(This article originally appeared on Inside Retail, a global leader in retail news, analysis, and trends. It is published by Octomedia, one of Australia’s leading B2B publishers.)

Retailers have their work cut out this year. The increased cost of living is forcing consumers to be more considered in their shopping behavior.

This is reflected in retail’s mild, single-digit ecommerce growth over the last holiday season, as reported by Adobe. Growth of 3.5% is a bucket of cold water over the red-hot, double-digit growth we saw during the pandemic years.

With consumers spending carefully, retailers need to invest smartly. This means maximizing value of existing systems, platforms, and processes. One of the ways to do this is conversion rate optimization (CRO).

Tryzens is an international digital commerce agency with CRO specialists that help retailers identify areas of optimization to build tactical advantages. It does this by combining quantitative and qualitative data using established research techniques to efficiently double down on user goals, objectives, and behaviors to inform a data-driven roadmap.

Using insights from a broad reach of our experimentation programs, Tryzens’ team of CRO specialists has compiled some key strategies to help you focus on CRO.

Conduct a user experience audit 

Through a comprehensive analysis of a website’s performance, design, and functionality, retailers can carry out a health check of its digital infrastructure. The goal of a user experience audit is to identify areas of improvement and generate recommendations to improve the user experience and increase conversions. Site audits can cover a broad area of topics, such as UI, UX, content quality, site speed, accessibility, security, and SEO and can be informed with heuristic benchmarks and user testing.

Run an experimentation program 

Experimentation allows you to test different versions of webpages or experiences to groups of users to determine which version better aligns with business goals, with specific, measurable metrics. This includes A/B testing, showing alternative versions of your website to a specific percentage of visitors to determine which performs better when measured by certain metrics. Tryzens helps its clients set up a ROI-driven backlog and roll out winning variations.

Increase site speed 

There is a need for speed in digital commerce. Every second of loading time has a significant impact on traffic and sales. And it’s doubly important for mobile than desktop. That’s because 59% of traffic comes from mobile. Yet the average load time of a webpage is 8.6 seconds on mobile compared to 2.5 seconds on desktop. As a result, regularly monitor your site’s Core Web Vitals to ensure recommended levels of speed and stability.

Bundle products 

Bundling products is a great strategy to boost average order values. On a product landing page, include a shop the look feature that includes multiple products which can be sold as a package. Knowing what products to bundle together typically comes from data. What items are usually bought together? Which complement each other best? Bundles can then be A/B tested and data tagged to track their effectiveness across key metrics such as units per transaction (UPT).

Basket redesign

Treat product recommendations at the basket as you would at physical stores by displaying small price point products as add-ons. This could be to communicate added benefits, such as items that would put customers over the free delivery threshold. For example, a slider can show how close a basket is to free shipping. Then once it qualifies, you can offer further discounts. Basket redesigns can be tested from a strategy perspective (which products you recommend) but also from a UI/UX perspective (the basket experience).

Use PDPs as your homepage

We’re seeing increasing focus put on product display pages (PDP) with Google Shopping now sending users directly to the PDP than a brand’s homepage. Revisit your PDPs and ensure they’re refreshed and informative. This is critical as this is where shoppers carry out product research and decide on whether to make the purchase.

Are you looking to develop your CRO strategy? Or just want more optimization tips? Connect with Tryzens.