What’s the lifeblood of your business? Products? Services? Your knowledge? Whatever it is, taking payments online is now easier than ever.
What makes a great eCommerce website?
A well-designed eCommerce website is critical for conversions. You might think that’s pretty obvious but you’d be surprised how many sites are missing some of these basics.
Easy Navigation
Your customer should always know where on your site they are. If they’re drilling down through categories and subcategories, it’s important to make it easy to get back to your main shop page, the current product’s category or other related products. The checkout button should be easy to find from any page on your site.
Prominent Contact Information
This really goes for any website, not just eCommerce but it bears repeating. If anything goes wrong during checkout or post-sales, getting their problem resolved quickly provides a great customer service experience. Make sure your contact details are prominently displayed, ideally on every page in the header or footer. If you have an actual store front, make sure you include a map.
Mobile Friendly
Are you giving your mobile viewers a good experience? Can they see your images clearly? Can they find your products? If you have a large amount of products, planning your categories and paying attention to the mobile layout is crucial for making your catalogue easy to navigate on smaller screen sizes.
Product Details and Images
Tell them everything you know about each product. What is it made of? What does it do and what doesn’t it do (compared to other similar products)? Does it have colours, sizes or other variations? What features are important to your customers? Are there any warranties/guarantees?
Use as many good quality images as you need to show the most important aspects of each product.
Give your customers confidence that that there’ll be no surprises when they open up the package.
Availability
Do your products go out of stock? If so, let customers know early on in the process. If you can, offer them the ability to back order and let them know how long they can expect to wait. Similarly, you can create a sense of urgency by letting them know when stock is low, to encourage them to quickly purchase before the product sells out.
Delivery Times and Refunds
Let your customers know when they might expect your product to be delivered and what the process is if their parcel fails to show up, is damaged or they’d like to return it.
Shipping Costs
If you offer free shipping, it makes sense to make it a selling point. Don’t be afraid to mention it throughout your site, not just at checkout.
Relevant Search
If you have a large amount of products, search is critical and there’s a lot to think about. Here’s a great article on the current state of eCommerce search.
FAQs
Do you get asked the same questions by potential customers often? Make it easy for your customers to find the answers to common questions by having a dedicated FAQ section on your site or even category or product specific FAQs. Also consider Live Chat if you want to answer pre-sales questions one on one with potential customers in real time. The quicker you can answer their questions, the more likely they’ll buy from you – don’t risk them finding the answers they need elsewhere!
Cross Sells and Up Sells
Are there products that commonly go together or complement each other? Let your users know that they have more options by showing related products on product and cart pages. You can also let them know about deals like free shipping they might be eligible for once their order reaches a certain dollar amount.
Reviews
Do you have satisfied customers? Include their reviews or testimonials on the relevant product page to provide social proof for your brand and services.
Payment Methods
Some customers like to know early on what options they have to pay. If you can, offer a variety and let them know what they are early on in the process.
Easy and Secure Checkout
Make sure your checkout is as quick and simple as possible. Do you really need their phone number? If not, get rid of the field and anything else that’s not strictly required for you to process their payment or deliver their goods. Also make sure your checkout process is secure and compliant and let your customers know that you care about secure payments and their safety.
Site Registration
Making users sign up to your site to checkout can be a great way of building your email list but will it turn people off? Consider auto-registration or skipping the sign up all together if your sales process doesn’t strictly require it.
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Discover 5 things every small business can fix on their website this week to increase traffic and conversions.