Improving ecommerce sites are a little different than improving personal websites and blogs. However, there are some easy steps you can take to improve your sales. If you are an ecommerce site owner, consider implementing these tips to help you improve your sales and overall traffic.
1. Make checking out easier
Some site owners make this process more difficult than it needs to be. For example, they may request unnecessary information before customers can make a purchase. Try to make the checkout process only one to two pages long. Do not ask for certain information more than once. Keep the extra information capturing for other forms, such as email newsletter signup forms.
2. Publicly display customer safety seals
Many people are scared of sharing their personal information online – and for a good reason. Identity theft is a popular crime, and it happens to many people. In fact, it happens so much that many people feel like they need identity theft insurance.
Your first step must be to make your ecommerce site safe, and your next step is to publicly display your signed seals.
You can easily obtain security seals like Verisign. Verisign is inexpensive and easy to implement. Additionally, it is a seal that many customers are accredited to seeing. When they see a Verisign seal, they feel comfortable giving their credit card information to your site.
3. Use live chat services
One mistake many ecommerce sites make is not providing excellent customer service. As a business owner, you must make sure all of your customers' questions are answered. You can use tools like a frequently asked questions and additional help information, but many times customers want to ask their question directly to a customer representative.
You should utilize live chat tools to help your customers. If you have a few employees, using these chat services should not be hard. Your chat services do not have to be 24/7 at first. You may want to start using it only around the busy selling times.
4. Use testimonials
People trust the opinion of unbiased people. Advertisements are informative, but the opinion of a paid spokesperson has no bearing on most customers. They need to hear how great your products are from other shoppers, which is why word of mouth marketing is so effective. In a way, testimonials are word of mouth marketing.
Collect testimonials from a few of your shoppers. You do not want to distract your customers too much, but you do want to use at least 5 testimonials and place them on a separate page.
5. Become an authority on your niche
What sets you apart from your competition? This is a valid question that you should be able to quickly answer. You need to know what you can offer that your competition. It may be lower prices, better quality products, free offers with certain purchases and more. Either way, there should be something about your company that makes customers choose you over your competition.
You can try to out-advertise your competition all day long, but all the marketing and advertising in the world will not help you if you do not have something more valuable to the customers.
6. Use a related items feature
The best ecommerce sites use smart technology to suggest related items to customers who purchased items from you. For example, if customer bought a pair of shoes, the related items on the screen before and after check out may be a cool pair of socks. Of course, the related socks should vary based on the style of the shoes. A common format that many site owners use says something like "customers who bought this product also bought."
7. Improve your site's search functions
Your customers should easily be able to find the product they want. Tweak your search functions to quickly display items based off of keywords. If customers search for red and white shirts, the search results should show plenty of red and white shirts – and in multiple patterns.
Many companies offer filters to help customers narrow down their search. For example, you can allow customers to search by size, color, price and more.
Conclusion
Implement these 7 tips and other tips to help you improve your ecommerce site. Soon, your site's sales and conversion rate will show a substantial improvement.