kind of said, you know, I've worked with them for six months and they've said, you've got us to this point, now we need to bring someone on board to do this permanently. And I kind of help them to navigate that part of their journey.

Rana (04:41)
So is that a 50K is an average revenue for your client? Yeah, it's an average.

Simon (04:44)
It's an average. I mean,

so some businesses, growth of, you know, a growth in revenue of 25k would be great. For others, it's a lot bigger than that. But that's the general average that we work to.

Rana (04:58)
Got it. So for those e-commerce sites which are getting traffic but not sales, in your experience, what are the common things which are stopping e-commerce sites making sales?

Simon (05:03)
Mm-hmm.

It's a long list. ⁓ It's quite often there's a few main things. One is not making their message clear enough. As in, if I go to a website, I want to understand how that product or service can help me. Or I have a pain point and I want this product or service to solve that pain point. And one of the biggest issues, which I think you've posted about on LinkedIn,

Rana (05:10)
Dog 3

Mm.

Simon (05:31)
is that that message isn't clear enough. They're not making it clear. Quite often they might be talking about what our product or service does, why it's so amazing, rather than how it's actually helping the customer. So that's quite a big issue. Often also there's just things that getting in the way of the customer completing the purchase, because ultimately you need the customer to come to the website.

to say yes, this is what I want and then to make the purchase, but there's something blocking them. It might be that they're worried about what happens if something goes wrong. They're not clear about if it's a product, how soon it's going to be delivered, how it's going to be delivered, what the delivery costs will be. And then they quite often need proof that this product will do what it says. People don't trust brands, people trust other people. So...

Rana (06:12)
Mm.

Simon (06:16)
Social proof is very important and often when brands are struggling it's because they've hidden their social proof three pages deep and the customer coming to the site can't see it so therefore they will go elsewhere. So I'd say those are the biggest issues that I see regularly.

Rana (06:27)
in.

Great. And when ⁓ e-commerce business comes to you with this conversion problem, what is your superpower? How do you identify the main problems and solve those problems?

Simon (06:37)
moment.

I would say the biggest difference in the way I work compared to a lot in the space is that I go to the data first. Data gives you lot of the answers as to where the problems are happening and there's two different ways or two different types of data to look at. So there's the quantitative, which is your Google Analytics, which says, you know, hundred people are going from point A to point B.

Rana (06:50)
Hmm.

Simon (07:07)
What it doesn't tell you is the why and that's where you need other tools which give you the qualitative data such as heat mapping but also tools such as simply having some sort of survey to ask the customer why you're not willing to go further or why you decided not to purchase. And that really digs deep into what the real issue is. So the analytics will find where the problem is but the other things will tell you why.

why those problems are happening.

Rana (07:36)
Got it. Is there any one particular type of data set, the people who have access to the data, their data, which makes the biggest difference when it comes to conversion? if an e-commerce business leader looking at the data, what are the low hanging fruits, the most obvious ones they can pick and try to improve?

Simon (07:43)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

That is a good question. I mean, I often recommend to check the checkout. Particularly if you can see that customers are looking at the product pages, they're clicking the buy button, and then for some reason they're not going through to the end. Quite often there's an issue in the checkout process. I've seen that very often. I think that's a lot of e-commerce,

platforms help a lot. So for example Shopify uses, or lot of Shopify stores will use the ShopPay, which solves a lot of the checkout issues I see. And that can help. But yeah, checkout's quite often a good first place to have a look, I would say.

Rana (08:34)
In checkouts, is it normally a technical issue or again a messaging issue there?

Simon (08:39)
It could be both.

One thing which I sort of touched on earlier is when someone gets into the checkout, but they're not sure, for example, how much the postage is going to be or something, and suddenly they're hit with a postage amount which they weren't aware of, and then that will cause them to stall. There's often distractions in the checkout. I mean, the checkout usually, and I say usually because I've seen exceptions to this, the checkout should be a very smooth and...

distraction free process because ultimately you've kind of got them in the the checkout tunnel and you just want them to get to the end as soon as possible. But there can be other things for example if someone is if this is a first purchase from this particular store and there is an insistence that they sign up for an account and that can be a barrier which which holds people up so it can be various things and usually when when we see checkout as a problem

Rana (09:22)
Hmm.

