Though e-commerce has been around since long now, yet retailers have become more aware of the latest trends and are catching up soon to take advantage of this ever-evolving industry. Industry experts say, this trend is going to stay for a long time and the key to success is to join the bandwagon as soon as possible.
However, there are exceptions in every field and some business are more interested in making money than serving customers in this customer oriented industry. They tend to provide poor user experience through unmanaged online presence and fail to come up with strategies that simplify transactions. As a result, customers feel wary on shopping online and other retailers also lose their share of potential profit.
Tip: Shine ahead by facilitating a customer-centric online shopping experience. Build your online store keeping your valued clientele in mind. Here is how you can do it:
1. Pin Down Products That There’s a Market For
Study the market and research on the trends working currently. Take time and decide what is it that you want to sell? This is the most crucial step of the process.
There are a couple of ways to meet this question:
- Sell something you’re passionate as well as knowledgeable about.
- Sell something that the market demands and is in fashion.
Many first-time sellers do not invest in research and just put up an online store with products they find interesting and want to share with the rest of the world. While the intention is admirable, the products in the store may not find any buyers as expected simply because there’s no market for it. In a study of over 200 failed startups, CB Insights shows that no requirement of the product by consumers lead to the failure of most of the start-ups. When there is no demand, there is no use of supplying that product. ‘
The reasons some of the entrepreneurs stay in the market is their prior research and the knowledge about their customers. They look for signs of market saturation and work towards innovating and continuously improve on their products to suit the changing demands of the consumers. This helps them to decrease customer satisfaction and increase their growth.
2. Optimize User Experience on Your Website
Optimize the user experience with navigable website and let your customers browse every section of your online store with ease. This results in a positive experience that directly corresponds to the increases in traffic and sales. A difficult to navigate site frustrates customers and makes them leave for good with no intention of coming back. This ruins their shopping experience forever with your brand.
Few things you should consider when trying to optimize user experience:
- Website loading speed: Research shows that slow websites which take more than 3 seconds to load, loses 40% of customers.
- Image size: Clear images attract more customers as it helps in assessing the product clearly. Small thumbnails should measure 100 x 100 and at least 600 x 600 must be the size for medium images.
- Offer location: Left panel attracts more views and placing discounts and other special offers, on the left side generates more sales.
- Checkout process: Simplify the process and offer multiple modes of payment to enable shopping for all types of customers. You can also opt for adding a progress bar which indicates the customer’s current stage in the process to show the progress.
- Optimize for multiple devices: Mobile applications are easy and faster way of shopping in today’s time. Leverage their use and optimize your site to work on mobiles and all browsers.
3. Create a Personalized Shopping Experience
A well-treated customer always returns to buy more from you. Value your customer and give them VIP treatment. Studies have found that personalized recommendations boost conversion rates by 5 times.
Customize the shopping experience by:
- Personalized recommendations:Collect and analyze customer data either through Google Analytics or on your own to come up with suggested products for targeted customers. This can also be done through apps available in stores built in e-commerce platforms Shopify.
- Encourage customers to create an account: This eases the checkout process and helps the customer during their next purchase.
- Send abandoned cart emails: There are many reasons why customers don’t buy the product even after putting them in the cart. An abandoned cart email displays items added to cart with a call to action facility asking them to continue their order and purchase the item.
- Display similar or related items at checkout – Related items may help remind the customers of a product that they might need in conjunction with what they are currently buying or for future use.
4. Provide Informative Content to Give Customers
As a seller, it is your responsibility to guide customers through the sales channel. Consumers have become aware and conduct research before buying online. Therefore, it is wise to provide detailed product description and therefore invest in content providers as well.
Creating videos about your products also helps generate sales. It gives the customers near life experience of buying the product.
