Want to make the most of your E-commerce site? Times have changed and consumers are not just looking for the product they want, they’re looking for an experience. You can have the best product available on the market, but if someone sells something similar but provides a better shopping experience, savvy shoppers are going to be taking their business to a faster, better shopping cart. How can you make sure you are providing the best service you possibly can? Avoiding these blunders will have you on your way to providing not only the products your customers want, but the customer service that will keep them coming back over and over again.
Mobile Site Optimization
Your PC based site is fantastic, but have you made sure your mobile site or app is up to snuff? Everyone has a tablet, cellphone, or other internet ready device; gone are the days that people use the internet only from their desktop or laptop. Make sure your site is compatible with all the popular operating systems used by such devices and that your content has been optimized for smaller screens. If your customer arrives at a home or product page which is not easily viewable, the chances are they will ditch your site and not return. Offer up a mobile version of your website to entice gadget users and help them reduce their data costs.
Ditched Cart Recovery
Getting a lot of traffic but your sales figures aren’t reflecting it? Your customers are abandoning your great products and services in their carts and leaving your site without completing their purchases. Use of retargeting strategies and software will snag those ditched carts, send the potential customer emails or popups of various items in their shopping cart, potentially offer them a great discount, and reel them back in to finalize the sale. Use of this strategy can drastically affect your bottom line and take you from mediocre sales to goal busting business levels.
Visual Appeal
It’s all about the images. Eye-catching images which provide a visual of what you are trying to get out there can make the difference between a sale and a flop. Customers who visit websites which are visually unappealing are much less likely to stick around to buy anything. High-quality images which are spot on for context and accurately depict your product or service often say more than the words on the page. Use color schemes, fonts, and images which work together harmoniously to avoid making an eyesore of your website. Customers can’t touch, smell, taste, or try on your product. They need accurate visuals to do that for them. Make sure all images or videos used function as they are intended, look great on your web or mobile site, and are tasteful and appropriate for what you are trying to sell. Call to action fits into this aspect as well. Your site pages need to not have too many calls to action otherwise your viewers will be distracted and become frustrated and leave the page to find something which is more appealing and less of an assault of the senses.
Social Media
Social media is one of the cheapest, easiest ways to reach your audience. Your e-commerce sites both mobile and regular should fully incorporate all of the most popular social media sites in any way possible. Failing to utilize Facebook, Twitter, and other social media giants severely limits your available customer base. These platforms can spread a fabulous advertisement around the entire world within moments. More effective than print based or television advertising, this option gives you the biggest bang for your buck. This method allows you to interact with your customers before, during, and after purchases. Provide your best customer service and help your business reach unforeseen success through professional, courteous, and fantastic service and advertising through social media.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is what makes customers browsing online for an item they want show up at your page to start with. Neglecting this aspect of your online presence means less viewers hitting your landing page. Less landings equals less purchases. Not only should you focus on keyword use for searches, category architecture for your products, and content which effectively uses keywords will make your site appear in search engine searches and bring people to your website where you can wow them with all you have to offer.
Customer Support
Ensure you have effective methods of customer support such as live web chat, contact forms, or feedback widgets to allow your customers to reach you without having to search around forever. Your customer experience is key, and hearing what your customers have to say and adapting to their feedback can seriously increase your company’s reliability, reviews, and prove you are genuinely interested in making the customer your top priority.
Product Page Design
If you expect customers to purchase your products or services, product page design is crucial. Your customer should be provided with a clear and enticing visual component so they can see what they are purchasing, but should also be provided with clear and concise product information so they are left with no questions. If you don’t provide these details, customers will be unlikely to want to take the effort to contact you with a question, after all, you didn’t take the time to give them any information they needed to make the purchase. Lack of consideration for these things signifies that you don’t really care about your customer experience. Plenty of other websites do and your customers will be lining up in their checkouts instead of yours.
Checkout/Shopping Cart
Ok, so you’ve gotten the customers to your page. They loved your design as well as your products and now want to tally up their purchases and make them their own. You certainly don’t want all that hard work to go to waste because your checkout or shopping cart transaction process fails or is so complicated it is more headache than your products are worth. Customers want to choose their items and get out as fast as possible. They do not want to get hung up in some complicated process which turns their shopping dream into a nightmare. Offer tallys which automatically calculate all applicable taxes, fees, or shipping charges. Offer more than one payment option. Not everyone has an American Express or a credit card at all, for that matter. Offer multiple credit card types and throw in an option for PayPal or a payment through online bank debit card to make your products available to all who want to purchase them. Have your payment security certification obviously displayed for customers otherwise they may not wish to divulge their financial information with you. Make sure your cart also contains a link to your return and warranty policy and customer services contact page.
Correcting these mistakes can help you grow sales. What have you learnt running your eCommerce store? Let me know in comments.