If you’re running an eCommerce store, your website is the first thing people see when they visit your online store. Therefore, your site should be professional, visually pleasing and user-friendly to help achieve results as well as encourage long-term customer satisfaction. After all, four in 10 Australian consumers purchase products from websites at least once a month, and 79.4 per cent choose eCommerce over traditional in-store shopping, so you want to make sure you’re giving your visitors the best experience possible to help encourage initial and repeat purchases.
The success of your online store may depend on whether customers enjoy their experience with your site, so it’s important that small businesses ensure their websites are engaging enough to prompt repeat visitation and encourage purchasing.
Establishing a successful online store can be no easy feat for small-business owners, so we’ve put together four tips to help you on your journey to eCommerce success.
1. Make site navigation as easy as possible
When it comes to navigation, simplicity is key. Customers may be deterred by pages of information or having to scroll through pages of unrelated items before they’re able to find the product they’re after, encouraging them to move on to the site of a competing retailer.
A good idea may be to categorise your product offerings as much as possible. Make sure your website and online store pages are clearly labelled and categorised, stating exactly what will appear when clicked on. Also, consider building a custom search bar built right into the eCommerce section on your website. This will help to simplify the process for customers who know exactly what it is they’re looking for.
2. Think like a visual merchandiser
Your eCommerce website should be visually appealing to encourage customer purchases. Minimalist pages with measured spacing between products can go a long way to prompting purchases, as products won’t look confusing or cluttered. Further, consider plain backgrounds with unobtrusive, muted colours, to help make your products stand out.
3. Entice customers with your product descriptions
Your product descriptions should encourage customers to buy, so they should be engaging and thorough. Pay attention to the details of each product and provide as much information as possible, to give the customer as accurate a description as possible. People should know exactly what they’re getting, as though they’ve hand-chosen the product out of a bricks-and-mortar store.
It is equally important to write descriptions in a tone suited to the personality of your brand. Are you friendly? Humorous? This can give customers a good idea of your business’ values, and differentiate you from competitors.
4. Keep your eCommerce website protected
To help earn your customers’ trust, information and patronage, you should consider purchasing an SSL certificate to help protect the transmission of your customer data, and enabling two-factor authentication for customer logins. Further, be sure to comply with Australian PCI standards to help protect the transfer of funds between yourself and your customer. Further, you could include a link to your business’ privacy policy to help promote transparency and a commitment to help keep customers’ information protected.
Following these tips can help you create an engaging shopping customer experience on your e-commerce site. With the online website building tools currently available, now is the time to start building your dream online store today.
Tara Commerford, Vice President and Managing Director Australia & New Zealand, GoDaddy
