To succeed in e-commerce involves different factors and a lot of work.
A website requires constant maintenance and improvements to really be visible among the small, medium, and giant ventures that already exist.
If you are already part of the e-commerce or joining soon, consider these e-commerce best practices and get better profits!
Table of Contents
Choose wisely your web hosting service
Consider your current business needs and future plans. Then look for a hosting service located close to your targeted customers. Powerful enough to manage massive or moderate traffic. Security at different levels (datacenter, backup, DNS…), fast to load, with infrastructure, and plans to upgrade your website easily when it grows.
Also, look for reliable support. Errors are part of the game, but long downtime can mean money loss for you.
Make your e-shop safe and trustworthy
Make sure customers can pay without risking money and their data. Security or the lack of it impacts the sales of a website critically.
Simplify your checkout process
Once customers find what to buy, they just want to finish the purchase. Many people quit at the last minute because of a difficult or long payment process. Make it easy and ask just essential data for the transaction (billing and shipping).
Send abandoned shopping cart reminders (e-mails)
People abandon a purchase due to different reasons. Encourage them to finish the buying through e-mail. It has proved to be a useful re-targeting resource to get customers back.
Don’t be so pushy for customers to create a profile
Having customer profiles is very useful to contact them directly and for many marketing actions (loyalty programs, promotions, etc.). It also serves to get info about their shopping experience and choosing future strategies.
But to harass customers to share their info can really affect your business image. Locate a very visible button to register, encourage them nicely, offer some benefits in exchange, etc.
Enable more than one payment option
Always reduce the risk of customers abandoning the transaction due to a lack of options.
Optimize your e-commerce website for mobiles
Most purchases come from mobile shoppers.
Work on SEO strategy
The objective is hard but clear, to be on the top results when customers search.
Offer accessible customer service
Inaccessible or bad customer service really affects websites’ reputation. Train your team properly to solve issues fast and efficiently. Support multiple communication channels like e-mail, chat, phone, and more.
Best practices for design your e-commerce website
Having a nice, friendly, and easy to understand design on your website is critical.
- Prefer a neat and simple design
Place your call-to-action (CTA) buttons so customers can see them at first sight.
Too much info or many pics can make it difficult for them to find what they look for. They can be confused and quit.
- Enable search bar and filters
Some shops offer a few products, but others have thousands. Especially in the second case, enable search bar and filters in your catalog to make customers search more comfortable and faster.
- Simplify menus
Prefer broad terms to define your product categories. If you go too specific, the menu could be very long.
- Include accurate product descriptions
Write short and clear. Highlight key features. Just a name or code, especially when items belong to specialized fields, leave customers with more doubts than certainties for purchasing.
- Provide good quality product images
Quality, but optimized pictures, so it won’t slow down your site. Highlight the key features of the product.
If pictures are not enough to sell your product, consider demonstration videos.
Conclusion
Optimizing constantly your e-commerce website really improve the chances of increasing sales. Put yourself in customer’s shoes from time to time to improve your e-shop.
These e-commerce best practices will help you, but never stop been proactive and check for new tips and tricks. Success!