Many businesses today have websites and other channels where they sell online. Some are even on multiple platforms such as Bumpa, Selar, Chowdeck, Glovo, and Jumia, all at the same time as having a custom website.

And when you think about it, you may be getting traffic and sales from these external platforms but not from your own website. You do all the things they say: create content on Instagram, get influencers to talk about your product, and run ads. Those things may work during the campaign period, but what you should be more concerned about is how to keep that traffic long-term and not just for a short campaign period.

You have a website. You post your products on Instagram and TikTok, run ads, work with influencers, and people are clearly discovering your business. Your website analytics even show that people are visiting.

But the sales are not coming.

It is easy to assume that the solution is more traffic. Maybe another Meta ad campaign, another influencer, or more money behind the posts that are already performing well.

We recently looked at this problem while developing a strategy for a food business. The business was already getting customers through other channels like Chowdeck and Glovo, but its website was not generating the sales it should. That raised a much more useful question than simply, “How do we get more people to the website?”

That is what we are breaking down in Part 1 of this series.

Website traffic simply tells you that people are visiting your website. It does not tell you whether those people are interested in buying, whether they can find what they want, or whether your website makes it easy for them to complete a purchase.

Imagine a food vendor promoting a new menu on Instagram.

The post performs well. People click the link in the bio and land on the website. Technically, the marketing has done part of its job, which is to bring people in.

But suppose the customer lands on a beautiful homepage filled with brand photographs and information about the business. They scroll around trying to find the menu. Eventually, they find the food, but instead of being able to choose a meal, add it to their cart, and pay, they are encouraged to send a WhatsApp message.

The business got the website visit.

It did not necessarily create a good path to the sale.

This is why getting website traffic but no sales is not always a traffic problem. Shopify recommends looking beyond overall traffic and examining the stages customers reach, such as product views, add-to-cart, and checkout, because those stages can reveal where potential buyers are dropping out.

Before paying to bring another 1,000 people to your website, you need to understand what is happening to the people already there.

One way to understand this is by looking at your website data. Are people viewing products but not adding anything to their carts? Are they reaching checkout but leaving before payment? Google Analytics 4 can help you identify where visitors are dropping off. We have put together a practical guide on identifying revenue drop-offs with Google Analytics 4, including how to use funnel analysis to investigate where potential sales are being lost.

Traffic can still be the problem.

Ten thousand website visitors who have little intention of buying are not necessarily better than 500 people actively looking for what you sell.

Think about how people are arriving.

Someone who searches Google for “birthday cake delivery in Lekki” is showing a very different level of intent from someone who watched a funny cake-decorating Reel and clicked the baker’s profile out of curiosity.

Both visits appear as traffic.

They do not necessarily have the same likelihood of becoming a sale.

This is one of the biggest questions we would ask any business getting website traffic but no sales:

Is your website built to sell or built to inform?

There is a difference.

An informative website can be excellent at telling your brand story, but a sales-focused ecommerce website needs to do something more.

It needs to move a potential customer towards a purchase.

For a food business, that journey might be:

For a fashion store:

If the buying journey is weak, sending more people into it does not remove the weakness.

A good example of improving the online shopping experience is Shop Cici, an e-commerce brand OATS Africa worked with. As part of the Shopify store redesign, the team improved product pages, introduced related product recommendations, and made browsing easier with better filters and flexible shop views.

You can explore the Shop Cici case study to see how OATS Africa approached the redesign and improved the store's shopping experience.

Open your website on your phone and pretend you have never seen it before.

Within a few seconds, can you answer:

If the answer to the last question requires searching, scrolling extensively, or guessing which button to press, you may be losing genuinely interested people.

For an ecommerce business, calls to action such as Shop Now, Order Now, View Menu, Add to Cart, and Checkout are not small details. They help customers understand what to do next.

This is a common problem we have noticed with Nigerian businesses.

A customer finds your Instagram page.

They click your website.

Then your website tells them to order through WhatsApp.

