9 Crucial Factors for Success in E-commerce

1. Product Reviews

More often than not you will find that the best advocate for your products as well as online shop are the customers themselves. As it was earlier discussed, the product descriptions by themselves can only go so far in terms of convincing the customers to part with their hard earned money.

By offering your customers the option of being able to review the products that they have purchased allows them to express what their overall experience was like and the quality of the product itself. A human touch often has a convincing aspect about it and reviews are an excellent way of getting your products to be validated by an independent third party.

There are a number of statistics that help in building the case of product reviews. Findings have shown that reviews can result in an increase in sales by approximately 18 per cent, also having over 50 reviews can result in a conversion increase of about 4.5 per cent.

Over 60 per cent of consumers online will tend to prefer those sites that provide user reviews and 68 per cent of consumers are more likely to purchase a site which contains user reviews.

2. Using Quality Images

Here you need to put yourself in the position of the consumer. Would you really make a purchase if the product you are purchasing has poor images? Probably not. The good news is that even the basic smartphones of today have cameras that are pretty powerful, therefore almost anyone can shoot product photos that are of high quality. Also, you will really have no excuse to not displaying your products in a presentable fashion.

Just providing pictures of the product may not be enough, you will need to be more creative and proceed to display your products in their day to day use. This will go a long way in helping the potential customers in visualizing the product in its use.

3. Ensure the Payment Process is Simple

Naturally, the checkout page is the final point for the visitors on your page. A very effective way of increasing the overall conversion rate is by ensuring that the process that your customers have to undergo in order to pay you is ridiculously easy. If it is overly complicated it may put off your visitor and they will just leave your page with a click of a button.

In order to make this process easier, there are a number of tips that you can make use of and will prove to be very beneficial to you. These are:

• Provide your visitors with a variety of payment methods. Do not be rigid such that only customers with VISAs or MasterCard can pay you. Be flexible.
• Do not coerce your customers to sign up for anything

• Ensure that your check out page is in tandem with your store. It sometimes frustrating when you go to check out and find that the item you are about to pay for is not what you had selected. This will definitely put your customers off.

• Do not redirect your customers. Leading customers to a different site is automatically off putting as they will perceive your site to be a scamming site.
• Make errors simple to correct. Ensure that when customers make errors on your site it is easy for them to go back and fix.
• Provide your customers with security certificates.

• Ensure there are as little distractions as possible. There should not be pop ups on your cart page as this is an unnecessary distraction that would lead to mistakes being made.

• Have distinct calls to action

4. Loading Times need to be fast!

With the many advancements on technology it is very easy for people to overlook loading times given that high-speed internet connectivity is almost everywhere. However, one thing is definitely certain: your customers are not likely to hang around your page too long waiting for a given page to load.

According to statistics, 1 in every 4 people will abandon a website if it does not load in approximately 4 seconds. Other findings show that as little as a mere second delay in page response will result in a conversion reduction of approximately 7 per cent.

Therefore, for the best results you need to make sure that your customers have a smooth shopping experience. You need to ensure that your online shop is optimized for speed such that you will not leave any money on the table due to a leggy page.

5. Design Quality

With the advent on social media and online shopping, the overall attention span of individuals has reduced. Moreover, people tend to be fickle in terms of loyalty and therefore the smallest of things will tend to put people off. Studies have shown that a whopping 45 per cent of shoppers will base their ultimate of a given website simply on how the page is designed. Another study shows that 52 per cent of shoppers will not return to a given site on the basis of its aesthetics.

What these statistics mean for your business is that if you take time to properly design your website such that it is aesthetically pleasing, then this will go a long way in ensuring the overall success of your online shop. Moreover, a good design tends to add to the credibility of your company and will embody the personality of the brand.

6. Related Products

This kind of marketing can be referred to upselling. You have certainly come across this tactic in all your endeavors on online shopping stores. This is where you show your visitors other items that other people might have bought with relation to the item that they have selected. Also you can choose to show them other products that complement the item that they have selected. For instance, when a customer is purchasing a device such as a camera then your page should show them complementary items such as a pair of batteries.

This provides you with an excellent opportunity for you to increase your overall sales as it is basically a form of marketing. Also your visitors may find that this feature is exceptionally helpful as it helps them to see items that they had forgotten about.

However, no matter how useful this tool is always remember not to include it in the checkout page as it will only be a distraction that is unnecessary. As we had mentioned, you need to keep that page distraction free.

7. Ease of Navigation in the Store

One of the easiest ways to ensure that a shopper’s experience is pleasant in your store is to make sure that there is a general sense of ease in terms of locating exactly what they are looking for.

The implication of this is that whenever you are attempting to make your online shop easy to navigate you are basically optimizing the different categories, search engines, and filters. If your store deals in a large number of products then it would be wise to spend a significant amount of time categorizing your products. Ensure related products are grouped in the same place. For instance, it does not make sense for one to have a refrigerator grouped together with clothing. This is just confusing and does not inspire any confidence in the store. Always remember that a majority of the people that are shopping online are doing so for the convenience that it offers. Therefore, ensuring that navigating your store is a simple process caters to this and ensures that the whole shopping experience is pleasant and easy for everyone.

8. Great Product Descriptions

It is not possible for you to be constantly informing your different customers what each and every product is about every time they need to buy something. This is why you need to make sure that your product descriptions are informative and concise. It is the details in the words and the overall art of copy writing that will help you to convert your visitors into paying customers.

It may seem unnecessarily difficult from the face of it but it really is not. It is something that anyone can do. All you need to do is to focus on the aspects that your customers value the most. Here is a simple walk through of what that may be like:

• Concentrate on the benefits not just the feature

• Use simple and concise words; avoid complicated jargon

• Write short sentences to enhance legibility

• Identify the motivation for people to purchase your products

9. Excellent Customer Support

No matter how meticulous you are, something is always bound to go wrong. It is just the way nature is. Sometimes the products break, or you might be having technical difficulties with your servers or hiccups in the deliveries. The nature of the issues notwithstanding, as an entrepreneur you need to be ready to deal with customers that are unhappy.

With the stiff competition in today’s market this alone can be a determining key on whether you will be able to retain and attract more customers. In addition to this, the popularity of social media can put your business in a bad situation if a bad customer experience is posted on any one of the platforms and it gains some traction.

Studies have been conducted on how to have a good customer relation and one of the most beneficial advices is that whenever there is a problem it would be wise to make an instant connection with the client, initiate a personal connection with the customer. Also it will be quite helpful if you were to have a FAQ section that is detailed and will address all the likely concerns of the customers.

Final Notes

In conclusion, e-commerce is a great idea given that they simplify the process of shopping. As a serious entrepreneur, you need to consider maintaining your own online store. There are numerous ways that the internet can be used by organizations to popularize their products and also sell them. In appreciation of the growing importance of the internet, organizations have invested a lot of resources to make their presence felt online and, truth be said, a majority of them have realized success. The critical thing for the organizations of today is to recognize the need of their customers and with the products and services at hand, determine the most appropriate way of availing them via the internet. The market place has become a very resourceful tool and the organizations must today, never than before, rethink…!