As businesses migrate to an online space to sell their wares, companies are now taking a long hard look at the effectiveness of their e-commerce websites. A good e-commerce website makes your brand look good and doubles your profit while making shopping for your products accessible and convenient. A bad or unpolished one, however, can mean losing customers and sales.
Your e-commerce website must be able to keep up with the fast-moving market, not only in terms of technology but in customer behaviour as well. Instead of jumping from one online platform to another, keep your e-commerce website robust by building it with adaptable features that keep your customers engaged and buying. To do so, you need to engage the best ecommerce web design company around.
Here are the five traits that your e-commerce website must definitely have:
- Make It Quick
Nothing turns off your customers from buying your products more than slow loading times. An average customer will switch to another tab or website if a page loads longer than 3 seconds, and will likely abandon their intent to shop once your page is out of their eyesight. Slow loading times contribute to a high bounce rate, which means that you don’t get the chance to engage your audience meaningfully, losing potential sales.
Cramming loads of features in your e-commerce website is tempting, but understand that it can contribute to the load times of pages. Keep your e-commerce website simple and let your products speak for themselves.
- Mobile-ready
Did you know that 60% of Singaporeans prefer shopping on their phones? If your e-commerce website is not mobile-responsive, you’re losing out on a huge chunk of the market.
A non-mobile-friendly site will look clunky on mobile devices and will be hard to use. If slow loading times discourage customers from buying, a hard to navigate website makes the experience even worse. Make sure to insist on mobile-responsiveness when discussing with your website developer so your e-commerce shop can be viewed and used on multiple devices like android phones and tablets, as well as Apple products.
- Easy on The Eyes
When it comes to e-commerce websites, your audience’s attention relies on your visual presentation, not only in terms of aesthetics but also in navigation. While artwork and brand colours are important, do not forget to include usability in the design. This involves making the website intuitive for users, giving them easy directions on where to find information on your company, product and shopping process.
Of course, font and art matter too. An attractive website contributes to the shopping experience, and without a brick and mortar to impress your customers with, you need to hold their attention with beautiful graphics that are relatable to them.
- Accessible Customer Service
With your online shop serving as the representation of your store, it should also have impeccable customer service. Easily seen customer service tabs or chatbots help make your customers feel that assistance is within reach should they have any questions or special requests about your product.
- Secure Payment
The thing to remember about online shopping is that your customers are trusting you with their credit card information and shipping address. Earning this trust is vital in your business — after all, if customers cannot trust your website, it’s unlikely that they will buy from your e-commerce store.
Make sure that your payment gateway can protect both you and your customers from fraud. Get your developer to sign up for ways to secure your online storefront with SSL certificates, encrypted payment gateways and solid authentication protocols, to name a few.
Conclusion
The e-commerce industry has shifted from desktop to smartphone, but many business owners are still playing catch-up when it comes to getting their business ready for e-commerce. When Remember these five features in this article when evaluating your ecommerce website, and your ecommerce efforts will be rewarding.
