Opencart: 5 Tips to Boost Your Sales

The growth of e-commerce and online shopping has become unstoppable and with an increasingly crowded marketplace it can be hard to stand out. Here are some top tips for Opencart users to help get the most out of your features

Adding a Product Review in OpenCart

Reviews can increase your e-commerce conversions by up to 50%. Hardly surprising as fears over fraud and security make consumers wary. Including public product reviews can help ease any worries shoppers may have, with research showing even negative reviews are actually good (imagine seeing an unknown product with nothing but 5 star raving reviews – you’d think it’s fishy too). These terrifying negative reviews also give you invaluable (and free) feedback from your customers and gives you an opportunity to engage with disgruntled customers through customer service replies.

OpenCart product review setting available at System > Setting > Option > Allow Reviews and make sure you enabled it.

Satisfy Your Customer’s Needs

Research shows that having a free phone number can be an indispensable asset to your business, whatever the size. It shows that you are easy to reach and let’s new customers know you are a legitimate company. Can’t afford a free phone number? Just give your regular business number. Making yourself easily contactable goes a long way to giving you a reliable and professional image.

In addition, Live Chat features have the same benefit of letting the customer know there’s a real business on the other side of the website and in many cases is a cheaper alternative to free phone numbers. You can answer questions in real-time and help guide new customers through the site. Just make sure to clearly display your opening hours!

Better Web Security & SSL Certificates Lead to Better Sales

In an age where consumers are increasingly wary online, it is proven that EV SSL (Extended Validation Secure Socket Layer) certificates boost sales and improve your site’s credibility when added to every page. Not only does it let users know that they are in a secure and verified environment, it can actually increase your SEO! Google recently adjusted their algorithms to increase the rankings of sites with SSL. The EV SSL certificate also generates a green address bar which provides quick visual assurance to the customer that they can shop with confidence.

Raise Your Rankings

Getting hold of Quality Backlinks can seem daunting and difficult, but there is a quick and easy solution available. Simply contact the representatives of your products’ manufacturing or distribution companies and ask them to link your website to their list of authorised retailers. While very simple, this is also highly effective as Google will quickly pick up on this increased verification and will drive you up the rankings. It also goes a long way to attaining the desired ‘top spots’ on Google’s rankings.

Reward Customers, They’ll Reward You

The increasingly savvy online shopper knows they have choice and rewarding your customers with incentives can be a great motivation to buy. The most common and proven tactic in this is free shipping, with a 2011 report from comScore showing 36% of online shoppers do not purchase unless they are offered free shipping. If you are a smaller business, consider incentivising shoppers with free shipping over a certain amount (say £50 or £75), which can help generate larger orders.

Small, daily sales or larger monthly discounts on different products can also help boost sales over the long-term, with studies showing free shipping and online discounts to be the biggest incentives for customers to buy, particularly during holiday seasons where shoppers are looking to place big orders.