There is a difference between online shops and regular shops. The fact that you have no face-to-face contact with your customers can make things a bit more difficult. The art of sale is diminished to some extent when we look at the e-commerce situation, since you don’t really get to dance the “persuasion waltz” with the customers. You don’t get to have a more personalized relationship and have a situation in which you can get to know your regular customers. This is kind of the downside of e-commerce, but it is only a downside if you don’t take steps to compensate for these disadvantages. Not thinking about conversion is a common mistake businesses make when they first enter the e-commerce game but we are going to attempt to explain why conversion is crucial to your success.
The virtual window shoppers
It is a fact that you will get far more window shoppers browsing goods in an online shop than in a regular shop. The reason for this is fairly obvious; there is nobody to keep them in check and no awkwardness after a half an hour of browsing and no purchase. People tend to browse web shops out of sheer boredom, a lot of times these people don’t even have a credit card or they are from across the world and have absolutely no intention of ever buying any of your goods. But they will keep looking. They will browse the hell out of your goods! If you have instant chat customer support, they will ask you all kinds of questions and they still won’t buy anything. There is also a big chance your website can contract all kinds of spammers.
The almighty conversion rate
The reason I inserted the previous chapter was to demonstrate how the number of visits do not necessarily mean you will instantly get more revenue. Sales aren’t necessarily connected to the number of visits to your website. Most people concentrate on how to get more people to visit your website instead of how to inspire people to buy more from you. This is the conversion rate explained in a nutshell. Getting a greater percentage of people who visit your website to make a purchase raises your conversion rate. Having an average number of people visiting your website might not be a bad thing if these people actually buy products. Having an above average visits to your web sites but low conversion rate is definitely bad. I hope you get the picture.
Customer based e-commerce
I-The design
Molding your website to meet the needs of your customers is something that really makes a difference. Attaining the attention of an Internet user isn’t something that is easily achieved. The design of every page of your website needs to be perfect because if they can’t find what they are looking for within seconds or find it difficult to navigate through, they will immediately leave. The design of a web shop needs to be done by a professional team of people who have done market research and proper customer analysis so they can implement a website that suits your customers best.
The sign of a truly good design team is also the visual side of the design process. It is no small feat to produce a visual design that doesn’t overshadow the functional side of things but still make it something the customer will remember. This is very important because if you really are offering quality services and products, customers will want to do business with you again and they can’t do that if they don’t remember its name or anything about it.
II – SEO
Search engine optimization is something you have to think about these days. They are the main tools and most hours on the Internet start with them. If you don’t pop-up anywhere and people can’t find you without clicking on the second page of search result queries, well then you are going to have some problems getting visits let alone purchases so make sure you are aware of at least the basics of SEO optimization.
A badly set up website that doesn’t follow some rules that the search engines have is bound to go badly and may very well end up to be a waste of money. There are also technical things that can ruin your website’s SEO, regardless of your efforts. A slow website and weak hosting that can’t handle your traffic send signals to the crawlers that the website is low quality. This is why you will need to find solid e-commerce solutions in order to create a stable environment for your shoppers. You also need hosting that can manage your needs, so you can have a sturdy foundation for whatever you do.
III – Customer relations
OK, we’ve talked about the design side of things; now let’s talk about the things you need to do as a company to make sure you turn your potential customers into customers. A lot of people are reluctant to buy over the Internet. This isn’t just paranoia or ignorance; it is a valid caution since there are a lot of ways to get scammed on the Internet. That’s why you need to give off the impression of a well established and serious company. It is a good idea to provide as much information about your company as possible, since a lot of people like to do a background check before they shop there for the first time. Information about the product needs to be provided in detail also. This is crucial since the customers don’t have a hand on experience with the product they need as much information about it as possible.
Your business policies need to be clear and upfront. Things like the return policy, shipping price and so on need to be transparent. Nobody likes to put something in his shopping cart and find out at the check out that he need to spend 50$ on shipping. Shipping is also one of the things that can make a customer panic and decide not the buy something. You can avoid this by making sure that they know the exact time the product will arrive and the way it will travel. You can also provide them with a tracking code so they can see where their shipment is at the moment. At the day when the product is sent, it is best to notify the receiving party of the package’s departure, so they can feel that every part of the agreement has been followed through. You need to know how to make an effort to retain decent communication with your customers and you will be able to develop some loyalty.
The main trick is to hold to a certain degree of professionalism. Things need to function the way you have stated that they would, so customers can trust you and come back for another purchase. Through this, you will also gain additional customers and free natural recommendations. Still, in some situations you really need to get more traffic in order to get your numbers in a proper place.
Doing business at this level is not east but it very well pays off, since in the long run you will create a steady base of customers who will in return for good services, draw in more customers.