All websites must be created to engage the audience & ecommerce websites should be very particular in order to remain competitive & successful. We have put together a list of features that every eCommerce website should be enabled with. Have a look below:
User Friendliness
A Website must be simple & easy to use. Attractive design with user-friendly navigation will let the user stay longer on your website. On the other hand, a website with a complex structure can lose you a customer. Keep your objective to help customers get what they want efficiently without getting involved in unnecessary paths.
Mobile Friendliness
Mobile users have overtaken the desktop users which makes it really important that your website should be mobile-friendly. If you are not giving a nice experience to mobile users, you may be losing business. Make sure your website is technology-enabled & adapt content, images or videos to whatever device they get accessed.
Use of High-Quality Images & Videos
Images & videos are the next generations of marketing tools. Make sure your website contains high-quality images & videos to give users a great experience. An attractive image or a video can connect users with your products & brand & can help you in repeat visits. Keep in mind that “Image sells, not text”, at the same time do not let the images increase your page load.
Discount or Offers
Most eCommerce websites run special offers every week or month. In order to remain in the competition, you can’t deny the fact that offers play an important role. Make sure you have at least one active offer all the time. It will act as a motivation for users to buy. Constantly analyze your best working offers & adjust them to attract more customers.
Product Reviews
Buyers read reviews & they are the most convincing thing for a shopper to make a decision. If a product has enough reviews with 4 plus star ratings. You will hardly lose a customer. Make sure your eCommerce has the review section where you encourage each existing customers to place their reviews. Constantly improve the customer experience to retain 4 plus star ratings.
Social Media Connect
Social media is the most helpful channel to keep your existing customers connected. It helps in circulating the new products & offers. You also have a huge opportunity to get new customers when your posts are getting shared or liked.
Related Items
Yes, we are talking about “You might like this”. It is always a good idea to leverage the opportunity of cross-selling connected products. For instance, if someone has added a coffee maker into the cart, allowing them to add coffee beans with or without discount would help.
Advanced Search
Make sure your eCommerce website is enabled for advanced search. Improve your search functionality with auto-complete or tagged items. Search can be annoying at some times if your products are not properly tagged for searches.
Product Filters
Filters are the best ways to help a user drill down to the wanted product. Most common filters that every e-commerce website should be implemented with are:
- Filter by price
- Filter by brand
- Filter by gender
- Filter by size
Other filters based on colors & offers can also be applied if a business finds it useful.
Live Chat
Do not lose any chance to improve customer satisfaction. If by any means any customer runs into an issue with product delivery, shipping address or return? Providing immediate assistance can make them happy even though they are coming up with issues using your business. Your support phone can be busy so gentle chat assistance can help & you can avoid earning a bad review for yourselves.
Security Features
Security features are the most critical thing for any customer to build trust with a business. As a customer, you want to be sure that the details you supply do not get compromised at any cost. Without a doubt, you must have your eCommerce website enabled with:
- SSL – For a secure transaction
- Two-Factor Authentication for User Accounts
- Firewall to block malicious traffic
- Privacy Policy claiming that the customer data is not shared with third parties
Transparent Shipping & Return Policy
Transparent shipping information is really important. You must be clear with the shipping charges, example cases if the product is returned & delivery time. This information acts as promises you make to your customers & they get hurt when you break them. Make sure to use them for the good.
Multi-Touchpoint to contact
eCommerce businesses tend to produce a lot of customers over the course of time & that can equally increase your workload for customer service. And in these cases, you always want your business to get contacted via multi-touch points if one contact point is coming busy. Allow your customers to reach out to you via:
- Phone
- Social Media
FAQ
FAQs are helpful in making a decision when you are doing complex shopping. Complex shopping can be further elaborated as if you are buying an expensive product, multiple products, sending it to someone as gifts or buying internationally. In all such cases, you want to be sure how to deal if the product delivered is damaged, not working or delayed. You want to be sure there are easy return policies or compensation if you are buying internationally. Gifts should get delivered on time for a perfect celebration.
Website Blog or Knowledge Base
Blog section in particular to eCommerce websites is very useful. You can post “How to Guides”. You can teach your customers “how to wear” or “how to care” for your products. Posting about gift ideas or products to buy or purchase on certain occasion can also help customers in buying decisions. Apart from this, it also helps in SEO.
If you have your e-commerce website incorporated with all the features above, you are sure to give you users fantastic shopping experience.