For an e-commerce business, there are a lot of factors that impact its business, such as marketing techniques applied to get potential customers to your website, manpower behind the order compilation, packaging and deliveries followed by customer service. But, all these would be of no use if there are no incoming orders. To facilitate that, the prospective customers have to visit the website, browse through it and place their orders. Hence, the key factor of an e-commerce business is its e-commerce website development.
An ideal website would be one that makes the journey from beginning to end smooth and productive for both the seller and the buyer. In the sections below, we will focus upon the different elements of a website and understand the role of each in converting visitors into customers.
1. Designed for the User
This is the most important pointer for any website design. Understand your target segment and design the website that they would be happy using. At every step, you should consider what problems the customer might face and resolve them. You can get authentic feedback regarding this if you ask actual users to test the website for you.
2. Simplicity of Design
Websites, which are minimalistic, are preferred over those that are crowded and have too much clutter on a page. Simplify the design to make the website appear organised and easy to understand.
3. Honesty in All Aspects
It is important that the information you provide about your products is honest in all respects, including the images. A website development company must include high quality, real images of the products on sale. When consumers get a product that is different from what they have seen, they feel cheated and you could lose customers rather than gain them. Honesty about pricing is also important. List genuine prices and give real discounts. Honesty has to extend to shipping information and return policies as well.
4. A View Cart Button
Viewers like to have the opportunity to reconsider their impulse shopping and the option of removing or replacing any product from what they might have picked up. Having a ‘view cart’ allows them to review their shopping before finalising it. The visibility of this button is critical and hence its position and colour should be considered carefully.
5. No Distractions
When you are looking at optimising sales, the content on the websites should enhance the knowledge of your users, but it must not distract them from completing the purchase. Any information that you wish to collect through a form can be done as a link of a fixed format. A pop-up for a form is not a good idea.
6. Reviews and Testimonials
Customers depend a lot on what others have to say about a product. If the same is easily accessible on the website, it gives them confidence in the product and the brand. You can have a section where the customers can leave their reviews. While welcoming the positive reviews, you must also accept the negative feedback and take action to correct anything that could make another customer unhappy.
7. Easy Navigation
Customers do not want to waste time looking for a product. Hence, your products should be neatly organised under the relevant heads in a menu. It is also required to have a search bar to make it convenient for the user. The menu can be concealed or could be displayed at the top, but it should be easily accessible on all pages. The menu should also have a filter option for its products by brand, variant, colour, style etc. This helps the user shortlist the products.
If the buyers feel that a product is selling fast or going out of stock, they feel inclined towards purchasing it. Showing scarcity and promotions upfront work wonders to boost sales. But, if your e-commerce website development has not considered optimisation for mobile devices, the best of design elements would fail to result in any significant growth in business as mobile devices are favoured by many for browsing.
