Your ecommerce site has to make a great first impression. Otherwise, shoppers won’t stick around to see what you’re selling.

Without some vital features, shoppers tend to get disappointed and move on to the competition. Luckily, a few tweaks to your website is all it takes to give consumers what they expect and more.

While having wonderful and useful products does help, your website determines whether anyone sees those products.

1. Simple Shopping Cart

No one likes a complex checkout process. Imagine if you had to fill out multiple pages of long forms before you could pay for your items in a brick and mortar store. You’d likely leave instead of dealing with the hassle. The average shopping cart abandonment rate is over 69%. While part of that is because shoppers just aren’t ready to buy yet, 37% abandon because they don’t want to create an account and 28% believe the checkout process is too complicated.

Keep things simple and offer a guest checkout option. Those two things will boost conversions.

2. Fast Loading Pages

Online shoppers aren’t the most patient. After all, they shop online because it’s faster and more convenient. If your ecommerce site takes too long to load, they’ll move on. This includes product pages that are full of images. According to Google, two seconds or less is the optimal page loading speed. The faster your pages load, the happier consumers will be.

3. SSL

No one wants to enter their personal details on a site that doesn’t make security a priority. If your ecommerce site isn’t using SSL, shoppers will look elsewhere. They just don’t want to risk compromising their identity. SSL certificates are an easy way to encrypt data on your website and keep shoppers safer.

4. Easy To Use Navigation

Navigation is a crucial element for any website. With ecommerce sites, it’s important for helping consumers find exactly what they’re looking for. This includes having an obvious search function. If your menu is buried or has too many sub-menus, it could be too difficult to use. The idea is to make it easy and enjoyable for shoppers to find products. The easier it is, the more likely they are to buy.

5. Noticeable CTAs

Far too many ecommerce sites have a beautiful product page that goes into infinite detail on features and benefits. However, that page is missing something – a noticeable call to action. The “buy” button might be tucked off to the side or blend in with the background.

If there isn’t an obvious way to add something to an online cart, shoppers aren’t going to stay on your site. They want it to be obvious at first glance on how to buy the product(s) they’re viewing.

6. Clear Product Images/Videos

A single product image isn’t always enough. Ecommerce shoppers want the digital version of a brick and mortar shopping experience. This means they want to see products from every angle. Add multiple, clear images of every product and allow shoppers to zoom in to see details clearly.

You could even add videos that show products in action. This helps consumers see if the product is right for them. Just be sure that videos and images are compressed for the web to avoid long page loading times.

7. Responsive Design

Your shoppers aren’t just coming from desktops and laptops anymore. The majority may be shopping from their phones and tablets. Is your ecommerce site ready for that? If your site isn’t ready to support a mobile audience, you could be losing customers. Many WordPress themes are designed to be mobile-friendly. Use this to your advantage to create a site that works on any device.

8. Personalisation

One of Amazon’s best features is personalisation. It’s also how they keep consumers coming back. If possible and relevant to your site, incorporate personalisation to recommend related products. If shoppers are logged in, add a welcome message to the header and recommend products based on past purchases. It’s a simple feature, but highly effective.

9. Simple Design

Intricate designs might sound good on paper, but in reality, they’re difficult to use. Complex designs often create cluttered pages and make it impossible to see navigational elements, product images, and shopping carts. It’s better to use a simple design with ample white space to ensure consumers are able to interact easily.

10. Engaging Product Pages

Finally, shoppers expect engaging product pages from your ecommerce site. This means uncluttered pages filled with product images, videos and details. Place the most important details and images near the top. After all, an infinite product page is just annoying.

Are you ready to give your customers everything they expect from your site? Contact me today to learn more about my website development services.

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It’s the goal of any ecommerce site – increasing online sales, but it’s not always as easy as it sounds.

You’ve probably tried different marketing methods and offered discounts. The results still aren’t as impressive as you would like.

While it might sound like a simple solution, WordPress plugins could be the solution to your sales problem. The right plugin makes your site easier to manage and better for your customers.

Why Your Sales Are Down

Before diving into which plugins to use, let’s take a look at why your sales are down. You have great products, but visitors aren’t converting into customers.

One of the problems might be that visitors forget about your site. Most visitors won’t make a purchase immediately, but instead, they’ll do a little research first. If you offer a limited time discount in exchange for their email address, you’re able to contact visitors long after they’ve left your site and remind them to come back.

Another issue stems from complicated or unsecured checkout processes. The easier it is for a visitor to make a purchase, the more likely they are to follow through instead of abandoning their carts.

Finally, your site may not be showcasing your products in the best light. Videos, images and engaging descriptions are what persuade customers to buy something. Think about it like this. Would you be more likely to buy clothing online with multiple images from different angles or a single small image? You’d want to see multiple images before making a choice.

Three Changes To Make Right Now

The first big change you need to make is offering a way for visitors to sign up for emails. This is how you stay in contact with visitors and continue to make sales. Opt-in forms that are easy to exit work best. TemplateMonster increased signups by 600% after adding an easy exit signup form. Of course, you also need to offer value in your emails, such as discounts and items related to what they’ve viewed on your site.

The second change is simplifying and securing the checkout process. You need a few simple steps and a valid SSL certificate to encrypt customer data. Your checkout process also needs to offer multiple ways to pay, such as credit card or online payments, such as PayPal.

The final change is to optimise your product pages. Better descriptions, 360 degree videos or images of products and zoomable images help boost sales.

Increase Sales With WordPress Plugins

Increasing online sales might sound complicated, but WordPress plugins make it easy. For best results, use an all-in-one ecommerce plugin that also works with other services, such as email newsletters. These plugins help take care of all the major problems listed above.

The most popular by far is WooCommerce. It currently powers 39% of all ecommerce stores. The plugin makes it easy to manage your store, offer secure checkouts, accept various payment types, and it integrates with other services.

WP eCommerce is the second most popular ecommerce plugin. While it’s not quite as feature rich as WooCommerce, it works well for simple ecommerce stores.

If your ecommerce site only offers digital downloads, Easy Digital Downloads may work best for you. It offers powerful reporting, easy integration with other services and makes it easy for customers to make and receive their purchases.

Among these three, most stores still choose WooCommerce since it’s already compatible with a variety of other services, such as PayPal and MailChimp. Think of a WordPress plugin as your secret weapon to increasing sales online. When it’s easier to manage your store and easier for customers to interact with your store, sales increase.

Boost Your Sales Now

It doesn’t matter what type of marketing you use if your online store isn’t powered by a reliable WordPress plugin. When you want to make a great impression on visitors and keep them coming back for more, you need a store that offers everything a visitor wants, such as smooth checkouts, easy email signups and great ways to views products. You could do it all manually or rely on a plugin to do the heavy lifting for you.

Ready to implement a WordPress plugin to improve your ecommerce store? Contact StuartMedia today to see how to get started. 

Image: Crew