The eCommerce industry is one of friendly laid back website UI and fierce competition behind the scenes. For the vast majority of products, there are dozens of possible manufacturers, sellers, brands, and marketplaces for online customers to choose from. The effort to influence that decision is one made almost entirely by your online assets. The quality, ease of use, and SEO relevance matters a great deal. Almost nothing matters more than keeping up with the cutting-edge of technology and eCommerce platform trends. Is your eCommerce website up to date and competitive? If you don’t have all four of the following website features, you’re already falling behind the curve. Fortunately, anyone about to update their website has an opportunity to pull ahead of the pack and claim the lead on the cutting edge for at least a few strides.
1) Ratings and Reviews
To say that ratings and reviews are a trend seems almost laughable now. They have become an integral and inescapable part of any modern online business. After decades of shouting commercials and false advertising, customers trust each other a lot more than they trust manufacturers or sellers. This means that positive ratings and reviews are actually your best selling points. No matter how well you write your product descriptions, it’s the reviews that will really be what transforms a lead into a customer. Take a page from Amazon and other highly successful online platforms. Make sure your eCommerce website has integrated ratings and reviews for every item you sell. Once this is done, highlight positive reviews and feature the most helpful customer experience descriptions for future customers to read.
2) 2-Click Checkout
The number one cause of abandoned carts is hassle during checkout. If even one of your checkout pages contains an error, glitches when ‘submit’ is clicked, or is confusing in any way, customers are likely to decide to shop with a competitor instead. In fact, you want your customers to be able to check out as quickly as possible in order to catch those tasty impulse buys and leave your customers feeling like they just won a shopping relay race. To do this, you’ll want to implement 2-click checkouts. This way, customers only have to enter their payment and billing information once the first time. Every subsequent checkout after this, they should be able to quickly check out with a single confirmation to double-check their payment info just in case they’d like to change it.
Also see our post on 4 Essential SEO Tips For Your eCommerce Store
3) Live Chat
Live chat took the internet by storm in 2017. So much so that it’s hard to find a website that doesn’t feature a little floating box in the lower right-hand corner of the page. If you haven’t already jumped on the bandwagon, it’s never too late to join the most recent revolution in sales funnel management and customer service. A live chat feature on your website allows customers and leads to ask qualifying questions any time they need to from “Do you have this in blue?” to “Can you ship this to Alaska?”. These are questions customers wonder and then often have to guess the answer. The ability to ask a real company representative and receive an answer quickly allows customers to make faster buying decisions. Meaning they are more likely to convert instead of wandering off.
4) Upsell Previews
Finally, never miss a chance to keep selling. Customers love suggestions, especially if they are offered politely beneath the information they’re looking for. Make it your goal to have upselling, alternative, and ‘suggested for you’ item preview bars in several places throughout the website. Offer a variety of similar items after a customer adds something to their cart. Suggest ongoing sales after a customer has made a purchase and, of course, include a few helpful recommendation categories on the customer’s home page. This turns one conversion into buying momentum and can help to inspire your customers into bigger and more profitable purchases.
For an eCommerce business, nothing is more important than the quality and content of your web design. From the way your UI creates item pages to how easy it is for customers to leave reviews after receiving a delivery, every aspect of your website will shape customer experience and your conversions rate. For more tips on website design or consult with experts on the best designs for your eCommerce business, contact us today!
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