The success of any website depends on its elements or features. Customers visit your e-commerce website to purchase items. However, the website must be well-designed for them to find the products easily and make the final purchase. Many e-commerce websites fail to generate the ideal sales because their website is too jarring or confusing, and the customers struggle to get to the checkout.
There are hundreds of features a website can have. But there are a few mandatory ones that make the website useful and user-friendly. Below we have listed seven features that your e-commerce website must have for continued success.
Easy Navigation And Responsive Design
Customer bounce is perhaps the most common problem faced by any website, and the best way to avoid it is to have user-friendly navigation. Map the customer journey, starting from the homepage through various website sections to the checkout, and design it in a way so that they find it easy to travel from one page to another without having to fight for the details. Add a simple burger menu, link and layer all product pages accordingly, and place simple call-to-action buttons to seal the deal.
Aside from navigation, the website also needs a responsive design. Your website has to adjust to the device your customer is using – be it a wide-screen monitor, a laptop, a tab, or a smartphone. Responsive design makes all the elements visible without cutting portions off the website on smaller devices.
Site Search And Filters
Customers don’t come to your website to browse all day. They want to purchase things quickly. A site search and appropriate filters can make a customer’s life much easier. Site search is an internal search engine where customers can look for specific products they’re looking for. You can use various site search solution tools on your website. They come with analytics tools that report your customer’s activity and interactions and help you curate your website better.
Filters can help your customers find their desired products quickly. Adding availability filters informs them what products are up for sale. They can also filter the products by product features.
Product Ratings And Reviews
Apart from high-quality product pictures, your website should have product ratings and short reviews. These always influence customer purchase decisions, and therefore, must be present with every product. Make it easy for your customers to enter their ratings and reviews for every product bought from your website. Their input will help others and also encourage future sales.
Safe Payment Options
Customers must have safe payment options on the website to make the final purchase. Add multiple payment options to make the process easier for all customers. Add a security layer to your website and communicate the details on the payments page to instill customer trust it can be done by CTO services. Assure them that their sensitive data is safe with you.
Order Tracking
This is an added feature that customers find extremely useful. No one likes to wait for their products. Moreover, busy customers always want to know when their products might arrive. The order tracking option on your website allows them to track their product and get detailed information on the product stages – packaging, dispatch, and the final delivery date.
When customers visit your website repeatedly to use this feature, it allows you to show more products to your customers and seal more sales.
Email Opt-In And Social Media
Add a section to your website that urges customers to subscribe to your email newsletter. Send details of offers and new products right to their mailbox. Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing methods for e-commerce businesses, and can increase your sales tenfold. Offer a certain discount or promo code for customers who sign up for your email newsletter if you’re having difficulty building an email list.
Social media is another great way to connect to your customers and promote your business. Add your social media pages to your website for the customers to link to them quickly.
FAQ And Return Policy
Customers have many questions when purchasing from your website. A well-designed FAQ section can ensure that your customers have all the information at their disposal. Add a section below the FAQ where the customers can send a message to customer support if they have a unique question not available in the FAQ section.
Other than the products, the return policy page is perhaps one of the most visited sections of a website. In fact, many customers check the return policy even before they have added products to their cart. Create a comprehensive return policy and dedicate a webpage to it.
The primary goal of an e-commerce website is to generate sales. Good design and correct features aid the process. Your website must have the features in appropriate places to make the customer journey easier and the purchase process faster. The basic features are common for most websites. But if you want to build a custom e-commerce website, do your research and add features that are strictly necessary for your business to increase sales.
