If you have an online store, you know how difficult it can be to start selling for the first time and to get enough customers to make sure you are making the income you need. One of the reasons why so many people are hesitant to buy from online stores is because they are missing the experience of meeting with employees face-to-face. Whether you’re trying to set up Shopify order management or give your ecommerce site a makeover, optimizing your online store is the first step to bringing a little bit of personalization, care, and trust to your customers.
This is why you need to make sure you have the proper measures in place to build trust with your customers and optimize the way you are selling and marketing your goods on your online store.
Optimize the Homepage
Since the homepage is the first thing your customers will see, you need to make sure it gives an amazing first impression. In just a few seconds and clicks, people will decide if they want to shop or if they want to find another website.
Make sure all the content and products are updated and they are the items you are currently selling. Make sure they also are for the current season. For example, in the summer, your homepage might want to show hats, sunglasses, and bathing suits. Showing sweaters and pants is not the best choice for a homepage in the summer.
Your homepage should also have several photos including some of people wearing or using your products.
Make sure to have plenty of product recommendations and ensure that the homepage makes it very easy to navigate to other areas of the website. If customers can’t find what they’re looking for, they will give up and look for the product they want on another website.
Make Your Checkout Procedures Easy
Sometimes, you will find that people shop and look through your website but they abandon the cart and don’t make any actual purchases. Just because you have many people on your checkout page doesn’t mean they will complete the purchase and give your online store money.
This is why you need to optimize the checkout process and ensure it’s as easy and simple as possible. The checkout page shouldn’t have any popups or upsells as this can frustrate the customer and make them tired.
You should also avoid making customers register an account before checking out as this can deter them. However, you can ask that they register for an account after the checkout process is completed.
Make sure you ask for minimum information and mark some fields as required so that the customers know what they need to fill in and what they can leave blank.
Your checkout page should also be mobile friendly as many people shop from their phones and not everyone wants to have to log onto their computer to complete their purchase.
When it comes to the actual payment, make sure you give plenty of payment choices including credit cards, PayPal, and Google Wallet. You can also add a trust seal once you have registered for things like Norton Secured or hired an ecommerce accounting service to keep track of payment accounts and general financial bookkeeping. This gives customers trust in your website and payments so they feel like they are making an official and secure purchase.
Make Your Customer Support Better
If your customer support is lacking, people can lose a lot of faith in you and your business. Customers want to be able to get information from you and get assistance when they feel like they need help.
If customers cannot get in touch with you and they cannot get simple information, they will not feel like it’s a good idea to purchase with you. The best way to complete sales is to have customer support on hand ready to answer everyone’s questions.
Here are some of the best ways to make your customer support better:
- Have a live chat where people can ask quick questions and get the answers they need while not waiting for a response
- Address customers by their first name and ask about previous interactions
- Use chat invitations to encourage people to reach out if they need any assistance
- Make your contact page easy to access and well-labelled
- Use social media as a way for people to access you and allow them to ask questions and get help via your social media pages
- Make sure all policies are transparent
Enhance Your Product Pages
Product pages are very important because they show what you’re selling and can encourage potential customers to go forward with the sale or not.
One of the best things you can do is have clear and enticing product descriptions. Make sure all product descriptions are in short paragraphs or use bullet points. This ensures that customers can scan the print and ensure the product has everything they need.
Your product descriptions need to be detailed so that no questions are left unanswered. You can also use tabs to organize the written descriptions from the specs.
Other than adding descriptions, images and videos are also important. You might also want to add in some upselling opportunities such as showing relevant products at the bottom of the page.
At the bottom, you also want to add in reviews. Most people like to read reviews because they purchase something online. When you’re in a physical store, you can try things, see them up close, and even feel them.
Online, the potential customers are left to only read reviews to see what the product may be like or look like. This is why reviews are so important because they ensure that people have faith in the product enough to buy it.
The Bottom Line
If you want to make a real business out of your online store, you must spend time optimizing it. If you don’t have the time to improve it yourself, consider getting some e-commerce help services to help you improve various services like the homepage, product pages, and checkout services.
Your online store can be excellent side hustle or it can be the main way you make money. Whatever you use it for, use these tips to optimize it.