Nowadays we can do almost everything online, including shopping. Sellers can use their ecommerce websites to attract potential customers, connect with them, and increase sales. Researchers estimate that by 2040 95% of purchases will be made online.
However, if a website does not provide users with an appropriate customer experience (including customer service, logistics, shipping, pricing strategies, and most importantly, a good user experience), they will lose sales.
For example, 60% of users leave a website when they can’t find what they’re looking for, and 64% believe that the quality of a brand’s customer experience is more important than price.
With this growing consumer demand for ecommerce, Appetite Creative is seeing a surge in interest from brands in ecommerce website design services. As website design experts, we want to share our top tips for creating an effective and valuable ecommerce website.
Keep it simple
Don’t distract users with clutter. The more elements you have on your website, e.g. B. bells or notifications, the more they may distract them from your calls-to-action (CTAs). Instead, create a clean, user-friendly, and simple design that focuses on selling your product or service.
Also, simplify your menu options to organize and group your products. You should have categories that are easy to navigate. Too many will confuse your customers, prevent them from finding what they are looking for, and make it difficult to buy. Take the Hello Day brand for natural nutritional supplements, for example.
When Hello Day needed to update its website appearance, Appetite Creative streamlined its website navigation and simplified it to just three main high-level pages. These included ‘Shop’, ‘Our Story’ and ‘Take the Quiz’. As a result, the website saw its ecommerce conversion rate increase by 284% in the launch week.
Find out more about Hello Day’s new e-commerce website here.
Have a simple and easy checkout process
Make sure your entire checkout process is straightforward, easy to navigate, and crystal clear. Eliminate unnecessary steps and focus on getting essential customer information like billing information and delivery address.
Providing as many payment options as possible, including alternative payment options like PayPal, ensures that every buyer can make a purchase with ease.
Make SEO a priority
Many consumers start their buying process using a search engine (such as Google). So if your online store isn’t in the top results, go to your competitors instead.
Because of this, your focus should be on making sure your website is SEO friendly and doing whatever you can to get to the top of Google rankings based on searches about the products your business has to offer. Include SEO keywords in your product titles and descriptions, blog posts and other pages and use tools to find less competitive keywords that have high monthly search volume.
You could also run an SEO driven informative blog to get more website traffic. Your blog posts should have interesting and valuable content for your consumers that will encourage them to visit your product pages and make a purchase. It’s also a great way to profile your product or service, share updates, better educate customers about your offerings and benefits, and tell the story of your business.
Have a responsive web design
Responsive web design means offering all customers a standardized online shopping experience, regardless of the screen size of their devices. This also includes smartphones, as the number of purchases for mobile devices is increasing every year.
One example is the specialist in clean air filters, Nosy, who needed a new website as part of a major rebranding. Appetite Creative rose to the challenge and delivered a modern and mobile e-commerce website design with improvements in user experience (UX) design and the best customer relationship management (CRM) system.
The new responsive website served more than 10,000 users on the first weekend after its launch.
Give incentives
Unlike high street stores, online stores have complete control over their customer experience. Seizing this opportunity by offering various types of incentives to customers in unobtrusive pop-ups on the home page or in promotional emails can drive more website visits and sales.
Build an ecommerce email list
Email marketing is a great way for sellers to connect with customers, drive traffic to the website, and increase sales. For example, you can ask them for their email address in a pop-up window during the checkout process (and give them the option to receive messages and notifications) or even offer an incentive like a discount on their next purchase if they give you Your email address.
Once you have their contact details, you can send your subscribers personalized offers and promotions or valuable content such as monthly blog posts or newsletters.
Be there for your customers and provide easily accessible and friendly online support
When users have problems, you need to let them know that they will get the support they need as soon as possible. Provide support through multiple options such as email, phone, or a live chat function that works 24/7. You could even use social media as many online stores now use Twitter and Instagram direct messages (DMs).
Add reviews to increase credibility
Use social media, customer reviews, and testimonials to add credibility to your ecommerce experience. For example, you can add a testimonials section to your website with customer quotes and recommendations, or you can implement a review section where users can rate your products.
After a customer makes a purchase, you can ask them for their feedback in a follow-up email.
Use high quality graphics
If you want customers to buy your products when they can’t see them like they can in a physical store, you need to display quality product images that give them a clear idea of what they are buying. Make sure you can zoom in and out on the images – and make sure you highlight key features and benefits.
In addition to high-quality images, you can also include videos, especially if you are selling a product that requires demonstration.
Designing and running a great ecommerce website is not an easy task, but now that you know some of the best practices, you can see what changes need to be made to improve your conversion rates and get more sales.
At Appetite Creative, we create website designs of all shapes and sizes. This includes bespoke websites that fit the brand, take care of all the technical aspects to make sure everything works efficiently and effectively, as well as strong sales and lead generation.
So what are you waiting for? Give your ecommerce website the makeover it deserves today.
Jenny Stanley is the managing director of Appetite Creative.
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