E-commerce is simply the buying and selling products and services over the Internet, often used to add revenue streams to a standard business. Many businesses and individuals become extremely profitable through online sales. The most successful e-commerce sites have certain elements in common. Here are just a few.
1. Well-Written Product Descriptions
The best product descriptions on your website store should include between 75 to 200 words of copy, preferably closer to the 200 number. Specific in-depth details should also be available on the site, including details such as the size, shipping, weight of the product, and other pertinent specifics.
2. High Quality Photographs
After content, high quality photographs of your products are most important thing about selling online. All photographs should be of the highest quality available. Photos should also have the ability to be enlarged distorted (or pixilated). Large photos will help reduce questions and returns from customers. If possible, also take photographs from multiple angles to reduce the number of questions about size or other components of the product.
3. Clearly Stated Policies
By including FAQs, policies, and procedures prominently that list information regarding shipping, returns, defects, customer service hours and numbers, and estimated delivery dates, you greatly reduce customer inquiries. On those occasions that you do receive negative customer comments and reviews, respond swiftly. Doing so demonstrates good customer service and can often pre-empts circumstances that can lead to costly returns. How you respond to complaints can turn a negative comment into a positive shopping experience.
4. Use A Strong Analytics Program
Like all businesses you need to know where your traffic is coming from and what words they’re searching to find your site. In addition, you always want to know your bounce rate – the number of people exiting your site without purchasing, the amount of time spent on our webpage, and from what page your customers exited. Exiting from the homepage or the product detail page could indicate a problem with your site.
5. Clearly Post Contact Information
Contact information should be listed on every single page: many potential customers will not use an e-commerce site unless a phone number is listed. List phone numbers, a physical address, fax number, and e-mail address prominently. Doing so will ensure integrity and make communication and purchases more efficient.
6. Include a Strong Search Functionality
Your customers want the ability to track down product by specifics such as size, color, and availability. Create strong functionality and determine the leading search terms that will be appropriate for your products and services.
7. Create Clear Call-to-Actions
You want your call to actions (such as buy now, order here, etc.) to be strong and clear. Ideally, call-to-actions should appear on every page. Ideally, each page should lead you to an action, such as a purchase or filling out a form. There should be a clear end result for every product listed on your website.
