Ecommerce is a very tricky business. Even if you have the best products to showcase, if your website is not right, you cannot really see success. Well, ecommerce website development and it’s layout, it’s navigation etc. everything is important. In short, the website must be user friendly and usability must be built from scratch. With ecommerce, you need to think about the customer and how he will interact with your website. The simpler it is for your customer, the greater sales you will make. This only means that your ecommerce website is your business itself. So, keep in mind the very basic guidelines to make it more usable for your prospective customers.
Call To Action
Never miss a call to action button. It is the one thing that will lead the customers to the right place on your website, to perform a desired action. Either a purchase, or a registration or something like that. A call to action button on your website will definitely help increase conversions. From a design point of view, make it very striking such that it stands out from the background. Customers should be able to locate it easily.
Sign up or buy without registration?
As an ecommerce website you need not request a lot of information about the customers. Make sure that your signup process is short and simple. Get the most from the least amount of steps. Ensure that you also enable an option to make a purchase without actually registering on the website.
Search Functionality
Give customers the ability to search your website for the products they want to buy. Don’t leave them browsing the website endlessly to find the one thing they are looking for. Quick results for them means a sure sale for you!
Navigation
Make sure that your website’s navigation is intuitive and leads the customer logically from one page to another. If the customer does not know where to click next, he will definitely click away – to another site that’s easier to browse!
Shopping cart options
Shopping carts are by far the most important part of a website. They ensure that your products get sold with all the appropriate steps. Well, that’s the important ppoint. The steps for completing a purchase should be very small. Most of the ecommerce solutions like Magento for example have standard steps for checkout. However with extensions, you can add features to consolidate the standard 6 steps of a Magento checkout to a one step checkout. This makes purchase easier for your customers and sales easy for you!
Suggestions for related items
This is a tricky one. Suggesting related items could be beneficial for some customers and could lead to increased sales for you. However, for some customers it could just be a nuisance. But a busy ecommerce store sees both kinds of customers. Some will appreciate the advise and some might just purchase what they want and go! Giving them options is not a bad idea!
No hidden charges
Well, as in all fields of business, ethics is important. Show the customers the total price that they would be paying for your products. Do not include any hidden costs. Let them know in advance rather than at the tail end when they are entering the credit card details.
Well, getting it right at the very beginning should be the aim. Ecommerce development can help you create a highly usable website.
