What differentiates a mediocre e-commerce website from an excellent one? When you talk of a great e-commerce website, what features cross your mind? In this post, I will share with you the essential components of a great e-commerce website that stands out of the crowd. I welcome you to remain with me as we take this adventurous discovery journey together.
Essential components your e-commerce website should include
1. Trust Marks
In this age when Internet fraudsters are on the loose looking for unsuspecting victims, securing your customers’ financial details and transactions are mandatory. To boost your users’ confidence and trust in your e-commerce website, it is necessary to inform them that you have taken measures to protect their financial information. For instance, if you choose to buy SSL certificates, it is prudent to display them on your website. Besides, you can display other trust marks such as McAfee, Verisign, BBB, TRUSTe, and GeoTrust. These marks on your website show your buyers that you take responsibility for their online safety. It is a statement of care and concern that reflects positively on your online store. Consequently, your customers will transact on your website knowing that the bad boys will not pry on them and steal their private financial information.
2. Phone Numbers and Online Chats
Do you know that giving your users phone numbers they can call is a great way of boosting their trust? Offering them a fixed landline they can access 24/4 shows that you are a credible retailer hiding nothing from them. It also tells them that you are ready to give them personalized attention should they feel they need something more than just a chat. This way, they will transact confidently knowing that in case of any difficulty, someone is there to attend to their queries and needs. So, make complement your online chats with phone numbers to prove that your customers can find your company in the real world.
Consequently, you will build a reputation for yourself as a company that cares for its customers. Remember, the old adage that goes “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” still applies today. So, take advantage of such facilities on your e-commerce site to make your customers know and feel that you actually care about them—before and after buying.
3. Payment Option Icons
When launching into e-commerce, payment is an essential component that constitutes your business transactions. The truth is that there can be no e-commerce without payment. Therefore, make efforts to inform your users about the various types of payment options they can utilize. It is necessary to display these options to allow them to make informed buying decisions.
4. A Search Bar
Modern online shoppers like searching for services and products. Therefore, it is mandatory to ease their searching processes. To do this, it is prudent to have your search bar in the same place to make it convenient for them to search for what they need. Moreover, it is beneficial to make your search bar suggestive to allow it to suggest similar products whenever they search for particular items. Also, don’t forget to use a corrective search bar to take care of misspelled words instead of displaying error messages.
5. Mobile-Friendliness
The world has gone mobile, and so has e-commerce. More than 65 percent of all online users use their mobile smart devices (phones and tablets) to access the Net. Therefore, it is advantageous to capitalize on the mobile revolution and make your website mobile-friendly. Otherwise, you will miss more than 65 percent of all potential customers, a catastrophic miscalculation! So, make it easy for your buyers to purchase your products using their mobile devices.
6. High-Resolution Photos and Videos
It is no longer a secret that humans are visual creatures that like visually appealing videos and photos. If you expect your website to appeal to your audience, it is necessary to take care of your image quality and resolution. Therefore, post high-quality photos that can allow your visitors to zoom through them to see and feel your products. Moreover, ensure that those images are easy and faster to load. Otherwise, images that take long to load can contribute to higher consumer drop-off. It is also prudent to use multiple images for products to allow users to see them in different dimensions.
7. A User-Friendly Design
If you want your website to stand out of the crowd of mediocrity, it is mandatory to focus on your users. This means you have to make it’s user-friendly. Remember, your users are the reason for your website and online store. So, make sure that its design is easy to use and navigate. Otherwise, it will be useless to have a website that people can’t use conveniently.
8. Genuine Consumer Reviews
Besides your decision to buy SSL certificates, it is advantageous to have genuine user reviews on your e-commerce website. I am emphasizing the adjective genuine because some of us assume that stuffing their sites with false reviews will help them. The fact is that people are sensible enough to know fake ones and react appropriately to your business’s detriment. If you want long-term success with your e-commerce website, it is better to display a few genuine reviews than a million fake ones that will backfire in your face—sooner than you think!
9. Social Media Links
Social media is soon becoming social selling media. That is why social media generates about 20 percent of online purchases. So, if you want your website to stand out and generate more and better sales, then optimize the social media buttons and make it easy for your users to connect and interact with you on social-networking platforms.
Final Thoughts
Many essential components constitute the success of an e-commerce website to make it stand out of the crowd of mediocrity. This post aimed at revealing some of the leading components you can optimize to make your website great. I hope with the ones I shared at your fingertips and in practice, you will have an exceptional, etc.
