With today’s internet-driven consumer marketplace, it’s crucial to have a plan for selling products and services online. On the top of your list should be creating an eCommerce website.
While this may sound a little intimidating and scary to somebody who doesn’t have a lot of experience designing or building websites, the truth is that it’s never easier for novices or amateurs to launch a working website, especially one that enables you to process your sales smoothly.
If you’ve decided to do your selling via your website, make sure to follow the tips below to build an eCommerce website that stands out:
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Begin With A Strategy
To achieve success while creating an eCommerce website, you should begin with a sound strategy. Regardless of how simple your eCommerce website is, it’s essential to have details that will guide you in the right direction.
It’s crucial to anticipate your greatest challenges and needs as your business grows. With a strategy, you don’t have to worry about anything because you’ll know the necessary steps you need to take when selling services or products online.
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Keep It Simple
More often than not, people don’t like shopping on websites loaded with text. Ecommerce is basically meant to be fast and if your website has too much going on, this can be distracting. The primary purpose of your eCommerce site is to generate sales. It’s great to have information about your available brand but ensure that it isn’t distracting customers from your products.
One of the ways to keep your eCommerce website simple is by having a clear navigation menu. It enables customers to search your website and find what they’re searching for easily. To organize your navigation bar, you can use drop-down menus to prevent it from looking crowded.
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Pay Importance To Visual Appearance
When it comes to creating a killer website for your eCommerce store, visual appearance matters. The first thing that users always notice is the design. If your website is overcrowded, out of date, and confusing, your customers will likely look elsewhere.
Take note that most consumers these days consider design as a key deciding factor when purchasing. A minimal and simple layout can make your website visually appealing. If it’s not your area of expertise, don’t hesitate to hire a digital marketing agency or a website development expert. Investing in your website’s design elements will help you create a professional appearance for your brand.
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Ensure To Use High-Quality Images
Clear product photos are vital. Nobody feels comfortable purchasing something that they can’t see. That’s why you should always use high-quality images for your eCommerce website.
The images have to be high resolution. Pixilation and blurriness can have an impact on your credibility as a business and would make you look unprofessional. For example, if you’re selling some clothes, invest in professional models and photographers. If customers see the clothes on actual people, they can imagine them on themselves.
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Market To Drive Sales And Increase Traffic
Once you build an eCommerce site, you should promote your brand to drive sales and boost its traffic. Most vendors prefer selling from marketplace websites, but end up struggling due to some limitations and high fees.
A solid and effective marketing plan is necessary for your eCommerce website to bring the right customers to your website and keep them coming back. You can try to market via social media sites and email marketing.
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Make It Hassle-Free For Your Customers To Checkout
One of the reasons why most people leave eCommerce websites is the complicated and long checkout process. If you want to keep your existing and potential customers shopping on your eCommerce website, you might want to make your checkout process as quick, seamless, and smooth as possible.
To achieve that, ensure that your checkout page comes with simple navigation. Your buyers deserve an easy-to-understand and thorough walkthrough of your entire checkout process. So, make sure to let them know the current stage they’re in.
Never make it compulsory for them to join or sign up for your website. But rather, always give your customers a choice to use their social media accounts and check out as guests by asking some crucial questions needed for shipping and payment.
Moreover, make different payment options. It’ll speed up the process of payment once customers can find the method they prefer. You can even Hire a CRO agency to help you overcome the barriers and fears of customers and finally increase sales dramatically.
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Make It Mobile-Friendly
The majority of website traffic these days is from mobile devices and most sales are done via mobile platforms. If you want your eCommerce website ready for a sales surge, ensure that your customers get a great experience when browsing through their mobile devices. If your desktop website interface isn’t optimized for mobile, don’t expect to get high rankings on mobile SERPs.
Depending on the platform you use, you can use it to optimize your website to directly make a mobile-friendly layout from it. By default, the builder will optimize it for mobile, but it’s a great practice to tweak it on your own to achieve maximum optimization.
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Include Different Ways To Contact You
It’s a great practice to include more than one way for customers to reach you out if they run into any problems after they’ve bought your product. This will help you resolve the customer’s problems immediately.
There are some things you can add to your Contact Us page, such as links to your social media account. You can also leave a physical store location, multiple email addresses, and phone numbers.
Having an FAQ section for customers to look at the common problems so they can quickly resolve them on their own. Moreover, adding a live chat feature to your website can also make a difference. Not only will it help your current customers resolve their issues, but it’ll also provide your potential customers an assurance that there’s someone there to help them in any possible way they can.
Conclusion
Creating a successful eCommerce website takes patience, hard work, and willingness to learn some new skills. But it isn’t as difficult or challenging as some people expect it to be. Once you take the whole process step by step and avoid rushing things, you’ll be able to build a profitable and effective website.
