What a good question, we’re glad you asked!
When you go into a high street store, what makes you enjoy your shopping venture? The same principles apply online, customer experience is everything and is what will ultimately make your customers return again and again.
The importance and significance of each element of a successful eCommerce site…
Know Your Product and Love it!
If you’re not selling a product you love, then why are you selling it at all? In order to give good service and customer experience, you have to understand your product and your market. This will also help when developing an online marketing strategy.
Neat Navigation
Having a clear and simple navigation will enable your customers to find the products they are looking for promptly. Your navigation is effectively your online catalogue, it will use layers of pages. Each product will be organised under a category, it will use carefully selected thumbnail images and detailed information and will be searchable both onsite and offsite. Ideally you want to reduce the number of barriers that your customer has to face in the purchasing process. From locating the product to successfully checking out. You want to make this process effortless and as straight forward as possible.
Find a Good Host
By this I mean your hosting and server provider. This is vital in order to deliver your pages and products to your customer as quickly as possible. If your website is slow and struggling to perform, then you’re more than likely going to lose custom. There will be a number of other sites that supply and sell the same/similar product as you, don’t lose a customer over something so trivial!
Incredible Imagery
Having good quality imagery is important, you want to present your products in the best way possible. This will reflect considerably on your brand, a successful brand won’t have poor images on their website, so even if you’re a small brand you still want to present yourself in the same way as your larger competitors. The same applies to your logo, having a clearly displayed and recognisable logo will help with brand recognition.
It is an easy thing to fix, if you aren’t doing this already. With respectable and detailed images it will encourage your customer to engage further, and ultimately they will not be disappointed then they receive the product and it looked exactly like it did in the pictures.
Payment Security
Your site MUST be secure and safe for your customers to use. Bad reputation can be generated rapidly from this, word of mouth is a powerful thing and bad reviews will affect your traffic and convergence. In order to make your site safe, you should have SSL on your online payment pages, this gives you the ability to handle encrypted transactions. Presenting your pages as safe will install confidence and loyalty within your customers who will be willing to return.
Don’t Forget Your Manners
This should come without saying, but it is imperative that you ensure you keep your customers happy. Make their online experience as stress free as possible, give your customers options, advice and guidance. Politeness is also essential, make sure you send Thank you emails after an order has been placed, welcome back your returning customers, send them information and discounts. Collectively all these actions will create loyalty and a relationship between yourself and your consumer.
Social Marketing
If you haven’t started this yet, you should really start thinking about it. Social media channels are a great way to gain brand awareness, to interact with your customers and reach a larger audience. The benefits of social marketing can be tremendous if you handle your strategy correctly.
Reliable Shipping
If you say your product will arrive to your customers in 3 working days, then it should. This is one of the many mentioned in this list, which if managed inappropriately can have dramatic effect on your reputation. To act as a professional establishment and in order to gain your customers trust and loyalty, make sure factors such as shipping are running smoothly, and remember not to give your customers an unrealistic expectation.
Following these fundamental rules will ensure that your eCommerce website will reach expectation, standards and will function effectively and will ultimately be a success.
If you’re looking to start up your own eCommerce site, don’t hesitate to contact us on 0113 3201306
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