How a Strong E-Commerce Solution Can Help Your Business
Your website plays a key role in your online marketing. For many companies, a well-designed site brings together everything from email marketing, social media, content marketing and various other important digital advertising strategies. With an e-commerce solution in place, your website can also serve as a digital storefront with 24-hour access to your products
Think about how many times your customers reference your website when you speak with them. Amazon, eBay and other big e-commerce websites have made online shopping a normal part of Canadian life and with the advances in mobile technology, it’s not going to slow down anytime soon.
Companies that succeed with e-commerce have strong traffic. Sure, it’s great to have a lot of people load up your website, but the best results happen with strong and qualified traffic. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the great way to generate highly-qualified traffic for any businesses. Study after study concludes that people arriving from Google organic search results are more likely to purchase a product from your site than most other online sources.
There are some really creative things you can now do with Google AdWords and social media advertising. Many of our Toronto e-commerce clients have found remarketing ads to be especially profitable. With this strategy, you can show targeted advertising to people who have already been on your website. People will see ads will they are browsing other websites, watching videos on YouTube, reading the news and countless other content types. Advertising will be shown on both mobile devices and desktop computers. Remarketing keeps your brand and products top-of-mind and entices people to come back to your website.
Year-over-year we’re seeing more people use their mobile devices more to shop online. It’s amazing how many businesses still don’t have a mobile-friendly website. If your website doesn’t look good or function properly on a mobile device you could be losing sales daily.
Online shopping should be easy and your e-commerce solution should make the purchase process easy and convenient. It begins by having simple to use navigation and clear call to actions throughout your website. Regardless if you’re selling a dozen product or thousands of items; people need to ability to instantly see information about products and effortlessly purchase them online. Make contact information very easy to find throughout the entire online purchasing process, online chat can be another feature that can help increase your online sales numbers. It’s important to have well-written product descriptions, clear photos and video, and accurately breakdown your prices.
One of the biggest reasons people change their mind while shopping online is unexpected costs. It’s best to be transparent with your customers, make sure you show all pricing information along with shipping rates in advance. A lot of companies force people to create an account in order to buy something from them online, it’s usually best not to force this step on people. Creating an account takes time and the best e-commerce processes are streamlined. Instead, think about offering a guest checkout option.
The more clicks it takes to purchase something on your website, this less you will sell. Selling stuff online doesn’t need to be complicated, overly complex navigation is a mistake that happens a lot on the Internet. Some of the most successful websites only have three basic steps: pick a product, add it to a cart, click checkout. Take a look at Amazon’s process, it’s designed to be simple and encourage impulse.
Trust is another important factor when it comes to e-commerce, people want to trust companies before they offer their credit card number. There are a few things you can do to help customers trust your website. First of all, you’ll need to make sure that your website is secure. Most websites with e-commerce have SSL certification, it’s a common cryptographic key that keeps data secure. Your customers will most likely have a warning pop-up on their screen if you don’t have one. Most SSL certification providers will let you place a well-known security logo on your site, be sure to place these logos throughout your site.
Let your previous customers help by showcasing customer reviews and testimonials throughout your e-commerce process. It’s human nature to worry about buyer’s remorse when buying things online. Feedback and reviews from others is a great way to build trust with your customers.
There are many different online payment vendors out there that will process online transactions for you. Each of these vendors will come with their own options, support, account management and fees. Do your research and find the best solution for your business’ needs. Offer as many payment options as possible. Test your e-commerce often and ensure everything is working.
E-commerce is an extremely exciting opportunity to generate more revenue for your business. Our team of developers offers innovative e-commerce solutions to businesses of all sizes. Want to learn more? Contact us today and our team will help you come up with an e-commerce solution that suits your business needs.