Most businesses offer products to their customers through their website in order to provide a more convenient shopping experience. Some businesses only offer their products or services online and don’t allow customers to shop in person. An effective e-commerce website will attract customers to your business and provide them with a seamless experience. Selecting the right platform to host your website, taking quality photos, and having a responsive design will increase the likelihood of a customer making a purchase. Here are some of our expert tips to help you develop the best e-commerce website for your unique business.
Clean And Sleek Design
The most critical element of an e-commerce website is to ensure it is sleek and easy to navigate. When a website is too cluttered or difficult to navigate a customer will abandon the products before checking out. Limiting the number of fonts, colors, and symbols across your website is one way to limit clutter. If you are looking for ways to simplify your e-commerce website, here are some additional tips.
- Adopt a visual hierarchy and put critical content above the fold
- Stick to your brand identity so your vibe and colors are consistent across all platforms
- Stick to known symbols and icons
- Avoid popup windows or ads
- Ensure the design looks good on mobile devices as well
Customization Is Key
Over time your business will evolve and could begin to offer new products, which is why your e-commerce website needs to be easy to change. Developing your site to have customization options or choosing a website builder that offers custom block options will help you easily adjust.
Customization is also helpful for adjusting to your client’s needs as they navigate your website. As the internet evolves and your customer’s needs change, you may need to reorganize your blocks to help keep customers purchasing from you. Regularly customizing your e-commerce website will help keep your website relevant and easy to use by most consumers.
Calendar Features
Most products will need to be shipped to a customer across the country when you run an e-commerce website. Seeing when your product could be shipped or scheduling a purchase for the future can easily be done with calendar features on e-commerce sites. Customers will be able to see when their product is estimated to ship and arrive without worrying about their product being lost.
There are other uses for calendars on e-commerce websites like booking spa services, buying tickets for an event, or preventing someone from purchasing during black-out dates when you are on vacation.
Use Appealing Images That Are Optimized
Images of your business and products are crucial for the most effective e-commerce website. When a customer is looking for clothes, furniture, tools, or educational materials, they want to see what they are getting before the products arrive. Using well-staged images with proper lighting and color will draw in your ideal customer. Each product and variation should have its own photo to help limit confusion.
Depending on the amount of products you offer, this could become time-consuming, but proper photography and listings are essential to the success of an online business. If you want to ensure sales, your photos need to be visually appealing and showcase what a customer is purchasing.
Optimized photos will also help the speed of your website and your SEO rankings. Photos that are optimized to the right format and size will keep your website from experiencing lag. Adding a title, alt text, and removing underscores from the photo’s title will help Google crawl your webpage quickly.
Offer Filters For Quicker Shopping
With so many options available on your e-commerce website, customers could find it difficult to find exactly what they’re looking for. Filters are another website option that will help make your e-commerce website better than the competition. Filters can help narrow down the search results by size, color, type, category, flavor, season, and more. The more filters you have available, the more refined a search will be. Refining a search helps customers check out quickly and easily.
Include Flexible Payment Options
If you want to create a smoother checkout experience, you should do your best to include multiple payment methods on the checkout screen. Many customers will abandon their purchase if they have to create an account, type in their card information each time, etc. Having digital wallet options like PayPal, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, and Stripe will help you capture quicker sales. For more expensive purchases, you can also offer financing options like Affirm or After Pay. These will help you encourage online shoppers to make a purchase, even if they may feel the price is a little out of reach. These payment options allow shoppers to pay in installments without acquiring interest.
Websites From Performance Driven Marketing
Our web developers at PDM work hard to build you a customizable website that will serve your customers for many years. We specialize in all kinds of websites that can serve many industries. E-commerce websites need special attention and many customized features in order to help improve your bottom line. Meet with our team to find options that fit your needs and budget.
