When we wrote our guide on beefing up aftermarket auto parts eCommerce strategies, we laid out specific time-tested proven tactics that have helped many of our clients see improvements. With a focus on customers’ shopping experience, your business may have weathered the pandemic better than most.
Let’s be straight-up honest about the elephant in the room that a lot of people seem to ignore over the past year: the COVID-19 pandemic has flipped the free market environment on its head. Maybe not permanently, maybe not completely, but it has certainly changed.
The old normal is quickly becoming history, and the new “normal” is quickly falling into place.
Case-in-point: I have it on very good authority that a major computer tech company that has hundreds of thousands of employees on the payroll has no plans to return to their massive HQ based in the California bay area after the pandemic is officially over. They are going to move forward with video conferences like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, and their people working from home. It’s simpler, cheaper, and apparently to what they’ve grown accustomed.
If society and workplaces are adjusting in such a way to the point of doing more online, away from others, and handling business remotely, so goes the aftermarket auto parts industry.
Couple this with the average age of vehicles climbing up over 11 years in the U.S., and you have the perfect storm for radical change in shopping, marketing, and sales.
To help you get ahead of the curve, let’s go over some basics about conversion rate optimization before we jump into the radical ideas.
Conversion Rate Optimization Basics
What Is CRO?
Conversion rate optimization—or CRO—for an aftermarket auto parts website is basically the exercise of ramping up the amount of customers on your website to follow through on your desired actions like signup up for your newsletter, completing a transaction, submitting an online request and many more.
This means that through your design and implementation efforts, website visitors and shoppers looking for aftermarket auto parts will click to add something to their cart, they’ll sign up for a service, they’ll fill out of a form, and/or they will click on a link going deeper into your site.
We’ve already shared how you can improve marketing efforts to drive people to your site through A+ product description copywriting, now it’s time to discuss how to keep people on your website doing what you want them to do.
Here are our 5 radical ways to increase the CRO for your aftermarket auto parts ecommerce website:
Does Your Website’s Flow Align With Your Customer’s Mindset?
A recent study carried out by UPS and Comscore showed that 56% of aftermarket auto parts customers were making their purchases online. Couple that with the fact that nearly half of these online shoppers are on a mobile device, and you have every fiscal reason to consider your site’s flow.
Getting people to your site if one thing, but what’s keeping them there whether they are on a PC or a cell phone?
It’s important to be thinking about the flow of your website because you want every potential customer to feel welcome and tended to, and you want them to easily be able to navigate into and through your products. How quickly can a shopper and potential customer get to know who you are and what you sell? How quickly can that same person find a part for their specific vehicle?
There are a lot of rhetorical questions that can be asked when considering flow, and that’s exactly what we’re driving at with this section. You and your whole team need to be considering every single avenue of flow to ensure that your marketing efforts to drive traffic keep that same traffic on your site and shopping.
So, boiling it all down to the basics, how simple is it to shop on your aftermarket auto parts website on a PC and on a mobile device?
As a leader in aftermarket auto parts digital marketing, FMDM has worked with several leading automotive brands and manufacturers scale and grow their ecommerce business through better digital marketing strategies. And one thing that affords one site to do much better than the others is the teams ability to really understand the mind of their shoppers, test the hypothesis, make incremental adjustments, and win over time. There’s simply no shortcuts.
Thoughtful and Meaningful Offers
After years of managing digital marketing campaigns of all sizes, throwing discounts to shore up sales is not a winning proposition — nor a strategy. It’s cheapens your brand and train your customers who wait for the discount before making their purchase. It doesn’t create loyalty and surely does not establish your brand as a leader in the industry.
In the past few Q4s — the holy grail of ecommerce businesses — FMDM aftermarket clients who took a different approach to offers saw much better year over year revenue increase. Why? Because the offers were designed to create loyalty, brand strength, and meaningful engagement.
One very simple and easy-to-deploy tactic to maximize CRO is to come up with an extraordinary offer. And this doesn’t always mean a perfect off.
Studies show that the majority of online shoppers for aftermarket auto parts are using coupons, for example, so efforts to get offers out is the marketing and sales teams’ responsibility. However, there’s no hard-and-fast rule saying your website team can’t also offer shoppers a coupon as well. As long as it doesn’t cheapen your ecommerce site. Proceed with caution and thought.
Before you jump into this, though, there is another elephant in the room to address: flow.
Yes, back to the flow topic and remembering what most customers cannot stand: pop-ups. Pop-up windows are annoying and can often be blocked by third-party browser add-ons. Another good reason to avoid pop-up layovers is because it’s something that Google’s Core Vitals frowns upon in regards to page experience.
Page experience will be a mishmash of factors that Google considers important for user experience, including:
- HTTPS
- Mobile-friendliness
- Lack of interstitial pop ups
- “Safe-browsing” (basically, not having malware on your page)
Don’t use them.
When considering CRO, place an offer in the digital hands of shoppers before and as they shop. Surprise and delight them before they reconsider their purchase and abandon their carts.
You’re more likely to increase CRO by headlining and forcing a discount on a potential customer (even if that means—eek!—you have to mark up your products to make it look like someone’s getting a great deal) than forcing a pop-up to interrupt their interaction with your site.
Favorable Pricing That Is Competitive Without Racing To The Bottom
Quality is one thing, and pricing is one thing. When it comes to consumers, though, pricing is nearly everything. Like it or not, pricing is something you will need to address because there will be competitors who are willing to lower their prices to gain market share.
These are hard times with all of the lockdowns and “social distancing”, so you can bet online shoppers for aftermarket auto parts are most likely looking to score a deal in order to repair or upgrade something on their own cars and trucks.