Simon (09:29)
One of the best things to do is to go through the checkout as an outsider and sometimes it just jumps out. You can see it there and it's like, and sort of it's like, ⁓ you know, that was obvious. But always go through as a user and quite often these problems jump out.

Rana (09:42)
Great suggestions. As you and me both are a fan of clear messaging, ⁓ basically when I think we were discussing before, normally people learn lot better with stories with case studies. So that is probably the main part of where I would like to learn your favorite case study, what was their problem, how you took them from step by step.

Simon (09:47)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mmm.

Rana (10:05)
to their ideal goal. So would you like to share your favorite case study which you picked up with a problem?

Simon (10:12)
Yeah, I mean, I think we were speaking beforehand about someone in the wellness space and it touches upon what I just spoke about, is it was using the Shopify platform, but they weren't using the the ShopPay. And for those that aren't aware, I ShopPay literally is something that

Rana (10:19)
Okay.

Simon (10:31)
as a user you would be signed up to. So for example, my own ShopPay, it's already got my address in it, it's already got my credit card details in it. So if I go through a Shopify site and I want to check out, I simply go to ShopPay, click buy, and the other thing it will do is it will tell me, it will give me an update. It will say when the item is dispatched, it will say when the item is being delivered and everything like that. And that takes a lot of boxes for you. And this particular brand didn't have that. So that was one thing.

And the other thing was, so in the wellness space, subscriptions are becoming more and more common. So as an example, if you buy vitamins every day or perhaps those of us that wear makeup or something like that, you regularly go through that. You use it every day and so you know that after say 30 days, you're going to need some more.

The advantage of having the subscription offer usually with a discount is it means that you have a longer lifetime value for the customer. They're more likely to come back. You're saving them some aggravation because, you know, I don't have to remember to reorder my vitamins because I know that, you know, when I need it, they're going to be delivered. And so as a result, what we were doing there is we were making the initial purchase process easy, but we're also making the

the customer's average lifetime value a lot easier as well. The only reason that me as a customer is gonna say, well, I'm not buying it anymore, is if something goes wrong or I find a better product, and ultimately that's kind of out of your control, but it gives you a regular and predictable revenue. And that was a real favorite because actually the answers were very simple, but the outcome was a great result.

That's a good one.

Rana (12:08)
So excellent optimisation. So what I understood is, first of all, main thing, wellness brand came to you to improve conversion. First thing you did, you implemented ShopPay into the Shopify. ShopPay, made it easier for customers to, you know, one-click payment, which certainly helps with the conversion. And secondly, you made it easier to subscribe for the monthly subscriptions. Both are important.

Simon (12:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rana (12:35)
conversion points. So when the wellness brand came to you for the help, what was their main problem? What was their conversion ratio and what they wanted to achieve?

Simon (12:45)
They weren't happy with their rate of conversion. It wasn't terrible by any means. I've seen worse. But they felt it could be better. mean, there's a lot of, in the e-commerce space, people talk, you can look on Google and find out what other brands are apparently getting conversion. So they felt it could be better. But they were also worried about the ongoing, the lifetime value of customers.

that's quite strong as I say particularly in the wellness space because you don't want someone to come and buy I'll go back to the vitamins again because of what I know a pot of vitamins and then go elsewhere or go on buy something on Amazon which is obviously a lot of competition in a lot of industries they want them to keep coming back for more and as I say in this situation

they'd looked down the subscription route, but they probably hadn't got it quite right. And so to solve those two problems was really what they were looking for. So they were looking for better conversion, which they felt they could get and we did get, but also for customers to keep coming back. So each customer had a longer lifetime value.

Rana (13:49)
Can you share what was their conversion ratio?

Simon (13:53)
this was a while back now. I mean, as I say, it was around about the two to 3 % mark. And if you think that in the Shopify space, I think the average is about 1.6. So they weren't bad, but they were already above average, but they were looking. So I think if you get sort of 4 % plus in the Shopify space, you're doing really well. And they were ambitious. They wanted to grow and they wanted to get.

Rana (14:02)
So they were already above average.

Simon (14:16)
to the higher averages, so to speak.

