E-commerce transactions continue to lag behind physical retail sales. THE momentum and the future is however resolutely in favor of electronic commerce. Smartphones bring convenience that promotes e-commerce.
However, the existence of great opportunities is not a guarantee of success. Like their brick-and-mortar counterparts, e-commerce businesses fail.
There is a lower barrier to entry, making competition intense. To succeed, you must draw on the experiences, knowledge and best practices modeled by those who have succeeded.
It’s not possible to cover all the dozens of proven tips for ecommerce success here. Here are those with the greatest potential to have a decisive impact on the success of a business.
1. Make a good first impression
Humans have a Limited attention span. It only takes few seconds (or milliseconds) so the average person can judge whether a site is worth their time. A website is to an e-commerce store what frontage and floor space are to a physical store. e
Designing an e-commerce website is essential to making a good first impression. Webmasters should pay attention to:
- Functionality — Have all the basic features expected of an e-commerce store, including a navigation bar with menu categories and subcategories, as well as on-site search.
- Navigability — Get seamless transitions between different pages and screens. Where applicable, include internal links that take visitors to the page and product they are looking for.
- Usability — Have good contrast between the background and foreground to aid readability. Make the most of pop-ups to provide or request contextual information, but only place them where they don’t disrupt the buyer’s journey.
- Visual appeal — Have the right mix of buttons, colors, animations, and other page elements needed to attract users. Be creative, memorable and distinct from other websites.
Website design is not a one-time process. Regular review and updating is important to keep up with evolving technologies, market changes and user preferences.
2. Write informative and concise product descriptions
In a physical store, potential buyers have the opportunity to touch, feel, study and try the product in person before making the purchase. E-commerce stores do not enjoy such luxury.
To compensate for the distant nature of the interaction, product descriptions should be comprehensive enough to relay all the information the average shopper needs to make a decision, but concise enough to not lose their attention.
Product descriptions should be accompanied by high-quality photos and videos showing the item from multiple angles. Visuals can significantly reduce the amount of text needed to describe the product.
The description of each item should contain details of size, weight and material so that users can get an idea of the actual size and nature of the product before placing their order.
3. Create a seamless checkout process
Shoppers abandon their carts for several reasons. One of the biggest is the length and complexity of the payment process. Ecommerce stores must have a checkout process that is:
- Simple — Don’t require buyers to provide more information than necessary. Keep the number of checkout steps to a minimum and clearly indicate which fields are optional.
- Inclusive — Accept standard payment options like major credit cards and web wallets. Depending on the target audience, it may be necessary to include other methods such as cryptocurrencies and mobile wallets.
- Secure — Concerns about the security of personal and financial data are one of the main reasons people don’t shop online. Reassure buyers: their data is secure. All pages, but especially the payment page, must be protected by SSL certificates.
4. Offer fast shipping, shipment tracking, and predictable returns
Ecommerce stores need to ship orders quickly and use reliable shipping service providers. Offer multiple shipping options so that customers who are willing to pay a little extra to have their shipments delivered faster than usual have the option to do so.
Offer shipment tracking by default to manage customer expectations and reduce the number of customer inquiries checking how soon they can expect the package.
Create a returns policy that governs the circumstances under which a refund is acceptable and, if applicable, the process for paying refunds.
5. Provide high-quality customer support
Stellar service is a signal that the company cares about its customers. Invest in the technology, people, procedures and technology needed to deliver the best possible customer experience.
Respond promptly to customer inquiries and resolve issues conclusively to avoid repeat business. Create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page to anticipate the most common general inquiries.
Be reachable on as many channels as possible. This may include live chat, support tickets, social media, phone number, postal address, and email address. The email address must be a professional address with the same domain name as the online store. This is considered more professional and credible than free Internet email services such as Gmail or Yahoo.
Put all new employees through customer service training, regardless of their role. Plan refresher training for staff to continually emphasize the central role customers play in business success.
Major social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, WhatsApp, and The competition for social media attention is intense. To gain ground, companies must:
- Post regularly and consistently: Identify times of day or days of the week when most of the social media account’s followers are online and active. Stick to posting around the same time so followers always know when they can expect to see a new post.
- Work with influencers — Influencer marketing allows an e-commerce store to take advantage of an influencer’s influence on their audience.
- Create profiles on multiple social media platforms — It’s possible that a large portion of the target audience is on just one or two platforms. Many businesses have taken off because of their activity on a single social media platform. Yet diversification is vital. Not only is this a way to reach an audience outside of the main platform, but it also helps keep out competitors and scammers who might exploit the store’s absence on other platforms.
7. Primary Search Engine Optimization
Search engines, and particularly Google, are bound to be the largest source of visitor traffic for the average e-commerce store. The higher a website appears in search results, the more traffic it can expect to receive.
3 out of 5 People click on the first 2 or 3 results — 9 out of 10 users click on the first 10 results. Appearing in the first set of results translates to more traffic and therefore more sales.
Search engine optimization (SEO) involves ranking a website’s pages in the first set of search engine results for selected keywords. There are dozens of SEO strategies such as:
- Register the website with Google and Bing.
- Create a Google My Business profile.
- Research and identify the keywords and phrases that the target audience uses most often when searching for the e-commerce store’s products. These keywords should be included in relevant content, including blog posts and product descriptions.
- Incorporate keywords with search intent in mind when creating a page’s title, URL, and meta description.
- Create fresh, high-quality, authoritative content.
- Improve website loading speed.
8. Offer incentives
Offer incentives that encourage visitors to purchase. Examples include:
- Discounts and Promotions – Offer discounts on products while supplies last or run time-limited (e.g., one-week deal) or transaction-related (e.g., first 50 orders) sales campaigns ).
- Free/Discounted Shipping — If it is not possible to offer free shipping on all orders, the store may set a minimum eligible order value.
- Loyalty Programs — Create a loyalty program that rewards repeat shoppers with discounts, bonuses, and members-only gifts.
9. Focus on a mobile-friendly site
From 2023, more than 95% of Internet users accessed the World Wide Web via a smartphone. Google offers a free service Mobile Optimization Test which webmasters can use to check their site’s performance on smartphone access and any usability issues that arise.
Nonetheless, it is important that web developers eventually conduct their own testing to confirm that the store is properly accessible on all major device types. This means, for example, checking whether buttons, images, forms and navigation bars are proportionally sized and clickable.
Conclusion
E-commerce is quickly becoming the default playground for businesses. Businesses that want to achieve long-term, sustainable success must find a way to navigate and win in this space. This article has covered some of the most important aspects to pay attention to, but is by no means exhaustive.
For best results, ecommerce stores must assess their strengths and weaknesses, then identify and use strategies that can best amplify those strengths and address weaknesses. In a market where there is not much variation between the products offered by two stores, these tips can provide the edge a business needs to get ahead of the competition.