Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Geraldine-

Without some more data it's difficult to pinpoint where your customers are dropping off (where the friction is), but just on a quick review a few things come to mind that might be worth testing:

• Image Carousel - There's a lot of data out there that suggests that image carousels / sliders hinder conversions. In your case on the home page it's going way to fast and has a lot of text on it, making it almost impossible to read (and I read fast :). Consider a static element that more clearly articulates your benefits, conveys trust, etc (and don't feel like you have to jam every piece of information in there).
• There's a lot going on in your design, including products, categories, newsletter, affiliates, etc. Consider going through each page and asking yourself - where do we want the visitors (or segments within) to go, how do we get them to the products that they're interested in, and how can we eliminate distractions from that path?
• The modal window that pops up after "add to cart" is a bit strange. I think the user experience there could be improved by an animation closer to or on that button, and I'm not sure how well that works for mobile.
• The checkout page might be daunting. Consider splitting up or progressively revealing the forms so the user doesn't get overwhelmed.
• Consider replacing the text input for the discount code with a link that then reveals it. Showing it by default may dissuade visitors that don't have a code (because they think they're not getting the best deal).
• It may be worth trying Shipping Address instead of Billing Address as the first step (and change the checkbox below accordingly). With Shipping I feel like I'm getting something vs giving you something (Billing)
• Finally - do you have a problem with abandonment? Might be worth looking into techniques like cart recovery, exit intent and / or retargeting if so.

As I mentioned just some initial thoughts without looking at data, and these are just ideas that warrant testing. Hope this helps.

Arun

Hi Matthew-

Depending on what you want to do, I've found Gravity forms relatively easy to setup and get working. There are options for conditional field display, splitting up the form into multiple steps, adjusting the CAPTCHA approach, etc that work pretty reliably out of the box. The drawback that I've encountered is that it's not terribly easy to customize the output (get directly to the markup and change it). That may not be an issue for your specific use case, but there have been times where a client was using Gravity Forms and I wished it gave me some more flexibility.

On a related note I put a post together which runs through some of the plugins that I've used for Wordpress optimization here (including Gravity Forms) -  - http://www.funnelenvy.com/blog/2013/11/20/23-tools-to-optimize-wordpress-for-search-conversions/

Hope this helps.

Arun

Wow. I wasn't expecting such a detailed and awesome answer Danny. Thanks so much, I'm in the process of migrating away from S3 anyways (for other reasons) though you're right in that I'm going to miss the cost & load times.

I'm using Middleman for now, though the technical part of my brain is indeed interested in how you're going to accomplish the Jekyll solution. I'll look out for your post!

And thanks for the tip on my site. Another thing to add to the list

Arun

Hi Danny-

I've got the exact same issue (static site on S3 redirecting with 302s), and surprisingly can't find a lot of information out there. If I do a S3 metadata based redirect from (for example) /blog to /blog/ I just end up in a redirect loop.

I checked out your site and it still looks like you're working on it. Did you end up figuring anything out? If there's any way that I can help get to a solution I'd be happy to spend some time on it.

Thanks!

Arun

Wow. I wasn't expecting such a detailed and awesome answer Danny. Thanks so much, I'm in the process of migrating away from S3 anyways (for other reasons) though you're right in that I'm going to miss the cost & load times.

I'm using Middleman for now, though the technical part of my brain is indeed interested in how you're going to accomplish the Jekyll solution. I'll look out for your post!

And thanks for the tip on my site. Another thing to add to the list

Arun

Hi Geraldine-

Without some more data it's difficult to pinpoint where your customers are dropping off (where the friction is), but just on a quick review a few things come to mind that might be worth testing:

• Image Carousel - There's a lot of data out there that suggests that image carousels / sliders hinder conversions. In your case on the home page it's going way to fast and has a lot of text on it, making it almost impossible to read (and I read fast :). Consider a static element that more clearly articulates your benefits, conveys trust, etc (and don't feel like you have to jam every piece of information in there).
• There's a lot going on in your design, including products, categories, newsletter, affiliates, etc. Consider going through each page and asking yourself - where do we want the visitors (or segments within) to go, how do we get them to the products that they're interested in, and how can we eliminate distractions from that path?
• The modal window that pops up after "add to cart" is a bit strange. I think the user experience there could be improved by an animation closer to or on that button, and I'm not sure how well that works for mobile.
• The checkout page might be daunting. Consider splitting up or progressively revealing the forms so the user doesn't get overwhelmed.
• Consider replacing the text input for the discount code with a link that then reveals it. Showing it by default may dissuade visitors that don't have a code (because they think they're not getting the best deal).
• It may be worth trying Shipping Address instead of Billing Address as the first step (and change the checkbox below accordingly). With Shipping I feel like I'm getting something vs giving you something (Billing)
• Finally - do you have a problem with abandonment? Might be worth looking into techniques like cart recovery, exit intent and / or retargeting if so.

As I mentioned just some initial thoughts without looking at data, and these are just ideas that warrant testing. Hope this helps.

Arun