Rana (14:19)
So and how did you identify these two important points? By auditing their site. So these were the main two points that if they could add shop pay and subscription model improvements, these are the two things can help them achieve their goal.

Simon (14:33)
Yeah, so the approach usually is to audit the site, which is a general sort of look over of everything and identify potential problems. And then we look through the data and it was clear that there was a lot of traffic on their product pages. And people weren't just bouncing off. So it wasn't like they were looking at it and saying, no, that's not for me and going elsewhere.

And as we mentioned earlier, they seem to be sort of clicking on the buttons, but then things just weren't progressing very cleanly. You could see that the checkout as they had it wasn't really doing the job well enough. And I've had enough experience with Shopify to know what a big winner ShopPay is. I can't remember off the top of my head what the statistics are with ShopPay, but how much better it can make things.

The thing that I would always recommend with any e-commerce brand when they're looking to make changes is to test it. And that's what we did, we tested it. So some clients had the old checkout and some had the shop pay, the shop pay button appear. And that's what really nailed it because the shop pay was very, very clearly the better option, so to speak.

I can't remember the numbers, it was a while back now, but it didn't take long for us to realize that shop pay was an answer, And then, and that's when we looked at the subscription. the other thing with shop pay is you can do the subscription part through that. The only thing, I'm slightly off tangent, but one of the other things with subscriptions is because it's a commitment, there can be barriers with that. So if you're a customer and you're...

Rana (15:44)
Yeah.

You're like.

Simon (16:01)
and there's an idea to subscribe, although the price might be cheap, you're thinking, well, hang on a minute, what happens if, I don't know, I don't take my vitamins this month, I don't want a load of vitamins arriving. So you make it clear, it's very easy to pause. Again, with shop pay, it's very easy to pause. You you put the returns details, if you're not happy for whatever reason, you can return it. And once you put that up there, it just makes it a very, very easy decision. All the sort of concerns are taken care of.

and you're getting better value and less hassle because you know that it will arrive when you need it. ⁓

Rana (16:32)
Got it. And it's a very

important point that adding subscription can reduce the conversion as well. So you probably need to carefully test that part here.

Simon (16:39)
Yeah,

just going to say in this situation they'd they were trying with a subscription model but it really wasn't clear the benefits of doing so and they weren't really overcoming the concerns that a customer might have. Once we did that it made it a lot easier for the customer and the results spoke for themselves.

Rana (16:53)
Hmm.

This could be a very big point as well for a listener who are listening that how did you address the subscription barrier and you made it your strength to increase the subscription. So basically again it comes to messaging how did you address this point, how did you use the messaging to improve the conversion on this part of the process.

Simon (17:03)
Mm.

Yeah, I mean, as I say, it was just making the messaging clearer and reducing any concerns that might come up. think what was clear is the product was great. had great reviews, great social proof. There was just too many barriers between the customer saying, yes, I want to buy this and yes, I want to buy this on a subscription. Once we got those messages right.

as I say, it worked. The number of subscriptions went up as well as number of conversions. So that was good win. We were happy with that.

Rana (17:51)
Got it. Got it. And the final numbers, so the Wellness brand came with 2 to 3 % conversion. You did all these optimizations. Do you remember what was the final result they achieved?

Simon (17:56)
and nothing.

Hmm.

It was between 5 and 6 percent. So it was.

Rana (18:04)
Wow, and in terms of numbers,

it could be lot more than 50k.

Simon (18:09)
Yes, yes, yes, probably on that one. ⁓ Yeah, as I say, it was a while back, so the numbers are a little bit vague, but I mean, the conversion, yeah, the conversion was pretty much roundabout double what it was before, so. But the, as I say, the crazy thing about that one is the simplicity of how we got to that point. Because a lot of things, when you looked at the website,

Rana (18:12)
Mm.

Simon (18:31)
It was a great website. It was clean. The product pages were very clean. There was social proof, which is one the things I mentioned before. There were just barriers in the actual purchase process. So again, it comes back to the point about what the low-hanging fruit was. was right there. So yeah, that was a lot of fun to do, that one.

Rana (18:43)
Yeah.

