Having an ecommerce website allows customers to see your products and services. It provides you with an avenue for selling online. Your ecommerce website can help support your online transactions. More than giving you a platform for selling your products or services, an ecommerce website allows you to extend your customer reach.
But an ecommerce website does not mean anything if it is not converting leads into customers. You may have the best products in the industry but does it translate to sales for your business? If your website is not achieving what it is supposed to do – which is to drive traffic and sales to your online business, then you may need to make some adjustments. Here are some do’s and don’ts you need to be aware of and make your ecommerce website more efficient and profitable.
What To Do
- Stick To Your Brand Language and Color
- Optimize For Mobile View
- Use High-Quality Images and Videos
- Place CTAs in Prominent Locations
- Research Your Products
- Set Your Budget
What Not To Do
- Have Too Many Unnecessary Pop Ups
- Have Too Much Information
- Make Promises You Cannot Keep
- Make Customers Register Before Purchase
- Withhold Shipping And Return Policy
What To Do With Your Ecommerce Website
By the year 2040, it is estimated that 95% of all purchases will be from ecommerce. So if your ecommerce website is not functioning properly, then you could be losing the lead to your competitors. Here is what you can do to make sure that you get the most out of your ecommerce website.
1. Stick To Your Brand Language and Color
Your brand language and color is what make your ecommerce website stand out. Your choice of color and language is what will comprise your brand identity. Sticking to your brand language and color is important because it ensures easy recognition of your brand. Whenever they see your logo on products, they will easily know that it is you because of the colors.
Consistency in your brand color is very important because it is the first thing that customers will remember about your brand. According to one survey, 82% of online searchers choose a familiar brand. Using different colors on different channels can hurt your sales and present a disorganized and unprofessional image.
This is true even if you are planning to rebrand. Maintaining brand color will help maintain brand recognition. Even though there is a change in brand, they can still easily identify you because of your color and language. Consider all mediums that your brand will be displayed on, whether on the web, mobile, signage, clothing, and others.
2. Optimize For Mobile View
In the age of smartphones, customers shop online from their mobile devices. It is predicted that mobile commerce will account for 40.4% of ecommerce sales by 2024. This underscores the need to optimize your ecommerce website for mobile users. If your store is not yet mobile-friendly, you could be losing a chunk of potential customers to the competition. Improving mobile visibility should be a top priority if you want to attract mobile phone shoppers.
Your ecommerce website may look great on a desktop but what about on mobile devices? If part of your ecommerce design is cut off or does not load properly, then you need to make it more mobile-friendly. Some ecommerce platforms have built-in website design capabilities. You also have the option to outsource web development.
Nothing is more annoying than a slow-loading website, especially on a mobile phone. Ensure that your mobile website will load in less than three seconds or ideally less than two. You can speed up loading times by optimizing your images, using a caching plugin, and others. This will help ensure a fast-performing ecommerce website on all mobile devices.
3. Use High-Quality Videos and Images
Photos and videos of your product can make a huge difference in convincing website visitors to become paying customers. You can never underestimate the power of product videos in generating sales for your ecommerce website. Studies show that 73% of visitors who watch product videos will make a purchase. In addition, 71% of consumers prefer video over other marketing content.
With this in mind, you want to utilize videos and images in attracting prospects to purchase your products. However, you want to make sure that you use high-quality and professional-looking videos and images. Using low-resolution images will make it look sloppy. It will also give customers the feeling that you don’t care.
If you are not much into taking great pictures, you can hire a photographer to take pictures of your products to give it a professional look. You can also create an account with a stock image service so you can keep all your original images in that account. Your website images and videos give visitors a first impression so make that a lasting one.
4. Place CTAs in Prominent Locations
Call-to-action buttons serve a special purpose and that is to find a way to connect customers to your business. If you are selling products, your CTA will provide the support it needs to get noticed. If your CTA is missing, your customers will not know what course of action to take. If customers do not know what they are supposed to do, this translates to wasted time and money on inefficient marketing efforts.
However, CTAs need to be strategically positioned to ensure that they will convert. Several studies have revealed that putting the CTA above the fold had a 73% visibility as compared to only 44% for below-the-fold CTA. But the above-the-fold CTA should only be done on a case-to-case basis. This means that above-the-fold CTA is not always the best option.
The most important thing is that your CTA should always be visible. As much as possible, it should be front and center. Customers want to be clear right away so they can resume their daily activities without further delays. Avoid putting much information and your CTAs in obscure positions as this would greatly impact your website’s conversion rate.
5. Research Your Products
When selling physical or digital products, you want to make sure that they will be in demand and useful. What good is your product if customers will not be able to use it for their benefit? Without demand, it is impossible to generate any sales on your ecommerce store.
Researching your product will help you reach people in a broader market. But it can only be effective if the product you are selling is in demand. Look for products that your customers will like and will provide solutions to their immediate needs. You want to offer customers solutions and not just new products.
Product research is important because it will help you determine whether your product or service will become successful and how to best develop and sell your products. You need to keep in mind that customers will only buy a product that will solve their problems or make their life easier. According to Jungle Scout, researching a product will help you identify the critical issues facing a customer.
