The Complexity of Conversion

In a web-centric world, the challenge of converting browsers to buyers is fraught with uncertainty. Today we rely on our sites to do all things - educate, entertain, enlighten, sell, create community, and cement our company's reputation in the marketplace. The number of opportunities we have to capture a prospect and convert them into a customer is very limited. Site bounce rates are generally very high, meaning that most people don't make it past the first page of the site. That goes hand in hand with time-on-site metrics that, by and large, are pretty fleeting. It's as if our buying decisions must be made within moments of arriving on the site.

With that kind of challenge, is it any wonder that retailers are suffering, with many mortally wounded, in this economy? Not only are they maintaining expensive brick and mortar outlets, but their "low cost" web store fronts have perhaps only seconds to convince shoppers to part with their dough. What can you hope to communicate in twenty seconds? Can it be anything more than price alone? It seems increasingly like your site's design can only do things to drive customers away - to help them "de-select" you. It's kind of like your resume - during the initial pass-through the screener is more interested in finding a reason, any reason, to move beyond your resume so they can get down to a more manageable number.

And like job searches, perhaps waiting to make the sale with a resume or your website means that you're missing the point. The more effective method may be to try to make the sale before the customer even arrives - by building an identity that makes your site's design somewhat beside the point, within reason. Having the customer arrive with the intention of buying means that website design need not carry so heavy a load - an impossible load by the looks of things.