Yeah. Now I love your job optimizing conversion because a lot of the heavy lifting have been done at that point. So even in service business or even in e-commerce sites the founder or the leaders, have tested the product. They have, you know, managed to build a traffic. If something is selling, think a lot of hard work is done, but normally people, you know, ignore this conversion part and

Simon (18:57)
No.

Rana (19:15)
maybe half a percent improvement in conversion or 1 % improvement in conversion could mean to double their profits or revenue in many cases. Am I right?

Simon (19:25)
Yeah, absolutely. one of the other things I should mention about working in this space is you have founders who are so passionate about their products and they've put a lot of sweat and toil into them. And it's just the frustration that they're not able to get the benefits over to a potential customer or there's something that's blocking the customer buying.

Rana (19:32)
Hmm.

Simon (19:46)
And it's a real joy when results are there and often it's, you you see the joy they get from it and I get that as well because I've helped them win going back to the sporting analogy. Yeah, we've helped them get a result and win.

Rana (20:03)
Excellent. Another important part of conversion optimization, you speak about traffic leaks. What does it mean and how does traffic leaks hurt conversions?

Simon (20:10)
Okay.

I mean really traffic leaks are any point on the website where you can see that customers are leaving the site or going elsewhere. The analogy I often use and anyone that's seen my LinkedIn post will see I've used it is you have a bucket which you're filling with water and it's got leaks coming out of it. What I see quite often is the way that

e-commerce brands try to solve that problem is to basically put more water in it. I bring more traffic in rather than fixing where the leaks are. And ultimately a website, there's always going to be a fair chunk of customers, usually 80 % plus of customers that aren't going to buy for whatever reason. They might just be researching. They might for whatever reason, not be interested. They might be a competitor having a look at your product.

Rana (20:40)
Hey.

Simon (21:02)
but it's concentrating on the percentage that you think are there to buy, that's showing evidence that they're interested in making a purchase. And the leaks are where they're dropping out of the process. So if you look at it from the minute they come to the site, maybe they go to the home page and they go to a product page, then they might go somewhere else, they might come back, they usually will jump around, they usually won't do everything in a straight line. And it's anywhere where they're dropping out.

And if you see a lot of people dropping out, then that's where the, what I would say are the traffic leaks. And those are where you should concentrate first of all, if you're looking to improve conversion.

Rana (21:37)
Interesting and is there any easy tool you can share with people who are looking at their traffic leaks? How can they identify common traffic leaks?

Simon (21:45)
I mean, the biggest one is Google Analytics. I know also, obviously, if you're on the Shopify platform, then Shopify has the very good analytics as well. I appreciate also that Google Analytics is not always the most user friendly. And one of the things that I do work with with clients of mine is setting up a dashboard so they never ever have to look at Google Analytics again. They get the...

Rana (22:07)
Hmm.

Simon (22:09)
they get the figures that are important to their business. So again, all the information that they're likely to need will be in the data. For me, that's absolutely key. Otherwise, you're really just guessing at what's going wrong. Sometimes you get that right, but quite often you don't. And then you can sometimes make the problem worse.

Rana (22:23)
Hmm.

Yep.

Yeah, that dashboard is very important. As you mentioned, it seems easier to install Google Analytics, but setting up and getting the data you need as a business owner to decide to make important decision. It's not an easy task. So do you use any plugin or you have created your own dashboard for this purpose?

Simon (22:49)
Yeah, I mean, usually I would create a dashboard often in some something like Looker Studio. In times gone by, I'd use Excel or Google Sheets. But Looker Studio is very good at plugging in. And once you get the dashboard set up and providing you with the information that you need. And also it's worth checking that the Google Analytics installation is done correctly. Because if you plug analytics in through a plugin,

Rana (23:00)
B

Simon (23:14)
say a WordPress plugin or a Shopify plugin, it won't necessarily be providing all the information. It's worth doing a check or an audit of the actual installation as well, just to check that everything's been set up properly. All the buttons are tracking correctly. If someone clicks them, you want to know that you'll know on Google Analytics or whichever analytics package you're using that someone has clicked that button, that someone has gone to...

this page, gone through the checkout, et cetera. Once that's set up, then you want to have a dashboard that tells you the information that you need to know. So for example, if it's important where your customers are coming from, say you're an international business and you want to know which countries people are coming from, which language they're speaking, of massive importance is what kind of device they're using, and this is a regular thing that people miss.