The customer clicks WhatsApp, sends “Hi,” waits for somebody to reply, asks whether the product is available, receives account details or a payment link, confirms payment, and then discusses delivery.

WhatsApp can be extremely useful for customer support and enquiries. But if you have already invested in an ecommerce website that can take orders and payments, ask yourself why a customer who is ready to buy has to leave it to complete the transaction.

Every additional step gives the customer another opportunity to stop.

Why should the customer order from your website?

Suppose a restaurant is available on a delivery app, accepts WhatsApp orders, and also has its own website.

The customer already knows how to use the delivery app. They may already have their address and payment information saved there.

What makes them change that behaviour?

Sometimes simply having a website is not enough.

A business could test reasons such as a website-exclusive weekly deal, a first-order offer, loyalty rewards, bundles, limited evening offers, or other incentives that make ordering directly worthwhile.

The important part is that the offer solves a real behaviour problem.

You are not discounting products simply because somebody said discounts increase sales. You are giving customers a reason to choose your website.

A customer should not need to message you for basic information that could have been available on the website.

Depending on what you sell, that may include:

Sometimes the website has done almost everything correctly.

The customer found a product.

They liked it.

They added it to their cart.

And then they disappeared.

At that point, the problem is different.

The average documented cart abandonment rate is about 70%. Data on avoidable reasons for abandoning checkout shows that shoppers commonly cite high additional costs, slow delivery, concerns about trusting the website with payment information, forced account creation, and a checkout process that is too long or complicated.

If people are adding products to their cart but not completing purchases, we have a separate guide on Why Shoppers Add to Cart but Do Not Buy (And How to Fix It) that explains this better.

If your first instinct after seeing low website sales is to run another ad, wait.

Start with the foundation first.

Go through your website like a customer and answer four questions:

If the answer to any of these is no, that gives you somewhere more useful to start than simply buying more traffic.

The entire goal is to first find out where the problem is, fix the foundation, then grow visibility.

SEO, Google Business Profile, social media, influencers, and paid campaigns can all bring more people into a business. But they become much more useful when those people are being sent somewhere that is ready to turn interest into an order.

What should you do next?

Understanding why your website is not generating sales is the first step. The next step is figuring out what to change.

In Part 2 of this series, we explain seven practical, step-by-step ways to get customers to buy from your website. From making your products easier to find to improving the buying experience, these are changes businesses can start working on before spending more money to attract new visitors.

Getting website traffic but struggling to make sales?

If people are visiting your website but leaving without buying, there may be something in the shopping experience that needs attention.

From website design and product pages to checkout functionality and performance, OATS Africa helps businesses build and improve their online stores.

Already have a website that is not delivering the results you expected? Reach out to the OATS Africa team and tell us what is happening. We can discuss what needs improving and how we can help.

There is no single reason. You may be attracting people who are unlikely to buy, or potential customers may be encountering problems after they arrive. Check your traffic sources, homepage, product pages, buying journey, pricing, trust signals, cart, and checkout to identify where people are leaving.

Visitors may be browsing rather than shopping, struggling to find products, missing important information, comparing alternatives, encountering a weak offer, or losing confidence during checkout. The best way to identify the problem is to look at how far visitors progress through your buying journey.

Start by making it easy for the right customer to understand what you sell, find the product they want, and move from product page to cart, checkout, and payment. Then track where customers leave so you can improve the specific stage causing the problem rather than simply trying to generate more traffic.

A Shopify store can receive traffic without sales if visitors are not the right audience or if the store has problems with product discovery, product information, pricing, trust, mobile usability, the offer, or checkout. Shopify recommends reviewing the different stages of the purchase journey to identify where shoppers are dropping off.

Not automatically. If your current visitors cannot easily find products, add them to their cart, or complete checkout, sending more paid traffic may simply send more people through the same problematic journey. Diagnose the existing traffic and website experience first.

Till next time,

Team Thrive

_____________________________________________________

A few lines to keep you motivated, going, and on top of the world