How to Improve Your Online Store

How to Improve Your Online Store

There are many factors that contribute to the success or stagnancy of an online store. Often time online merchants put all their funds and efforts into Internet marketing, search engine marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) hoping to garner more visitors for their site. What few realize is that more visitors won’t necessarily become more customers.

In the past, shoppers have been satisfied simply to be buying their products from the convenience of their homes. Today they have higher expectations, including the facility of their Ecommerce experience.

After curious visitors have entered your site there are a variety of hang-ups that might cause them to leave without completing a purchase. Here are a few reasons why customers might be leaving your store and how to improve your chances.

1. Site Speed. The number one issue that will deter most visitors is the speed of your site. If your site is too slow an experienced web user will become frustrated and leave for faster pastures. A slow website will also negatively affect your rankings on search engines.

There are a variety of ways to improve your website speed. Most importantly, make sure your server or host is up-to-date and can handle the needs of your site. Compressing your images and removing unnecessary widgets and clutter will improve your speed as well. Make sure you’re customers can work quickly without delays.

2. Visual Presentation.  We’ve been hearing the cliché, “don’t judge a book by its cover” since we were little kids because human beings (and all animals) make a first impression by using their visual sense. This impression is powerful and often extremely hard to change.

You will struggle to gain the trust and business of online consumers with an outdated, primitive or simply unimpressive looking website. You want your site to showcase your products and to show how professional your business. Especially considering that your customers never get to meet you, presentation is a critical factor in your store’s success.  Your online success depends on making a strong first impression.

Make sure you are using Ecommerce software that gives you a variety of stylistic options to create a sleek and attractive online store. Make sure your site is well organized and easily accessible so your customers can get what they want without hassle.

As we discussed above, people are motivated by what they see. Make sure to offer product pictures with everything you offer.

3. Clear/Understandable Home Page. Again, if your customers can’t get to your products easily they will get frustrated and leave your store. Make sure that your web page is easy to navigate. Make sure your search tool is easily identifiable on the front page and that you have clear product categories that are easy to locate. Have all your important information (products, contact information, testimonials, etc) accessible from the front page. If a customer has to click through several pages to get what they want they will probably give up.

Remove clutter and highlight your most popular products by putting them front and center. Any sales that you’re currently sponsoring should be on the front page as well.

4. Make Information Accessible.  Customers want a degree of security about what they are buying. Make all the information that might soothe their worries easily accessible. Definitely include an “about us” section where they can learn about you and your team. Show them that you are human and not just a website.

Contact information and customer service numbers are crucial as well. It’s a big plus to customers if they know where to reach you if anything goes wrong.

Make sure to display your product shipping and return policies as well as privacy policy and terms and conditions. Offering this kind of information will help to build trust with your customers.

5. Registration.  It’s hard to ignore the temptations to require your customers to register to shop on your site. The information that they provide is invaluable to calculating who your customers are and tweaking your approach to suit their needs. However, a registration process intimidates many potential customers, A) they don’t want to spend the time, B) they don’t know who they’re giving their personal information to or how it will be used. The best bet is to make registration optional and to offer an incentive to those customers who do.  

Simply having an online store isn’t enough anymore. You have to make your products and information easily accessible to your customers. Whether you live in California, Alabama or Alaska, and no matter if you’re selling children’s toys, snow skis or microchips, following these tips will lead to happier customers and higher profits.