There is no doubt about it, ecommerce is here to stay. In the United States alone, online sales are becoming a larger and more prominent element in the overall economy. In the past, selling products online used to be very niche and only a few companies had the vision and foresight to capitalize on it. Nowadays, every vendor that has something to sell wants to take advantage of the ecommerce boom. As you are probably already aware, it is easier said than done.
So what are the things that you can add to your website that will make sure that it stands out from the competition? Here are the most essential features that every ecommerce business should have.
1. A High-Converting Landing Page
If you have done research on the basics of ecommerce, you have probably already heard about landing page optimization. Landing page optimization is essential for companies because it is the best way to guarantee that your customer stays on your website and actually converts into a sale.
For you to have a high converting landing page, you have to make sure that you do not overwhelm your customers with products as soon as they reach the page. Make the page feel tailored, made and personal. Your product descriptions should be concise but informative. Make sure that you sell the benefits of your products instead of the features, and always practice good user experience principles.
2. Easy Navigation
For you to offer the best possible experience to your customers when they visit your website, you have to make the navigation on your website as easy as possible. On the header of the website, you need to have a linked anchor text that navigates to your website’s full catalogue. You can also try having a superheader that has multiple elements like collections and trending items underneath the header item.
When it comes to navigation, it should be easy and intuitive enough for a relatively non-technical person to be able to find the products that they want with very little issues. If you are unsure how you can accomplish this, having your website looked at by a professional marketing agency is also a good idea as many of them will offer a free assessment of your website in order to win your business.
3. Product Variants and Information
Your website product pages need to have product variant information and matching images. If a shopper is looking for a certain bag on your website, for example, and she wants the bag in red, but the placeholder image is in black, how will that customer know whether or not a red variant exists? The answer, of course, is by having the product image be on a carousel that has other variant images.
4. Testimonials
What is the best way for a customer to find out whether or not your store is what you say it is and that they can trust the quality of your products? By having user testimonials featured prominently on your website, you will put your customers minds at ease and ensure that your products are something that they can count on to be of a reasonably high standard.
5. A Chat Feature With a Human Touch
No matter how informative your website may be, there is no escaping the fact that customers will have a lot of questions. Many customers simply cannot be bothered to navigate to the right page of your website to find the answers that they are looking for, so they will want to opt to just click on the chat function to ask customer service directly.
It is not bad to have a chatbot answer the first few questions of a chat, but you should always have a human agent on standby to answer the more difficult questions. No one wants to chat with a bot.
6. Tools for Abandoned Cart Recovery
Abandoned cart recovery is an absolute must have for companies who want to make sure that they optimize their sales funnels. If you are new to ecommerce, you will notice that many people will put items into their carts and, for whatever reason, they will often abandon these carts without completing the purchase. You have to have the tools in place to find out why the customer abandoned the cart so that you can offer a remedy and close the sale.
For the modern ecommerce vendor, these features are an absolute must-have. Follow this guide and learn as you go along and your store will stand out from the competition in very little time.
Article Submitted By Community Writer
