Online shopping has come of age. According to Statistica, the number of digital shoppers increased to 191.1 million in 2014 and B2B eCommerce shopping increased to $4,778.24bn in 2014. These numbers are expected to triple in the coming years and its all-good news for eCommerce website owners. However, you might have already realized a few simple facts. Not all eCommerce websites are successful. As a website owner, you have to tweak your website and make sure that it provides shoppers with an engaging shopping experience. To help you out, here are a few essential tips that will help you revamp your eCommerce website substantially.
Getting the Right Technology
Getting your website hosting right is the most important point of any eCommerce website states Receptional. Services like Shopify are quick on the uptake and they make sure that their customers have the best in technology, plug-ins and add-ons to ensure optimum business. It also ensures that the website loads in less than a second and provides state-of-the-art shopping cart software to keep customers engaged and shopping. However, as a business owner, you should also use technology to achieve your business ends rather than the other way around. Make sure you check with Shopify and implement every feature that will speed up your website and make the shopping experience as easy as possible.
Trust and Conversions
Internet shoppers are usually quite leery of new websites. As a result, you might be noting that customers are visiting your website but they are moving away without buying anything. In this case, conversions are not happening, as customers do not yet trust business for online shopping. To encourage trust, you can start by providing multiple payment options, providing 24-7 customer support, displaying security certificates, showing ABOUT US and RETURNS policies on the landing page, etc. Another way to boost customer confidence is by adding shopping trust marks to your website. By displaying these trust icons on your website, you are more likely to see browsing customers convert to shopping customers.
Shipping Simplified
Times have changed. Companies are now willing to ship goods overnight to ensure customer loyalty. This is particularly useful during festive seasons and end-of-season sales. In fact, a survey by the E-Tailing Group showed that unconditional and expedited free shopping is the number one criteria for customers while shopping online. Some businesses try to make a profit on the sale by charging the customer on their shipping rates as well. This is not a good idea as most companies are now moving towards free shipping on all orders irrespective of order cost. For example, websites like Amazon are already offering expedited same-day delivery services. Amazon is probably also the only company also looking into personal drone deliveries to ensure deliveries within 30 minutes of order or on the same day. However, this might not be possible for small business owners. In this case, you should consider reducing shipping costs to a minimum or offering free postage on orders over a certain amount.
Content
In the last few years, most websites moved their websites towards visual content in the form of videos and images but with minimal content. However, that has changed with long-form but personalized content being in high demand. Websites owners can inspire confidence by creating content that answers queries, settles downs and prevents any confusion. Quality product descriptions that are unique and describe each product can also transform website conversion rates and result in better business and higher search page rankings.
Customer Reviews
Customers’ reviews are essential to building trust in a website states Wordtracker. eCommerce points out that more than 60% of consumers are likely to read customer reviews before they shop online at a website. As a result, a positive review can be very, very useful. However, there are chances of negative reviews as well. In this case, a negative review allows the website a chance to interact with the consumer and setup a compromise. As a result, it is a good idea for your website to have both negative and positive reviews on your website. The negative reviews should be followed up and result in a satisfactory conclusion. This interaction also shows up on organic and paid search results and ensure better traffic and higher conversion rates.
Your eCommerce website is the primary method by which you, the business owner, are communicating with your customer states Crazyegg. As a result, it is vital to have a well-maintained website, with unique images, well-written content, reliable products, fast-loading times, reliable customer service, etc. Along with this, your website has to be fast, fun, and functionally useful for customers. All you have to do is meet these three fundamentals and your eCommerce website will show favorable results almost immediately.
