4 Ways To Improve Your Online Store
Are you having trouble making your first sale? Are you looking for ways to boost your current sales? Are you interested in improving your customer’s user experience? Very few e-commerce entrepreneurs can say they have the perfect online store. It usually takes a fair amount of time and tweaking to get things running smoothly and looking just right. There are always ways to improve and evolve the experience your customers have when shopping at your store.
4 Ways To Improve Your Online Store
If you haven’t quite found that perfect version of your store, these four tips will help point you in the right direction.
Make A Good First Impression
Your home page / storefront is essentially a greeting to your customer. It should be visually welcoming and function as a snapshot of what your store has to offer. It should have personality, but not be too overwhelming. Creating a beautiful, functional, and successful homepage can be a delicate balance.
Loading speed can also be an important factor in making a good first impression. It is important that your page loads quickly. The average attention span / patience threshold for the average online shopper is incredibly brief. If your website takes forever to load, people aren’t going to want to stick around. Try running your website URL through Google’s Pagespeed Insights. It will provide you with a speed score for both mobile and desktop. It also provides suggestions for ways to speed up your loading time and enhance user experience.
Improve Navigation & Organization
Customers will either be searching your store for a specific item, or using your navigation to browse. Both searching and browsing should be an easy process for your customers. The user friendliness of your site can have an impact on your customer's experience with your brand.
Ask yourself:
- Is it easy to find a specific product?
- Are my products organized in a way that makes sense?
- Are my products easy to browse through?
- Is my website easy to navigate?
If you aren’t sure, ask a friend or family member who has not seen your online store to check it out. Have them describe their experience with your online store. You can even give them a questionnaire to fill out as they browse. Here is a quick example:
Please try to find (insert product here).
- Was this product easy to find?
- How did you go about locating it?
- Can you describe your overall experience locating this item?
Please browse through the product offerings.
- Are the products organized in a logical way?
- What is your overall experience with browsing the products?
Please explore the website.
- Is the website easy to navigate?
- What is your overall experience with this website?
- Any additional comments?
Build Trust
It is very important to build trust with customers who are shopping at your store. Buying things online can be a vulnerable experience. There are so many schemes and scams going around online, it’s no wonder most people have trust issues. These days if you aren’t looking at online stores with a critical eye, you’re an easy target. If people don’t feel safe or comfortable with shopping at your store, they won’t buy anything.
Here are a few ways you can build trust:
- Feature real people and their testimonials
- Be upfront with all costs and extras
- Offer added security by getting a VeriSign SSL certificate & display the logo on your site
- Allow feedback and reviews of your products
- Obtain as many accreditations as you can
Increase Your Product Page Power!
Don’t underestimate the power of a good product page. Having a functional, descriptive, and visually appealing product page can be very beneficial when it comes to converting a visitor into a paying customer.
If you manage to get a customer to a product page, you are getting incredibly close to making a sale. A product page is your space to sell your item. It is a sales pitch, and should be treated as such. The page should provide the customer with helpful information, high quality images, and a clear way to purchase. You really have to use this space purposefully and mindfully.
Ways to improve your product page:
- Use descriptive product names
- Make sure your product imagery is on point
- Provide clear and detailed product descriptions
- Include feedback / reviews
- Keep the design of the page clean and simple
You can also check out our article, 5 Tips For Creating A Successful Product Page, for a more detailed look at these tips.