They have everything looking nice on a laptop like a desktop like we're I think we're both using. But, and you look on the mobile device and it's like, okay, well no one's converting on that. And funnily enough, I was speaking to a client the other day and they hadn't thought about mobile and 75 % of their business was on mobile. So they were.

Rana (24:06)
you

desktop. Yeah.

Simon (24:28)
That was a huge chunk of business that basically couldn't convert because the mobile experience was bad. So went on a bit of a tangent there, but yeah.

Rana (24:36)
⁓ Have you started working with them or did you start optimizing mobile site because that's a big opportunity for conversion there?

Simon (24:39)
Yes,

Absolutely,

no, this was the sort of initial initial chat and as I say, usually the first thing we do is I'll audit the website and dive into the analytics. And yeah, there was a bit of a look of shock when I said, well, know, three quarters of your traffic's on mobile. And have you and it was literally have you tried to buy something on this on your mobile? And I think they've gone away to think about it for a bit.

Rana (25:07)
Got it, got it.

Simon (25:08)
But they're

not alone. They're not alone at all. It's quite a regular thing.

Rana (25:13)
⁓ You touched upon some important numbers which business owners need to know. So can you share specifically what are your favorite three to five important data points should be on their dashboard?

Simon (25:17)
Mm.

I mean, conversion is one of them. I should say also that some people measure conversion slightly differently because you could have a number which is the number of independent visitors or you could have the number of sessions which might be the same person coming back time and time again. I personally, and this is definitely a personal point of view and not everyone likes this, but I prefer to see it by visitor, by individual because...

Rana (25:46)
Yeah.

Simon (25:47)
I know how I shop and I will go backwards and forwards to the website about 20 times before I make a purchase. And I think the conversion is important is whether me as an individual buys rather than how many attempts it took me. So conversion is that I'd be, I'd always be interested in engagement rates. So Google used to call this bounce rate. It's now engagement rate, but seeing how long

people are staying on the site and it's not necessarily a bad thing if people aren't spending a lot of time on the site if they're making a purchase at the end of it because it means the process is very easy for them. But if there's something where they need to understand a bit more then having a reasonable amount of time on the site is a good thing. I think it's important and although generally I don't look at where the traffic comes from originally but it's good to understand

the purchase process or the whole sort of marketing funnel so to speak. So as an example, someone might have found you via Google search, they then might have come back to you after seeing an ad on Instagram or some other social media platform, then they might have done a search and it's quite important to know how people are finding you and what's making them

Rana (26:39)
Mm.

Simon (26:59)
make the decision to then make the purchase. Because usually customers would have five to 15 touch points. I think the magic number's about 11 in terms of touch points before they will make a purchase. So it's key to know that. But it's also key to understand how people's behavior differs between devices as well. I mean, for example, mean...

We haven't touched on it yet, but my background is very much in the telecom space. And a client that I worked with, they were trying to get people who were commuting into London. But again, they hadn't really understood the journey on a mobile device. And if you think about when you, if you're commuting into a big city, you're not likely to be on a desktop, you're gonna be on your mobile.

maybe standing at the station or on the train or something like that. And what we needed to get right there was to understand what people would be looking to do from their mobile device if they were interested. Now they might not make the purchase then, but they want to show their interest. the journey for someone on a mobile device might be different to someone on a desktop device. It's not just making it smaller, it's making the journey more logical for

for that device user. So I think those are the key things to look at. But again, depending on the industry, there's other things that might be important. I mean, we touched on it in the wellness space. Customer lifetime value, because this is the sort of thing that you want customers to purchase several times. Whereas, say someone in the real estate, I've worked with real estate customer, that's a one-off purchase, it's a big purchase.

and the sort of numbers you're looking at there would be quite different.

Rana (28:44)
Very important points. And you mentioned different traffic sources converge differently, different channels. I think that varies with the industry as well. So different industry, different channels maybe work differently. Any of the channels working ⁓ in your, when you look at the clients, is there any pattern that certain traffic channels are converting better on a?

Simon (28:53)
It won't be.

