Turn visitors into buyers: How to increase in-store conversion

Conversion is the process of turning your store’s visitor into a paying customer. It measures to what extent you’re able to persuade casual browsers to make a purchase. 

As a metric, your store’s conversion rate is the percentage you get when you divide the number of purchases by the number of visitors who entered your store. In other words, it’s the rate of sales per walk-in.

Say your store welcomed 4,000 visitors through its doors in October and scored 800 sales. This means your conversion rate for the month is 20%. To put it into perspective, 1 in every 5 people entering your store made a purchase.

Retailers are no strangers to casual shoppers who stroll into a store, look around, and then leave without buying anything. This shopping behavior reflects a substantial gap between interest and (trans)action. That’s why it’s important to keep track of conversion.

The conversion rate is the measure of your store’s ability to do what it was designed to do: sell.

It directly affects your profitability and it reflects how relevant you are to your customers: are you offering the right products, making their experiences enjoyable, and ensuring their checkout is easy?

By tracking your store’s conversion rates, you can assess how well you’re performing against your targets. You can then fine-tune your approach to drive higher sales, especially when it comes to:

• Operations

Conversion rates are high on the agenda of retail operations. They help in identifying areas for improvement. If foot traffic is high but conversion rates are low, for instance, it might be because of issues with the store’s layout, long checkout lines, pricing, or product selection.

• Marketing

A low conversion rate might indicate ineffective marketing efforts. For example, you might be targeting the wrong segment of customers who are either not genuinely interested in your products or unlikely to buy.

Payments are the unsung heroes of conversions. And here, we’re not only talking about optimizing the point of sale. Payments can help you design the entire in-store experience to guide customers toward making a purchase and keep them coming back for more.

Payments can help you:

• Offer more products and enhance the store layout

Your store’s appearance can make or break your conversion rates. Attractive displays convince customers to enter and stay in the store. The store’s layout also affects whether visitors can spot interesting products to buy.

Payment solutions can help you design your store’s layout in a more inviting way. Take endless aisles, for example. They integrate in-store and online inventories. This means customers can browse and order out-of-stock or non-displayed items (like online exclusives) using in-store kiosks or mobile devices. They don’t have to go to another store to get what they want. 

Endless aisles can also help you extend your product range by defying the limitations of physical space. You’re no longer confined to your shelves. You can show more products than your store allows without cramming the place. 

Plus you get to understand your stock flows better. And your shoppers get the option to deliver the products they just bought to any address.

• Reduce queues and give customers more space to shop

Crowded stores are less appealing shopping destinations—unless of course there’s a huge discount that customers don’t want to miss. They’re more challenging to navigate, with customers not noticing products or finding what they’re looking for. Customers might also not have the patience to wait in long lines to try out or purchase the product.

Mobile payment technology fixes this. Rather than relying on fixed POS registers, you can accept in-person transactions from anywhere in your store. This speeds up the checkout process, busts queues, and makes more room in your store for shoppers to explore and make a purchase. 

There are several tried-and-tested options.

1. Tap to Pay turns everyday smart devices into payment terminals. There’s no need for new specialized hardware. Your staff can use their iPhones or any Android compatible device to let shoppers pay anywhere in the store. Fast, cashless shopping.

2. Mobile terminals, like the AMS1, let your staff run all of your store’s activities on-the-go—from accepting payments to checking stock levels and more. They’re small enough to fit in pockets and have a reliable battery life that keeps your sales flowing through the busiest of days.

• Win shoppers over with convenience

Retail is more than just transactions. It’s about building relationships and crafting memorable experiences. Your payments reflect this. 

Convenience in payments can boost conversions, nurture customer loyalty, and make customers leave your store with a smile. You can deliver this in several ways.

1. Flexible payment options

After browsing through your store and maybe even trying a few items, the only thing standing between your shoppers and a purchase might be the payment itself.

Just over half of shoppers won’t see their purchase through if they can’t pay how they want — be it a quick tap of a smartphone, a swipe, or a scan. So make sure you offer your shoppers a wide range of payment options and methods to suit their diverse needs. The fewer hurdles your shoppers face during checkout (including not finding their preferred payment method), the faster the conversion is without frustrations and second-guessing.

Price-conscious shoppers might also need more convincing to make a purchase. They’re counting every penny and weighing the value of their buy against their budgets. By offering installment plans or buy now pay later (BNPL) options like Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay, you can ease their decision-making and improve the accessibility of your products. With 53% of BNPL users aged 35 and under, you’ll make pricey items more attainable. Shoppers will see you as not just focused on making sales but also on understanding their financial needs and offering them solutions.

Remember, offering flexible options isn’t just about capturing more sales. More importantly, it’s about the message you’re sending to your customers that you’re there for them, however they choose.

2. Cross-channel shopping journeys

Shoppers move seamlessly between online and offline worlds. They expect such fluidity from retailers. 

Adopting unified commerce allows you to offer cross-channel shopping, from click-and-collect, to buying online and returning in-store, to buying in-store and shipping home. This is because it connects in-store and online payments in one system, giving shoppers the omnichannel convenience and flexibility they crave. In fact, these experiences convince browsers to buy on the spot and turn 49% of those who visit you into repeat customers. The fewer the barriers between the worlds, the higher the conversions.

3. Reward loyalty

Activate payments technology that remembers your repeat customers. This will help you offer them personalized rewards or discounts based on their purchase history, making your customers feel recognized.

The more personalized the experiences you offer are, the more likely your customers will continue being loyal and spread the word within their circles. This isn’t just about closing a sale; it’s about building a relationship, one transaction at a time.

Adyen’s single payments platform gives you more end-to-end control, enabling you to efficiently redefine the shopping experience to capture more conversions and build stronger rapport with your shoppers.

Turning browsers into buyers becomes smooth and effortless—one integration, no third parties, and compliant global coverage. You just let the platform do the heavy lifting.

Convert curiosity into higher sales. Get in touch.