Conversion is always a hot topic for e-commerce retailers. Recently three leaders in e-commerce, retail, and payments shared their perspectives and best practices for boosting conversion as part of a recent LinkedIn Live webinar.

Below are highlights from the discussion among Lola Oyelayo-Pearson, Director of UX at Shopify, Jason Griffin Reidel, CEO of jewelry retailer gorjana, and Nick Ksiezopolski, Director of Product at Affirm:

• Jason Griffin Reidel started the gorjana jewelry business with his wife, Gorjana, while working in their apartment. After scaling the e-commerce business, gorjana now has 19 retail locations and is currently expanding. The company, based in Laguna Beach, California, runs both the online and point-of-sale operations through the Shopify platform.

• Shopify launched Shop Pay Installments, powered by Affirm, as part of its strategy to “solve problems that merchants shouldn’t have to think about,” said Lola Oyelayo-Pearson. The growth in consumers’ desire to use buy now, pay later (BNPL) services was something Shopify wanted to allow merchants to leverage. “And the easiest way to do it was to integrate it into our existing Shop Pay platform,” she said. 

• Being inclusive is an important brand value for gorjana. Adding a pay-over-time option  is both inclusive for customers and helps with conversion. “It’s allowing anyone to have the experience they want with gorjana … without overcommitting themselves,” Reidel said. He added that this holds true for a variety of price points—whether it’s a $40 bracelet or a $300 item of jewelry from the new fashion collection.

• Offering a variety of payment options that shoppers trust and feel safe using is another booster for conversion, said Oyelayo-Pearson. She said that working with Affirm to integrate an installments option into Shop Pay helped. “We’ve seen about a quarter of our merchants that use it have their average order value go up by 50%,” she added. And checkout abandonment is down 28% because shoppers “see something they trust, something that works for them.”

• gorjana offers a “happiness guarantee,” a no-questions-asked customer service policy inspired by Nordstrom. Reidel said it helps people feel like the buying experience will be simple and they’ll be taken care of. “And it all starts at checkout,” he said.

• Results tell the story: An early adopter of Shop Pay Installments (SPI), gorjana said they’ve seen a 25% uptick in average order value with SPI. Reidel added that Shop Pay transactions are over 25% of gorjana’s sales volume.

Watch the full discussion. Stay tuned for more LinkedIn Live events that can help you grow sales for your business.