Lucky for Some – 13 Ways Our Ecommerce Websites Boost Sales

We have been in business since 2004 and in that time we have developed many ecommerce websites. Our focus is always about providing a real return on investment for our clients so that the money spent on ecommerce development is returned to them in multiples through their online sales. In order to do this we ensure the following 13 steps are taken to ensure the optimum sales.

1. Site Design – Look Good, Sell Great

Site design is important. A professionally designed website will immediately build trust with your customer. This is important when they are about to get their credit card out.Your customer will make a trust judgement within a few milliseconds of visiting your site.  In addition to a clear, modern design, we understand the best practices for layout of ecommerce sites. For example, forcing the customer to decide between too many options can be counter-productive and confuse them. We will help to optimise the buying experience for your customers, leading to more sales.

2. Security – Now more Than Ever

It’s hard to believe it but one of the first ecommerce sites I was asked to re-develop many years ago stored their customers credit card details in a plain text file on their we server. Any website user could find this info with a minimum effort.

This is a very rare case, and website owners were not as security conscious at the time. These days, website owners and customers are very security aware. In order to convince the customer to enter their credit card details it is important to demonstrate that your site is secure. The most obvious is a SSL certificate for encryption of transactions. This is just one feature on our 20 point security plan that we implement for all ecommerce websites.

Our Ecommerce Websites will keep your Customers Secure

3. The Need for Speed

Customers don’t have patience anymore. The site must load quickly. Product images must be optimised. Customers must be able to see or search for their desired product as quickly as possible. Google search has a preference for sites that load faster rather than those that are slow. Faster sites will generally appear higher in the Google Search listings than those that are slow so the importance of a fast site can’t be overstated.

4. The Path of Least Resistance

The site must be easy to use with a simple checkout. Helping the customer to complete the sale quickly and easily is the best way to ensure a high sales volume. An easy to use cart and checkout system with the fewest possible clicks required will make the customers life easy. A happy customer is always a good customer. The e-commerce sites that we create allow customer registration so that they can have user account later. However we also provide a guest checkout option So the user can quickly checkout without having to register. Many customers prefer this quick guest checkout.

5. Finding Content

When the user visits your site  they will want to find the product they are interested in as quickly as possible.  Any barriers that are put in place to prevent them doing this will frustrate the customer.  Particularly first-time customers who are not familiar with your site need to be able to quickly and easily find a product that they’re interested in. We have advanced search and filter options for products and also can organise products by category or brand.

6. No Nasty Surprises

One of the main reasons that customers fail to complete the checkout process  is due to unexpected shipping costs.  In the e-commerce sites that we develop we make sure that shipping costs are transparent throughout the process. At any stage the customer can view their cart and calculate the shipping costs to any destination around the world. Clearly show shipping costs to the customer will avoid later shocks and cart abandonment

7. The Best Sellers Will Sell the Best

It is a proven fact  that 20% of the products on your website will make up 80% of your revenue. The popular products on your side are the ones that customers will continually purchase. For this reason it is important that these products are identified and highlighted  so that when the customer comes to your site they can immediately see the product and add it to their cart.  This makes life easier on the customer, give them a fast way of getting what they want and checking out. Highlight featured products and best sellers and showcasing the most popular products is a key way to increase sales.

Our ecommerce sites make it easy r customers to shop on any device, laptop, tablet or mobile phone.

8. Prevent Cart Abandonment

Cart abandonment occurs after a customer takes the time to view your products, add them to their shopping cart and proceed towards checkout, but then fails to complete the checkout process. There are a number of reasons for cart abandonment, some of which we can’t control. A certain percentage of customers are window shopping, And just want to have a look at the products you have on your site and perhaps calculate the total cost. Their intention maybe to come back later and purchase, or they may be comparing the cost of products on your site with the cost on another site. We can’t directly control that type of behaviour. The type of cart abandonment that we can control is when a customer gets a nasty shock at some stage through the process and decides to leave. For example if shipping costs or VAT is added on at late stage of checkout this will significantly impact the cost of items in the customers cart and they may decide not to purchase. To avoid this we ensure that taxes and VAT charges are clear, and that shipping costs are transparent so the customer knows what the final cost is going to be. Another way in which we prevent cart abandonment is to make the check out process quick, clear and easy for the customer so that there is no frustration when they are checking out.

9. Customer Accounts

Customers have the option to register on your site so that the history of their purchases  can be accessed by them at any stage. The customer can log into their account and see when and what they have purchased. They also have an option to repurchase a product  that they’ve previously purchased.  This is a very convenient process for the customer, particularly those who will be purchasing the same product many times. Repeat customers are very important for any e-commerce website so making the repeat purchase as easy as possible is very beneficial to your bottom line.

10. Promotions & Offers

Providing promotions, sale items and coupons  to your customers is a proven way to boost sales.  You can place an item on sale or scheduled at sale for a specific time. You can create coupons that give a cash discount for a single product or for the customers entire cart.  You can also create coupons that give a percentage discount to the customer. Another useful promotion is to allow your customers to purchase vouchers for their family and friends.  Their friends can then use that voucher on your website and redeem it against purchases on your e-commerce site.

11. Site Management

Once you have made loads of sales on your site is very important to be able to manage those sales.  Our administration system allows you to view orders and you also receive an email notification when an order is placed. you can also edit products at any time  comma changing the product text, image or price.  You can add product categories comma product variations and other metadata about the product that will be useful to you and your customer.  Reports can be generated from within the administration system to show sales of Rani given time.  We can also implement  a cost of sales feature whereby any product that you add to your site can have a field specifying cost to purchase the product  and then you can generate a report showing your profit  over any time. We take special care  to ensure that the administration is very easy for you to use and understand. We supply training videos and support to help you through any issues you might have  in managing your website.

12. Marketing Tools

We have built-in methods for up-selling  And cross-selling products. for example when a customer  purchases product we can display related products that may be of use, accessories related to the product they are purchasing, or more expensive upgrade on the product. We can also help you use email marketing as a key tool for boosting your sales, promoting special offers or new products and keeping your customers in the loop. Email marketing is a proven tool to generate new sales from existing or previous customers. We alos offer social media markeg and can automate the process so that when you add products to your ecommerce store we can auto-post them to you social networks.

Our marketing tools will help to spread the word about your products

13. Support

We help you support your customers  with online forms, a knowledge base of useful questions and a chat system that you can use to chat with your customers while you’re on your site. If you are not available for a chat  their comment will be sent to you as an email and you can respond later. Offering support to your customers is very important particularly if they have a problem. The worst case scenario is that the customer will leave your site and not come back if they don’t receive support.

Need Ecommerce ? Contact Mark To Discuss

Contact me now at 087 7667974 or email me using the form below to discus your commerce project.