Stephanie Pakrul and Chris Fassnacht from Top Notch Themes discussed Return on Investment and Ubercart. These are my notes from the presentation. I also took video that is broken up into four pieces at the end of this post. I was at the back of the room, so the sound is a little quiet. Hopefully it is still helpful.

They started out by talking about the strongest feature of Ubercart is its automatic integration with Drupal. That makes things relatively easy for the developer.

75% of users make a judgement about your company based on the design of a site. Business metrics can improve drastically with a good design. Quite simply good design can improve your conversion rate and improving you conversion rate is the investment that keeps on giving.

There was the recommendation to purchase Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers & Prospects into Leads as a strong reference to improve your ability to sell on your site.

When a business chooses to direct resources to improve a site, they typically have the following priorities:

1. Home Page
2. Catalog Page
3. Product Detail
4. Checkout Form

However, what has the most impact on sale?

1. Checkout
2. Product Detail
3. Catalog page
4. Home page

On the checkout page you you want something that looks good but also makes sense as a form. A little tip is to bump up the font size on checkout pages. Make it easy for people to read the page.

You should look at your buyer's behaviour - things like:

• Do people buy more than one of your products?
• Do they reorder?
• Do they come back for more info?

Cater to those behaviours.

Look that the following:

• Are your products easy to understand?
• How are your products organized?

Can you streamline the process? For example, are your customers only able to buy one product? Turn off the review screen. What's the point to it for that kind of situation? Remove all unnecessary files. Disable unnecessary blocks on checkout pages. They recommend that you remove any kind of cancel button.

Have good clear detailed images with consistent photos (style and size) and multiple images. ADD more product images! Use Imagecache Actions - a helpful module for rounded corners or different colour canvas for your images.

Make your add to cart buttons a little larger and easier to read. Your products' add to cart form is critical to completing the sale.

Working with two versions of the page is a great opportunity for a/b testing - try different options on different days and analyze what works better for conversions.

They went on to suggest an Ubercart theming tip - use firebug to get the IDs of Add to Cart, Review Order, Checkout Buttons - make these larger/bolder/brighter in the theme's CSS.

Add a second add to cart call to action at the bottom of product pages. Don't assume customers have read your FAQ, that they have noticed that free shipping offer you currently have, or have visited documentation section of the site. Add links of callouts about key extras and faq/docs on product pages and make them clear.

Use views, use search, and create related products/accessories. Reassure your customers by highlighting payment methods, your security/privacy policies, and reinforcing important information about your company. Add a "reassurance block" to key pages, your catalog, cart, and checkout.