6. Set A Budget
In order for your business to be successful, you need to have some kind of budget. An ecommerce website without a budget is like having no business at all. You need to have a budget for buying and replenishing your stock, marketing your store, and other expenses. Having a budget will help you identify where you are overspending or where you are spending less than needed.
With a budget, you can prepare for any business emergency. It will help you run your business smoothly. Your budget dictates how much money you will make. If you invest only a little on your website then don’t expect large returns as well. Budgeting will help you gather sufficient funds for running your business smoothly. It will also help you to spend your funds wisely. It all starts with an examination of your previous revenue.
Running an ecommerce website can be costly but having a budget helps you prepare for upcoming expenses. Preparing a budget can be overwhelming if you do not know how to do it. You can outsource budgeting to a professional if you do not have someone in your team to handle budget preparation.
What You Should Not Be Doing
The success of your business lies in doing things right. If you are just starting with an ecommerce website, it is so easy to commit mistakes that could prove costly to your whole online store. Here are some of the common mistakes you should be avoiding in your ecommerce website.
1. Having Too Many Unnecessary Pop Ups
Although pop ups are necessary for your ecommerce website, too many of them can become annoying. It can cause a customer who is already on the verge of buying your product to abandon their shopping cart and buy somewhere else. It can interrupt the user journey. Popups take you away from the main page until you interact with it.
Never assume that you need a popup on your ecommerce website. Just because everyone is doing it does not mean that you should follow. Although not inherently bad, popups can become instruments used by hackers to exploit the vulnerabilities of your website’s security. The popup can be used to download malware to the user’s device.
Customers may see the unnecessary popup as a distraction. As a result, they may end up closing the popup browser and leaving your website completely. This could leave a bad impression on your website. If you are just starting out as an ecommerce website, it is best to create a good first impression.
2. Having Too Much Information
It can be understandable if you want to provide your visitors with the information they need to convince them to buy from your ecommerce website. But overwhelming them with too much information is not healthy and could impact the entire customer experience. Too much information can make it difficult for the prospect to process, keep track of, and filter information. Studies show that 1 in 5 Americans suffer from information overload.
In today’s digital age, it can be easy for one to suffer from information overload. All the information we need is right there at our fingertips. We have access to the Internet, smartphones, and social media that can easily provide us with the information that we need. But information overload can exhaust and demoralize us.
This works in the same way with an ecommerce website. If you feed too much information to the customer, they can become overwhelmed and end up not buying products from you. Only provide them with the necessary information they need for making a purchase. For products, limit the number of products you will offer to customers.
3. Making Promises You Cannot Keep
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not following your promise. With customer expectations now higher than ever, it is important for a brand to keep its promises. Unfortunately, only 7% of companies are able to do so all the time. So when you say you are going to give a 10% discount, customers will expect that discount. If you don’t give them that, they can become frustrated.
Not keeping your promises will have an impact on customer loyalty. According to one study, customers trust brands that have a long history of consistently delivering on their brand promises. Delivering your promise is the foundation of trust and deeper engagement with customers. A Reader’s Digest survey revealed that 79% of participants opt for a trusted brand when choosing between items of equal quality and price.
While you want to assure customers that their orders will be delivered on time, you also do not want to cut things too close. Delivering on your promises means going above and beyond in order to make a strong impression on customers. If you say your price is lower than the competition, don’t just say it, do it.
4. Make Customers Register Before Purchase
Making customers register before they can purchase is a big no-no in an ecommerce business. According to a new report, 75% of customers who are asked to register with a site are bothered by it and change their behavior as a result. According to the report, 54 percent may leave the site or will not return, 17 percent will go to a different site, and 4 percent will leave/avoid the site.
According to the report, because customers are not at ease with registering first when making a purchase, they will give incorrect information. Instead of making them register, the study reveals that most customers prefer social sign-in. With this method, customers are more likely to return to your ecommerce store and spend more on your store.
Customers do not have the luxury of time and making them fill up a long registration form is a waste of time for them. Account registration can be a tedious process and the customer could end up abandoning the process after all. Make account registration an option so the customer will complete the purchase even without creating an account.
5. Withholding Shipping And Return Policy
One of the things that can affect a customer’s purchase decision is the shipping and return policy. 68% of online shoppers check a website’s return and exchange policy before making a purchase. The shipping and return policy can make or break a potential sale. For this reason, it should be clearly indicated on your website. Depending on the product you are selling, your shipping and return policy should cover the following basics:
- What items can be returned
- What items can be exchanged
- Whether refunds are available and in what form
- Who will shoulder the shipping cost of physical items
Your shipping and returns policy should be placed in an area that customers can easily see before they purchase an item. You cannot put the blame on a frustrated customer who is returning an item because they did not read your return policy. Some of the places where you could place your returns policy include:
- Your website footer
- Product Page
- Checkout Page
- Shopping Cart
- FAQ Page
Customers know what they can do if they want to return an item so make sure that such a policy will not be missed by customers. Withholding your shipping and return policy can only result in a lack of trust on the part of customers. It will also help eliminate the time the customer will spend on customer service because they were not clearly informed of your return policy.
When properly managed, your ecommerce website can effectively promote your products to potential customers. Ultimately, it can generate a steady stream of income for your ecommerce website.
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