By 2017, the sales in ecommerce are estimated to reach more than $400 billion in US alone; this is the heat of ecommerce today. Earlier the users went onto desktop sites for purchases but today they look out for most of their online needs in mobiles or hand held devices. Businesses want customers and customers want an online site that gives them innovative products in an easy way. Incorporating a user friendly eStore/mobile friendly eStore with optimized images, simple checkout pages, attractive shopping cart are some of the basics every business has to mind when doing the web development for their estores. And before you outsource the job to an external designer, make sure you perform a research on it in first place.
Let’s take a look at a few pointers below to be considered in an ecommerce platform,
- Easy navigation: Search box is something every user looks forward to in a site. Make sure to have it in a prominent location in the home page. Predictive search or auto complete is yet another feature that goes along in the context here; make sure the search box shows suggestions of the products as the customer begins to browse. Once you think you have them, browse through your own site to see how easy you feel with the navigation!
- Clear search criteria: Having similar text for more than one search criteria leaves the user in confusion. For an example, say a customer looks for scissors, having house hold items and cutlery items as 2 options might not give him a clarity. Having the search category as minimal as possible, followed by detailed sub-search options is a wise idea in view of an organized ecommerce site.
- Filters: In addition to the search menu, having a filter for brands, colours, sizes, price range and so makes the search process easier for an end user
- Clear images: Having a pictorial representation or the supporting videos for products is a great idea but making it relevant to the context is very important. Usability and functionality of the web page is to be taken into consideration while doing this design. Make sure you don’t end up making a mess of non-suiting images that make them incompatible with the web design showing them awkward
- Stock check: Doing the ecommerce site facelift regularly is necessary where the site stock check is a crucial part. Isn’t it embarrassing to show a product in the home page and then say “stock unavailable” in the add-to-cart or subsequent pages?
- Add to cart button: Call To Action button should be as clear as possible. The size, colour, and text that goes on it matters a lot when it comes to grabbing the customer attention
- Shopping cart image: Shopping cart image is as important as the Add to Cart because a lot many customers tend to forget the items added while they are in the middle of searching other items. The image has to be good enough to remind them to proceed with checkout!
- Check out page: Check out pages must be clear, simple and to the point. No advertisements or banners or other irrelevant items to be a part of the page. Fly-out checking, chat services are some enhancements that can make a checkout page better!
- Customer service: Make sure to provide your contact details clearly on the site; provide an instant chat service to address short queries on the spot and to provide an excellent customer service
- Social media connect: Having a share button in the product page, in view of giving a connect to the media is no more a luxury but one of the ways customers can tell the world they love your product inviting more customers.
- Returning customer respect: Pay your respect to the returning customers giving them discount deals or offers or any reward kind so they feel happy you value them and choose you for further purchases
- Data analytics: Collecting the right data for analytics using Google Analytics or so is important in order to streamline the existing processes in view of further improvements to the site & hence the business
- Clear marketing strategy: Ensuring to know what the customers look for, who is the target customer crowd of every product, which is the main region of interest for a product and related details is important in view of designing a great marketing strategy. Make sure you know it!
We hope these ecommerce strategies have given you knowledge good enough to create a sustained focus on parts of the web design to take care of, while designing an online store. Should you require an assistance or support in web design, please feel free to get in touch with us at QeRetail!