It's

so difficult to tell. I think there's certain industries that will work better on certain types of social media. I think you're looking more at sort of the one-off purchases or the sort of regular purchases. I mean, when I first started in e-commerce, social media wasn't a thing at all. But what we would have then is display advertising.

display adverts should I say that would come up when you went into Google Chrome or something like that it would come up on the first page and then it would keep coming up up again and the modern equivalent of that is social media so if I was to search for we'll go down that route again the vitamins then you if I'd looked at someone's website then I know that when I scroll through my Instagram then I'm gonna see adverts constantly for that particular brand if they've if they've done a good job on that

So that's, but I mean from my point of view, I very rarely would actually make a purchase from social media. I would then go and search for the particular product, maybe look at some reviews of it before making a purchase. So, but that's me. I'm, you know, a bit older than a lot of customers, so they might be more comfortable just going straight from Instagram or TikTok and make a purchase.

Rana (30:18)
I agree it's complicated and it's a case by case scenario as well. So when you look at the data. So what are the other common complications you see the founders or e-commerce owners are making on the websites to reduce the conversions?

Simon (30:31)
One of the trap, I'll start with a trap which many fall into, which is the product's not selling so we need to offer a reduction or we need to, and there's gonna be tons of this coming up because we're speaking a week before Black Friday. And I always go back to, and I've spoken about this on LinkedIn as well, to one of my full-time jobs where, again, we were looking to improve our conversion and I said,

Rana (30:35)
Yes.

Simon (30:56)
let's do a 10 % discount. And my area manager of the time, who was quite a frightening individual, looked at me and said, are you telling me our product's not worth what we charge for it? And I'm like, well, yeah, it is. He's like, well, why do want to discount it? And that was a bit of a wake up for me because it's all, again, and we're going back to the messaging again. If you're not making the messaging clearly about what pain point it's solving.

then people aren't going to buy. But the discount trap, as I'd say, is very easy to fall into. It's very, I mean, see, every day I see a website where you go on and literally straight away comes up with a 10 % discount if you give us your email address or something like that. Which, it has its place, and I know brands that have had success with it.

but straight away in your face is a little bit, you know, it can put someone off if straight away there's a pop, I mean, you know, I many people that just don't like pop-ups full stop, and when you get that straight away in your face, that can be a bit of a turn off and get people going elsewhere.

Rana (31:53)
I agree the pop-up, I never liked the pop-up, but since we did this Story Brand framework, so there is a right way to use a very powerful tool for conversion if you are not using it. But as you mentioned, straight on your face, imagine you are on the website and how would you feel when there's no reputation built yet and your pop-up is showing. So the timing is very important. Maybe the right pop-up on the right page is very important.

Simon (31:59)
Mm.

Rana (32:19)
There is another discussion. We work mainly with service businesses. So generally, the less number of information you need on the form converts better. That's right. But on the contrary, if you're asking the right question on the form, maybe three or maybe five, maybe the quality of the leads may be much better. So you have to test that part as well.

Simon (32:23)
Mm-hmm.

percent.

Rana (32:45)
What's your opinion on that?

Simon (32:46)
Yeah, I was going to say I've seen similar types of pop-up, but what they say is, are you looking for A, B, C or D? And when you click on it, it takes you to that page. So what I think it does is it waits until you've been, say, on the page for 10 seconds. So it's judging that you are hesitating and it's actually helping you find your way rather than saying, rather than making a judgment call.

And it's also all about, you don't want to see the thing, it's easy to get rid of. So I saw a site earlier this week where the pop-up literally took up the whole screen. And it took me a while to work out how to switch the thing off, because I didn't want it. was just like, get out of the way.

Rana (33:26)
Now sometimes a nightmare to get out of the pop-ups, which is terribly annoying. This is the wrong way, I think, to use pop-ups. So as you said, the timing is important. Again, you have to test it maybe five seconds, maybe 25 seconds. You never know. Depending on average time, customers are on your website. And there is another better way with the page scroll. So where do you want the pop-up to show up? So these are all testing, depending on the industry, what you're trying to do on the page.

Simon (33:30)
Absolutely.

Definitely.

