Selling
online can open
up huge new markets for many businesses. When your store can be open 24/7 and
you can reach a global market without the costs of mailings and call centers,
it can be a huge boon to your business. But there are plenty of things to
consider when designing an ecommerce site. It’s not as simple as throwing up a site and plopping products into a database.
There are
tons of mistakes that online retailers make every day, all of them avoidable
with a little careful planning. And even if you’re already committing some of
these mistakes, most of them are easy enough to fix. Avoiding them will greatly
improve the experience of your customers.
Below are
some of the most common mistakes that e-commerce sites make, as well as
advice on how to avoid or fix them. Take the advice under consideration when thinking over your current
ecommerce site, and make efforts to follow the recommendations outlined here.
1. A lack of detailed product information
When
you’re shopping in a brick-and-mortar store, you have the advantage of being
able to pick up an item, feel it, look at it from every angle, and read any
information on the packaging or labels. Shopping online removes that
interaction. Ecommerce sites need to do the best they can to improve upon the
in-store shopping experience.
How often
have we gone to an online store and found their descriptions to be completely
lacking? And if a customer is left wondering about the specifics of a product,
they’re more likely to go look for the information elsewhere. And unless your
site’s price is significantly lower than your competitors’, they’ll likely just
buy from the other site.
What To Do About It
Provide
as much product information as you can. Sizes, materials, weight, dimensions,
and any other pertinent information depending on what the product is. For
example, in an online clothing store, you might include the fabric type, sizes
and colours available, a size chart (usually linked from multiple products),
the weight or thickness of the item, the cut and fit of the item, care
instructions, and comments about the brand or designer. Using descriptive words
rather than simply technical terms can have a greater impact on the consumer.
Also see
our other article on “how
to build a good ecommerce site” particularly the section on “The
Value of Content & Marketing”
Examples
2. Hiding Contact Information
Consumers
want to know that they’re dealing with a real company when they hand over their
credit card information. They want to know that if they have a problem they’ll
be able to talk to a real person and get the help they need. If your site
doesn’t provide any contact information, or hides it so the consumer can’t find
it easily, they’re less likely to trust your site, and therefore less likely to
do business with you.
What To Do About It
Put your
contact information in an easy-to-find place on every page of your website. The
most obvious places to put your contact information are either in your header,
the top of your sidebar, or in your footer. Provide multiple means of contact
if possible. A contact form, email address, phone number, and mailing address
all add to the level of customer trust. Remember, too, that the more expensive
or technical the product you’re selling, the more likely a consumer is going to
want more contact information.
Examples
3. An Inadequate Site Search Engine
If a
customer knows exactly what they’re looking for, many will opt to use a search
engine instead of sifting through categories and filters. You need to make sure
that the search feature on your site works well, and preferably has filters for
letting customers refine their results.
How often
have you searched for a product on a large ecommerce site and been returned
with hundreds of applicable results? While the variety of options can be nice,
if half of those results are nothing like what you’re looking for, it’s more an
inconvenience than anything else. Including a way for customers to filter their
search results by category or feature eliminates this problem.
What To Do About It
Ideally,
an ecommerce search engine should let users search by keyword and then refine
results based on the categories your site includes.
Examples
4. Poor Customer Service Options
This is
similar to the hiding contact information bit above. You need to make it easy
for customers to get in touch with you if they have a problem or question. Make
it clear what the best way to contact you is if they have a technical question,
a sales question, or they want to return an item. Offering a help request form
for customers to fill out can instill more confidence than just an email
address.
What To Do About It
Use a ticketing
system for customer service inquiries, especially if you don’t have a phone
number available. Make sure that you post a FAQ that covers common questions
customers might have, like what your return policy is or what to do if they
need to order parts or replacement items.
Examples
5. Tiny Product Images
Since
consumers can’t physically handle the products you’re selling before placing an
order on your website, you need to do as much as you can to recreate and
improve upon that experience. Tiny product images don’t effectively do this.
What To Do About It
Either
provide large images right on the product page or allow users to click on an
image to zoom in. You want users to be able to view the image as large as is
practical on an average monitor. This means an image that is no larger than
1024×768 pixels is a good size to aim for.
