How to Make Your Webstore Shine
Intuitive Design
The staple of a good webstore is easy to use, and nice to look at. A big part of this is how easy it is for a visitor to your webstore can navigate the site without being told what to do. When someone visits your webstore, the design should clearly indicate how they should navigate to get what they are looking for. Without this, it would be as though you tried to enter a storefront but the door was missing – nothing but windows. How are you supposed to buy anything?
Easy Navigation
When it comes to easy navigation, we don’t mean big bold signs that say “Click here!” but rather something that users should not even notice they are using, it is simply that easy. A good example of this would be any time you’re booking a flight – most sites will have clear options at the top of the page to search for flights for specific dates, airports, and destinations. Users input the information and have the results they were looking for without having to search all over the site to find it.
Informative Product Description
Not everyone knows what a gold-plated dinglehopper is – but if you call it a gold-plated fork, your customer will probably understand you much better. Your customers won’t care for words they don’t understand – or worse, no words at all – so when you’re creating your product listing the description should be able to properly convey what the item is without getting so far into detail that you lose their interest. Consider using common keywords to describe the item, such as what it’s made out of, what purpose does it serve, what size is it, and if there are any customization options. You should have helpful tags in which visitors to your site can search or filter with, so that all of the products which may be
Entice Purchases
You have an intuitive design – but your revenue is lacking? There are a number of reasons your sales could be lower than expected, but a surefire way to boost revenue is to offer special promotions, discounts, or bundle deals. A well-priced discount during slow seasons will have customers making that purchase they’ve been ruminating for a while, and bundles during holiday seasons will get customers buying more than they originally thought to. Think of unique ways to offer special pricing for your customers, and be sure to feature them on the home page and through e-mail campaigns or social media. Speaking of social media…
Social Media
Another key factor is how you interact with your customers. Social media has become vital for the success of a business. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and blogging have become the best way for businesses with products and services for sale to promote themselves. Facebook especially has become an essential marketing tool by offering paid advertising with a number of customizations to guarantee you get your products advertised to your ideal target audience. However, the algorithms for this can be difficult to understand, so the best way to learn what will work for you is to run multiple campaigns targeting different combinations of audiences, and monitor the click-through rates from Google analytics or Facebook’s own tracking system. It’s good to experiment until you find the best combination for your products and services.
Mobile Optimization
We’re in a digital age, and nothing is more important to many of us than our mobile devices. Whether we’re on the go or going nowhere, most of us have a mobile device with us at all times. Which means the likelihood of your site being viewed on a mobile device is higher than it being viewed from a laptop or desktop computer. Your site should be just as intuitive and attractively designed when viewed from a cellphone or tablet as it is when viewed on a computer screen.
Easy Checkout
Your customer has added products to their shopping cart and now they’re ready to checkout…where’s the checkout button?! Goodbye, revenue! Your checkout should not only be easy to find, but also easy to navigate, using clear and simple options for shipping, promotional codes, and payment. Think about what payment options you want to offer to your customers – covering all the most popular payment options will give customers more reasons to shop with you.
User-Generated Reviews
This is the end of the cycle, but it links back to the beginning. Customers who have purchased your item should be able to leave a review about it. While many self-maintained webstore platforms such as Shopify do not have an integrated review system, it’s worth it to add an application which integrates into your store that allows users to leave reviews on items they’ve purchased from you.
ReviewCaddy is one such application, developed by V Group Inc., to empower you and your customers. Unlike many review systems, ReviewCaddy will automatically send e-mails to your customers after they make their purchase, prompting them to review it. You can customize the e-mails or use the built-in templates provided for you, and schedule the e-mails to be sent after a specified time of purchase. Plus, if you have multiple stores in which some of your products cross-sell, you can import the reviews from your other sites directly into any of your Shopify stores.