This is a key factor in boosting your conversion rate and encouraging consumers to repeat their custom with you. Building a great customer experience can give you the competitive edge you need to stand out in a saturated market. Following these simple steps can help you design the perfect customer journey, and help you grow your e-commerce business.
The first step is setting up your site
Having a professional and polished e-commerce store is crucial. Your site should inspire confidence and have an established brand. This means be consistent, your colours, fonts, styles, images, and actions should all be uniform and recognisable, this will put any potential customers at ease and generate trust in your business. You also want your site to be clean, concise and easy to navigate, the easier you make it the more likely the visitor will become a customer
Setting up your webstore may sound daunting, but don’t panic! There are many great WordPress themes out there that can help you get started. For example Woocommerce and Shopify. WooCommerce is a theme/plugin that will transform an entire WordPress site into an online store. You have the benefit of being able to hire a team of designers to create you theme for you, or you can purchase an existing theme that works for your business. Whereas Shopify is a ‘hosted’ ecommerce store that you can send your customers to. So your are more limited in how you design your store but it will make it easier and simpler to set up and run.
The next step is setting up your products.
There is a unique challenge any online seller needs to overcome, your customers can’t physically see or hold the product. As they are not purchasing in person they need even more reassurance that this products is right for them.
A few simple steps to overcome this potential hurdle are:
- Create very detailed product descriptions, give as much information as you can. Go into detail about, the size, shape, fabric type etc. The more information you can give the more real this product will feel to your customer and the more likely they will be to complete their purchase.
- Be honest, explain what your product can do, what it can’t do. Who is the product good for, who is it not suitable for, giving an honest appraisal of your product will help to build trust and inspire confidence.
- Take as many great quality picures as you can. Make sure the images are crisp and clear. Take pictures from multiple angles and take action shots, if you are selling a bag, open the bag and take pictures inside so the buyer can see every aspect of the product.
- Making sure you model your products and show them in action can help you overcome the challenge of selling products online. Product videos are an effective way of achieving this, they help customers replace the need to try out the product before purchasing.
Build confidence in your products.
A simple yet effective way to build customer trust is by posting your reviews. User generated content helps inspire confidence and encourages your customers to complete their purchase. Customers are more likely to purchase a product with numerous reviews that just one or two, so you want to keep an eye on your competitors reviews and try to match it.
Be accessible
Make it easy for potential customers to contact you and ask questions. You could make your contact and social media details clearly visible and easily accessible. Or simply add live chat to your site. Being there to answer questions quickly while your customer is in the frame of mind to complete their purchase can be a great way to boost your conversion rate.