Rana (33:53)
But the pop-up definitely right way when you use pop-up right way. This is an excellent tool. Having said that, I had the same feeling. I never used it. But for the last couple of years, we are trying and conversion rates are totally different.

Simon (34:06)
It can work and I'd just say the other thing I'd add in there once again is it's different by device as well. Because when it appears on a desktop it might look fine but if it's taking up the whole of the mobile screen, people will just swipe up and the thing's gone and you've lost your customer. yeah, again, definitely also test by device.

Rana (34:12)
Mm.

Very important, I agree with that as well. The people, a founder, e-commerce owners who are looking, who have just one afternoon to fix their websites, what are the couple of things your best advice is they should look at it and try to fix that to get immediate conversion boost and immediate revenue boost?

Simon (34:46)
So the first thing I would say first, 100 % don't guess, look at the data. The data will have the information that you need. I think when, and founders are incredible people because they've created something, they've built a business. And I know from speaking to many of them that they are short of time. So this.

they have one afternoon scenario is very, very common. But I would always, always say that to look at the data to find the clues of what's going wrong. And as I say, look at the quantitative data first, so look at the numbers and then make or look at the qualities that if they have the qualitative, easy for me to say data to...

give them information as to why that problem might be happening. Then make a judgment call on it based on that. And the third point I would make is always, always, always test it. Don't just change it. Because there can be a number of things even for, I mean one industry I worked in, it doesn't really apply today looking out the window, but if the weather was warm, our sales would go down. Didn't matter what, if the weather was warm, people would go out and they wouldn't buy our product.

Rana (35:51)
Mm.

Simon (35:53)
and sometimes something silly like that. So say for example, a founder goes in, they think they found a problem, they make a change on their website, and the following day the weather is terrible, and their sales go up, it's like, right, we solved the problem. And then the following day the weather's lovely, and then sales drop again, it's like. So that's why you should always test the original with what you're planning to do. And it's a lesson I learned very early in e-commerce, and I've stuck with ever since.

Rana (36:17)
We are very cold today, chilly weather, so you must be printing ⁓ pounds or dollars today.

Simon (36:22)
Well I don't know

about that, I mean the sun's out today so although I'm told that it's not it's too cold to go out so you never know hopefully.

Rana (36:31)
Brilliant. And do you have any, when it comes to conversion only, there might be different scenarios where you have a preference for Shopify, WooCommerce, or, you know, big other platforms. So do you have any technical preference that do you think how the site is built affects the conversion?

Simon (36:47)
I don't think so. mean, Shopify has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years. And the other, I mean, the great thing about Shopify is it's very, very easy for someone with limited technical knowledge to set up a store. Some of the founders of much smaller businesses have literally built it themselves, which is fantastic. And again, it's got the sort of plugins that will actually overcome some of the issues that...

we quite often get. So obviously you mentioned ShopPay, is great for that sort of thing. I'm guessing there's a 10 % off pop-in plugin because I see that all the time. I've worked with WooCommerce before and again, one of the advantages with the WordPress platform is it's usually got plugins for everything. But ultimately, if you've got someone that can put together a site in Magento or a similar platform, I don't think it matters. It's all about the customer experience.

and I'm fairly platform agnostic in that sense.

Rana (37:39)
Got it. Simon, thank you very much for sharing brilliant insights. I think so much to learn from you and increase the conversion and ideally reach the 50k, add 50k to your bottom line.

Simon (37:45)
Pleasure.

Rana (37:52)
and the people who are looking to work with you to improve conversions, where can they find you?

Simon (37:57)
So yeah, the best place to find me is on LinkedIn. So my surname is Pete, spelled P-E-A-T, because a lot of people spell it wrong. And I post on there every day. So even if you're just looking for tips, my posts are sometimes quite tongue in cheek, but hopefully there's some good and useful advice on there. And I'm always happy for people to connect with me and get in touch and see if I can.

if I can help them in any way.

Rana (38:23)
Excellent, and we will put your links in the show notes as well to avoid any spelling mistakes. So once again, Simon, thank you very much for being generous to sharing your knowledge and expertise to help us improve conversions on the website, which is immediate revenue boosters as well. So thank you very much.

Simon (38:41)
Thank you for having me.

Appreciate it.