Examples
6. Only One Product Image
Unless
your product is delivered digitally (and even sometimes if it is), you’ll want
to provide multiple images from different angles. An image in each color, of
the front, back, and sides, and even detailed shots of specific features can
all go a long way toward making a consumer more likely to buy from you.
What To Do About It
This
one’s simple: include more images. Four or five images of each product are
ideal, offering enough views to allow a consumer to feel comfortable that they
know exactly what they’re getting.
Examples
7. Lack of Payment Options
There are
plenty of sites out there that only allow users to pay with Visa or MasterCard,
or to only pay with a PayPal account. There’s no reason for this anymore. What
about the person who has an AmEx and doesn’t have or want a PayPal account?
What about the person who doesn’t have a credit card and wants to pay straight
from their bank account? You need to provide as many payment solutions as is
practical to optimize the number of orders you get.
What To Do About It
Use a
payment service that lets customers pay with each major credit card, and
preferably also with an electronic check. Adding a PayPal checkout option
increases the choices your customers have, making them more likely to purchase
from you. Considering different consumers have different preferences when it
comes to making online payments, catering to as many as you can means you’ve
expanded your customer base.
Both the
Payment Gateway Providers SagePay and Paypoint are integrated with PayPal and offer the option to add a PayPal
account through the same checkout/card payment page. This allows customers the
option to pay by PayPal (from their bank, credit card or existing funds in PayPal)
or by credit or debit card.
Example
You’ve
probably noticed when you go to a brick and mortar store that they group
similar products together, or otherwise make it easy for you to find products
that are related to you. They’ll put a battery display in the electronics
section, or include mobile phone cases near the mobile phones. The same can be
done on your website, and can increase add-on sales for you business.
What To Do About It
Manually
choosing related products can also give you a big advantage, since you may see
relations that a software program doesn’t (such as coordinating clothing pieces
to create an outfit).
Examples
9. Confusing Navigation
There’s
nothing worse than trying to find a product on a site with confusing
navigation. Or even worse, an online store that doesn’t use categories or
otherwise separate their merchandise to make it easier to find a specific type
of product. The same goes for sites that have categories with no products in
them or with only one or two items. Why even bother with a category?
What To Do About It
Think
through your groups & categories and navigation elements carefully before
you start putting products. Make sure that every category has at least a few
products in it, or else group smaller categories together (or include them in
larger, similar categories). Make it easy for customers to look through
different categories, get to their shopping cart, and otherwise move around
your site.
Examples
10. Not Including Shipping Rates
There’s
no good reason not to include accurate shipping rates on your site. Include
your rates on your site, no matter what.
What To Do About It
Most
major shipping companies and the USPS offer shipping calculators on their
website, and there are plugins or widgets available for most major shopping
cart systems to figure shipping charges on your site. Use one. If you can’t use
one for some reason, then use a flat shipping rate that’s high enough to cover
whatever it is you need to ship. For particularly heavy or large items, you can
always include a freight surcharge in the price (just be sure to indicate
that’s where the additional cost is going).
Examples
11. Not Including Store Policies
Before a
customer buys from you, they’ll likely want to know what your shipping
policies, return policies, and other store rules are. And there’s no reason not
to post this information in a FAQ or somewhere else on your site. Making your
store policies clear upfront can save a lot of headaches later on from
customers who are unhappy with an order they’ve placed.
What To Do About It
Use an
FAQ or store policies section on your site to spell out exactly what your rules
are for different kinds of customer interaction. It’s something that can save
you tons of problems down the road.
Examples
12. Not Putting Focus on the Products
The goal
of an ecommerce site is to sell products (or, at least, that’s what the goal
should be). If your site puts more focus on bells and whistles or the design
itself, it’s not achieving that primary goal. Make sure your site displays your
products first, and everything else second.
What To Do About It
Think
about how products are displayed in brick and mortar stores. While an in-store
or window display may show a lot more than just the products for sale, they all
contribute to showcasing the products in their most flattering light. Do the
same with your website. Make sure that every design element present is doing
something to showcase your products in their best possible light.
Examples