When you are operating in the eCommerce space, there is always room for growth. Your competition is going to continue to get better and you need to as well. Making sure that your site functions in a way that is going to allow you to easily make sales is important. In this article, we will go over 5 features you eCommerce site needs to have.
1. Ease of Use
When your potential customers visits your site, you need to make sure that you make it easy for them to navigate. When they land on your site, they shouldn’t have sensory overload or confusion. Despite how many neat widget there may be to make your site look fancy, you only need the best WordPress plugins and content that will help you give your customer a good experience.
There should be a natural rhythm and flow to your site that allows users to experience your site instead of having to navigate your site. If they are coming there for a specific product or service, it should be readily available. Any products that you sell in high volume should be placed in an area of your site where people can easily go to purchase.
Your navigation and how quickly your site loads are a couple of factors that will impact the ease of use, but you also need to think about the rest of your design elements.
2. Product Photos & Videos
When selling online, it is imperative that you have top of the line imagery and videos. The photos and videos that you post online are the only way they can tell if this is something that they want or not. If you do not post photos with different angles of the product or a video showing a full view of the product, you are likely to notice that your sales are not as high as you would like them to be.
If you cannot afford a fancy photographer or if you are worried you won’t do a good job on your own, don’t worry. You can get some simple lighting, a tripod and a good table with a drop cloth and be just fine. You may also find photo editing equipment to be helpful once you get them online since a little work on the brightness can do a lot for the look of the photos.
3. Mobile Friendly Is a Must
If you are wondering if you should invest in a mobile responsive theme or if you should upgrade your design to make it mobile friendly, the answer is an easy “Yes!”. 62% of mobile users have made a purchase from their phone within the last 6 months. Additionally, if you aren’t mobile friendly, you are getting a slap from Google. Google shows mobile friendly websites first with its Mobile First Index update. Missing out on sales and missing out on traffic, now that’s enough. It’s time to get mobile.
There are many WordPress themes that are automatically WordPress responsive so if you are considering a total overhaul, you might want to look into a theme update instead. It could be less pricey and less overwhelming.
4. Reviews From Users
User generated reviews are necessary if you want to increase the conversions on your site. People want to see what others are saying about the product or service. You can even allow people to post photos of their purchase which builds even more trust. There are some clothes shopping sites that allow you to see model photos, but also have photos of users in the dresses as well which makes it much more believable and easy to imagine for the average person viewing the product page.
Sometimes people are a little scared to allow user generated reviews, but the truth is that even if you get a bad review, you can reply to the review and help fix the problem instead of worrying about it. The negative reviews can be valuable feedback that helps you get better and oftentimes it is simply a misunderstanding.
The amount of trust that you gain from positive reviews will often negate any less than great feedback you might get some a disgruntled customer.
5. Special Offers & Coupons
Everyone loves special offers. They make us feel, well, special. In addition to that, it makes us feel like we got a deal. If you add a countdown clock, you’re golden.
A lot of sites are doing special offers for buying over a certain amount of money or doing multiple orders and rewarding people through loyalty programs. These are all great strategies that can help your site increase the amount of sales, volume of sales and the customer return rate.
You can great creative with the offers that you put out. If you have an audience that is into giving back, you can offer to give a percentage of their sale to a certain charity that you know they care about. If you get customers from a certain community, you can make sure that the charity is something to do with issues that they deal with regularly.
Conclusion
When you focus on getting these five things right on your eCommerce site, you are well on your way to a successful eCommerce site. Learning and implementing are key so make sure that you take action after finishing this article and get your eCommerce website running optimally.
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