Do you make the best quality products in the whole wide world? Terrific! Now prove it. Lowering your price is less significant if you are a market leader in quality and reputation.
Do those quality products justify being listed at premium prices? Think carefully because how you answer could mean the difference between getting 5 sales tomorrow for $100 in profit, or 15 sales for $150 in profit.
Your pricing is a huge contributor to CRO, and if done correctly, it could mean the difference between you losing conversions, or you boosting your sales many times over.
Frankly, most online shoppers for aftermarket auto parts are looking for easy-to-replace items. Windshield wipers, headlamps, turn-signal lamps, fuses, and other replaceable parts they can manage to install on their own.
If a simple web search for windshield wipers for a 2010 Hyundai Genesis yields listings ranging from $7 to $40+, you can bet that if your listing is in the $40 range, your listing could to be ignored UNLESS your brand is recognized and you have created loyalty.
Pricing is crucial enough in order to generate a profit, but it’s also just as crucial in keeping a shopper on your site and putting items into their cart with the intention of making a purchase.
That’s why it’s crazy important to consider how well you market ever single skew that you have to ensure that your customers know you provide quality merchandise at discount prices.
Be prepared to be super flexible, and don’t ever let words like “premium” or “profit” mislead your decisions on pricing.
It goes without saying that CRO demands that you absolutely have to keep prices in mind — without violating MAP, of course 🙂
Connect With Your Customers Like It’s The Only Person You Know
Connecting is much broader concept than you might think when looking to optimize CRO for your aftermarket auto parts website.
Your website’s interactivity and stability is of utmost importance here.
How easy is it for potential customers to reach customer support?
How easy is it for customers to find what they’re looking for especially when considering the make/model of their vehicle?
How easy is it for customers to find detailed installation instructions?
The list of ways in which to maximize connections can go on and on, so be sure to spend a significant amount of time discussing, testing, and researching how your site can be optimized in all areas. Remember what we mentioned before, though. Do not inundate your site with pop-ups or auto-messages because that’s just going to scare away a no-nonsense shopper who just wants to get in, find something, and get out without breaking his or her wallet.
Think of how you manage CRO and your website design this way: for every forced message or pop-up regardless of intention or function, each is a barrier a customer has to navigate.
Imagine what message you’re sending to your website visitors? For each barrier, you’re telling your customer it’s going to be much harder to find what you’re looking for. Because, let’s face it, most aftermarket auto parts shoppers almost always know what they’re looking for before they land on your site.
With all of that in mind, reaching customer support shouldn’t be difficult nor require lengthy wait times. Even if you have minimal staff, no one should ever be above having to provide assistance to a potential customer. Why wouldn’t you want a potential customer to find and purchase what they want?
The make and model of a vehicle in order to generate a compatible list of auto parts shouldn’t be too difficult or intrusive either. Keeping PC and mobile shoppers in mind, have it be prominent, but never, ever in the way of shoppers being able to easily see what you sell.
Making a connection is also about how easy it is for a shopper to find detailed instructions about installing the part they are going to purchase or just purchased. Don’t be that ecommerce business who is only interested in selling — the follow through and support cements you as a top ecommerce go-to for shoppers. Trust us! We know 🙂
Be savvy with this process, but also make it super easy. Each listed SKU you have should come with instructions both on the sales page, and maybe even after a sale by including it in the generated after-purchased email receipt. (More on this topic in the Video Content section below.)
There are sure to be many more opportunities to connect with your potential customers, but these are the main ones to keep in mind. How do you uncover these opportunities and fill the gaps? Talk to your customer service. Ask your customers directly how you can improve.
Finding parts, who you are, contact, customer support, vehicle make and model, installation instructions, part comparisons . . . the list goes on and on. And any eager team of employees wanting to ensure they increase their site’s CRO will be just as eager to explore ways in which to connect with potential customers.
Everyone Loves Watching Good Video Content, We Do Too!
Finally, another step you can take to maximize CRO is generating video content. This isn’t as simple as it sounds, though. There is a vast difference between generating video content in the hopes of creating something viral, and content that is meant to retain customers who are shopping on your site.
Everyone loves to “go viral.” But the large misconception is that not every viral video generates revenue or return visitors. Because of the obsession with vanity metrics like views and likes, many agencies consider going viral a success — but their client sees no increase in sales…ho hum.
Firstly, viral video content is a staple in the online marketing of any business. Every single company out there utilizing the internet to promote their products is looking to post a video that gains organic traction thus pushing it into viral status. (pro tip: only a fraction of a fraction gets to go viral).
You have to be savvy, you may even consider being a bit self-deprecating, but in the end, you want organic reach so get those creative minds churning.
Also important is generating video content for every single part you sell that isn’t as straight forward as “pull off, put new one on.”
Think in terms of your demographics. One day, a mechanic might be on your site looking for parts, and on any other given day, a single mother might need something. Having video content showing the DIY process will be engaging for all, and beneficial for many.
Our clients who decide to produce video are completely committed and invest heavily in content product. It’s not just a one-or-two-time thing. Video must be integrated into your ecommerce business like there’s no tomorrow.
One brand in aftermarket parts, who is not a FMDM client, that is doing a solid job with video are the guys at Custom Offset Wheels.
I love their YouTube channel – check it out here.
Lastly, the importance of SEO is already a given when marketing and promoting your company and products. That same SEO, however, should also be directly tied to your video content. Maximizing reach outside of your site and through video content will help grow your CRO through piqued curiosity and interest.
Wrapping it up
There are a lot of radical ways you can improve your conversation rate optimization, and we hope these 5 tips will get you and your site moving forward to retaining as many customers as possible.
Who knows? Maybe through some of these processes, you’ll come up with even better solutions.
