EworksWSI Cyprus Digital Marketing Blog

Why is e-commerce less efficient in Cyprus?

According to the STATISTICAL SERVICE OF CYPRUS (CyStat) in the USAGE AND E-COMMERCE SURVEY IN ENTERPRISES 2013 in Cyprus, only 8,7% of enterprises using the Internet had received online orders (excluding manually typed e-mails), during 2012.

In relation to the total sales (in monetary terms, excluding VAT) sales via websites represented only a small percentage in many of the enterprises. Only in 9,9% of the enterprises in Cyprus that received electronic orders, the value of the turnover resulted from those orders represented more than 50% of their total turnover and in 39,4% of the enterprises that received electronics orders, the value of the turnover resulted from those orders represented less than 5% of their total turnover.

E-commerce seemed to have been picking up in Cyprus in 2014, with more businesses taking online orders following the updated Cystat report.

The share of e-commerce has risen from 8.7% of all orders accepted in 2013 to 11.9% so far until November 2014, as reported by Cystat.

Businesses in Cyprus placing online orders rose from 13.2% in 2013 to 15.1% in 2014.

The importance ofeCommerce conversion rates

At EworksWSI we analyze this situation in terms of  'e-commerce conversion rates' and it appears that most e-commerce sites in Cyprus do not provide the basic elements for an appealing user experience for their e-shop visitors and do not convert them into clients. It is just not sufficient to publish a standard e-commerce design and drop some products in catalogs, every detail in the online buying process needs attention and must be optimized such as product pictures and descriptions, check-out procedures and shipping options..

We outline below some top-level ways to improve the e-commerce conversion rates and improve sales.

4 strategies to improve E-commerce conversion rates

Strategy #1. Invest in an engaging design

One of the biggest things that we see is that merchants haven't invested enough in building a really engaging design for their website with a really engaging user experience.

The only sustainable advantage that companies will have is having a deep understanding of their customers, and the ability to engage them. If you're not creating a really engaging experience on your site, then that's going to impact conversion.

Strategy #2. Design for mobile

Having an optimized tablet and mobile experience is something that successful companies doing very often.

If you think about it, you've got your tablet and you have to pinch and scroll and zoom in order to look at a particular product on an e-commerce site. That's obviously going to impact conversion.

Strategy #3. Align marketing and advertising elements

Design is one of the most important elements in e-commerce conversion, but we need to go beyond that: The misalignment of marketing and advertising elements that go to an individual product page is an absolute killer when it comes to conversion.

When using (Google or Facebook) ads or messaging (Email or SMS) to promote a specific product, it is important to have that content direct to the exact individual product page. When a visitor clicks and arrives on a page that doesn't feature the product they saw, they will leave.

Strategy #4. Investigate per-product conversion rates

Rather than evaluating site-wide conversion rates, e-commerce owners should look at per-product conversion rates as well.

There are going to be some winners and losers in your products, and what you want to do is understand what products are selling best, and group them in a way that you know they are optimized. Then, take the e-commerce product pages that are not fully maximizing the user experience, and optimize those with excellent product pictures, relevant product descriptions, videos and cross-sale links. Then, you'll take those products  to a higher conversion rate as well.