Seven Tips For Ecommerce Success
November 7, 2008
Defining ecommerce is not easy but one way is to explain it as carrying out business via the internet.
Following a few simple rules are all that is needed to elicit a positive response from visitors.
Don’t have too many steps in the sales process
In good ecommerce design it has been proved that there is a direct correlation between the number of clicks a person has to make in order to complete a purchase and the volume of people who abandon their shopping cart before checking out.
You need to make the checkout process as simple as possible on your ecommerce web site so that potential customers are not discouraged easily through poor navigation.
Ensure customers are aware of stock levels
Make sure that customers can check the availability of stock early on in the sales process.
A cardinal sin in ecommerce is to keep stock levels hidden or at least until the checkout is reached, customers will soon get fed up if you let them go through the sales process only to find out at this stage that their product is not available. You can be certain that one of your competitors will welcome their business.
Ensure web browser compatibility
Make sure you view your site in a variety of browsers to ensure that it is presented correctly. It is essential that you at least view your site in two different browsers to make sure most of your customers see your site as expected.
Use only useful descriptive words in your hyperlinks
Name your links appropriately using a sensible description that means something to your customers. For instance, ‘Music players section A’ is much less descriptive than ‘iPod Nano range’.
You need to ensure that your hyperlinks actually work
Make sure that all the hyperlinks work on your site and that they click through to the correct destinations. You need to give a professional impression to your customers and broken links definitely do not enhance this.
Simplify your graphics
Well constructed graphics do look very effective on your site but you must ensure that they are optimised for the web.
This means that you have to use a graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Fireworks to reduce the file size to ensure that your ecommerce internet solution does not take too long to load its pages.
This exercise becomes a balancing act between quality versus file size but usually a good compromise can be obtained.
Create a straightforward checkout process
The final stage of your ecommerce process is also the most nervous for your customer. You need to ensure that your customer is comforted that you have a safe and secure payment process in which they can entrust their personal details.
Most web hosts will offer the Secure Socket Layer method that ensures your site is encrypted to protect your customers personal details. Tell your customers about the security arrangements you have in place on your ecommerce web site in order to protect their personal information.
If you follow the tips outlined above then you will avoid most of the common pitfalls that you can encounter in developing your ecommerce web site.