The e-commerce market is quickly getting flooded with online stores offering the same products, and competition is at an all-time high.
This is driving business owners to work with razor-thin profit margins and find new and unique ways to promote their online stores. Research shows that users will spend only a few seconds on your website before deciding if they want to stay or move on to a different site.
So you’ll not only want to make it eye-catching and easy to navigate. But you’ll also want to make it as user-friendly as possible.
Here are top 4 tips for making, or improving, the user experience in your online store as friendly as possible.
1) Offer Incentives to Your Customers
One of the best and most sure-fire ways to incentivize purchasing on your online store is to make your product offering appealing to your customers.
We’re not talking about the product we’re selling here, because almost certainly they have a good number of choices of where to buy, but instead focus on value adds.
Offer free shipping or free returns and make your refund policy benefit the customer. If there’s less risk in making a purchase from your online store over another, they’re likely to choose yours.
You need to strike a balance, of course, because you can’t put yourself out of business offering extra value. But getting the correct value adds for your customer will only improve sell-through numbers.
2) Choose the Right E-commerce Platform
There are several easy to use and comprehensive e-commerce platforms available for you to use. They all have their distinct advantages and disadvantages.
Choosing the correct one doesn’t have to be all guesswork. The leaders in the e-commerce platform space right now are WooCommerce and Shopify.
While WooCommerce can be self-hosted, which might save you some money on the hosting fees. Shopify is a hosted service, saving you time and maintenance troubles.
It should be easy to compare the two, as reviewed on piesync.com, on which e-commerce platform to use. The PieSync website does have other comparisons too should you want to look into another platform.
3) Make Customer Service Front and Center
When designing your store’s layout, you’ll want to make sure your customers can quickly and easily find the information they need to get help from you or your customer service department.
That means links to your contact information and policies should be in prominent places on your site and they should be written so anyone can understand them.
Avoid long, complex policies and instead, make them simple and easy to understand.
4) Allow User Submitted Reviews
User reviews have the potential to backfire. If you’re selling quality products, or your service is top-notch, then user reviews will only boost your sales.
Reviews and opinions submitted by users will hold far more water than your own product information. Many shoppers will specifically look for them.
Creating an effective and user-friendly online store will make all the difference in your e-commerce business doing well and converting visitors into sales.
By leveraging off well documented and thought out expert tips and tricks to incorporate into your design, you’re giving yourself the best chance of success.
