When shoppers arrive at your online store for the first time, in addition to seeking the product in which they’re interested, they’re also looking for indicators to signal your competence. This, in turn, tells them whether or not to consider you trustworthy. You can have the best product or ecommerce software in the world, but if you overlook these five important details, you’re asking for issues.
1) An Attractive Homepage
The design of your homepage must be an instant turn-on for shoppers. Avoid clutter in favor of a sophisticated and streamlined look featuring tastefully displayed selection of the products for which you are best known. Don’t make first-time visitors to your site wonder what you’re all about, lay it out for them in no uncertain terms so they can proceed to find exactly what they’re looking for.
2) The Credibility Factor
If you have the luxury of being a nationally known and trusted brand, you have a great head start. However, you’re going to have to work a bit harder to engender trust if your business is new. Make sure security badges, store ratings and a physical mailing address are featured prominently throughout the site. You also want to make certain your SSL security certificate is kept up to date so site visitors don’t get a notice saying it’s expired — that’s a real trust killer.
3) No Hidden Charges
Imagine you’ve had a great shopping experience on a site. You’ve found what looks to be a great deal on exactly the product you’re looking for. Everything looks good, but when you go to check out, the price gets bumped an additional $20 for “handling” charges — then shipping charges of $15 are rolled in on top of those. Now all of a sudden the price is $35 higher and wait for it — here comes the sales tax. Feeling cheated yet? Your shoppers will too, good luck converting them. Always make sure all associated costs are disclosed before the customer checks out. While we’re on the subject, even with full disclosure, if those numbers are too high, customers will bail. Make sure costs are reasonable.
4) Short Loading Times
A full 73 percent of mobile internet users say they’ve encountered a website that was too slow to load. People have little patience these days when it comes to long load times. The best ecommerce enterprise software loads quickly to reduce your shopper’s wait times. Pages should render and be ready to go within two seconds or less. This applies equally to mobile and desktop platforms, particularly since most browsing is done on mobile devices. Make sure your design loads quickly and is free of any bugs that could lock up mobile devices.
5) Robust Search Function
Some 30 percent of ecommerce site visitors employ the internal search function. For this reason, site search is huge conversion opportunity. Ever wandered into an unfamiliar grocery store looking for a specific item, only to find it isn’t where you expected it to be? But gratefully, store personnel knew exactly where to take you to find it? This is the function internal site search provides your customers. Everything you do to make products easier to locate in as short a time as possible is one more rung on the ladder to conversion. Don’t make your customers wander; make sure they can be lead by the hand when they need to be.
