As more and more businesses are adapting to these trying times and either integrating or optimizing their existing digital storefronts, it’s extremely important to have a website that keeps you in the competition. In fact, e-commerce has grown to be 19% of all retail sales as of 2021 and is expected to grow even more in 2022.
So, what should you keep in mind when building your website?
In this article, we’ll be going over some key features of an effective e-commerce website and why they’re important to your business.
Mobile-Friendly
With 79% of smartphone users having made a purchase on their mobile device in the past 6 months, it’s no surprise that this is one of our most highly recommended features. Even if they aren’t necessarily going to buy anything, having a mobile-friendly website will contribute to maintaining healthy traffic to your website since over half of the global website traffic is done through mobile devices. A responsive web design focuses on creating pages that are visually appealing on all devices as it automatically adjusts the display depending on the size of the screen.
User-Friendly Navigation
This may be one of the first things visitors notice about your site. If they aren’t able to quickly find what they’re looking for, it’s highly unlikely that they would stay for very long and even less unlikely that you would get a conversion out of them. Simply having clear menus that are easy to find, as well as search features such as filters, can lead to increased activity on your page and make it easier to convert quality leads into sales.
Customer Data Security
Customers value knowing that their information is protected and that they can trust your site. Website security is often not taken as seriously by a lot of business owners and they risk losing a lot of current and potential customers if they don’t have strong data protection practices. Not only does a lack of trust in your site lead to incomplete conversions, but this insufficient security could also lead to legal risks for your business.
Several Payment Options
Having a clear and easy way to navigate to the shopping cart and check out page is one thing, but in order to complete this conversion, the customer has to be able to pay. By including as many popular payment options as possible on your site, you’re pushing along the conversions and simultaneously allowing for the enhancement of the customer’s experience. Customers may also feel safer when going through a payment method that they’re already familiar with.
High-Quality Photos and Videos
Unlike a chunk of text, images give us immediate information about the product that we’re interested in. Visual content helps to keep the attention of your customers and can even push them towards making a purchase, especially if you have multiple photos. The higher quality your photo or video is, the more professional your brand will look too. Images are also a great way to boost SEO if implemented properly, so make sure that your page loading speed isn’t hindered by your use of visual content on your site.
Social Proof and Reviews
Customers care about what other customers have said or thought about your brand and nearly 55% of consumers read at least four reviews before actually purchasing a product. If you have the opportunity to include reviews or social proof, encourage your customers to leave you a review on social media, Google My Business, or other places where product reviews can be found.
Frequently Asked Questions Page
An easily accessible Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page is a great way to boost user experience by making information that customers may be looking for much more convenient to find. Think of some questions visitors to your site may have and consider if it would be appropriate to include on your list of FAQs. You’ll always be able to add more to this list when you come across some questions in the future so you won’t need to worry about including every possible inquiry right away. Some ideas for this list include explaining your shipping and return policy, answering popular questions about specific products, or even answering questions people may have about payment.
Item Availability
If an item is out of stock or even low in stock, your customers should know about it before they consider buying your product. By telling them an item isn’t available as soon as they see it on your site, they can avoid the process of deciding on whether or not they want to buy that product or not. When it comes to online shopping, it can be extremely frustrating for a customer to spend hours or days deciding on a product only to find out afterward that it was out of stock to begin with. All of this can be avoided by just having product availability prominently displayed on your site as well as when an item will be available again if it’s currently out of stock.
Contact Information
Usually, a customer should be able to find what they need by browsing your site or reading your FAQ page. However, there may be times when they would rather contact you instead. Including a contact page that’s easy to find not only makes your customers feel like they can trust you but also makes them feel like what they have to say is important to you. Be sure to provide a wide variety of contact options such as a phone number, email address, and even a mailing address. A large majority of online businesses don’t use live chats or chatbots but if this sounds appealing to you, it could help provide your customers with quick answers or even boost interactivity and engagement on your site.
If you’re currently in the process of building out your site, hopefully all of this information wasn’t too overwhelming. It may seem like a lot of work but having all of the above will help increase conversion rates on your website, ultimately leading to more sales.