5 Foolproof Conversion Rate Optimizations for Your E-commerce Business

When hearing conversion rate optimization, many think of the application of psychological principles such as social proof or scarcity. But before employing those, e-commerce businesses first have to get their fundamentals down—which many don't. In this article, I present five foolproof (and proven) ways to optimize your conversion rate: optimizing your checkout, getting rid of shipping costs (as much as possible), focusing on usability, getting rid of dark patterns, and gaining a deep understanding of your customers.

Jobs To Be Done in a Nutshell

The theory of Jobs To Be Done explains that too much focus on socio-demographic data and correlations hurts companies. Rather, you have to gain a deeper understanding of your customers, who "hire" your product to help them do certain jobs under certain circumstances. For instance, you don't buy a video game console because you're male and over 30. You hire it to, e.g., do the job "connect with friends".

What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is often considered a buzzword or bullshit and many people—even if familiar with the concept—struggle to define it in a brief, but concise way. In this article, I develop such a definition: "Design Thinking is the understanding that the process is the design and therefore all people involved, no matter their role, are responsible for creating a product that is useful, functional, aesthetically appealing, and affordable."

On Design Thinking

According to Patnaik (2009), Design Thinking is "any process that applies the methods of industrial designers to problems beyond how a product should look." The term was already used as early as 1987 by Rowe in his eponymous book in an architectural context and has lately become popular through research done at Stanford University and the Hasso Plattner… Continue reading On Design Thinking