The question was recently posed to me: What are the mandatories; the absolute basics I need in place for my online store? What is the base platform I need to work from to make my online retail offering a success? With the Australian eCommerce market tipped to reach almost $38bn by 2013, and growth in eCommerce estimated to grow by 12% across 2012 alone, Australian retailers must create compelling online shopping experiences to capture that market.
The 10 guidelines below (plus an extra section ‘beyond the basics’) will ensure the online experience you provide to customers generates sales, as well as enticing shoppers to keep returning to your store.
Getting to the store
You can have the best shop on the Internet – but the Internet is pretty big, and there’s no value in the best shop if nobody is shopping there. Think about getting that key corner position on Collins street, a big shop front in the middle of Chapel street, or a store nestled in the Pitt Street or Rundle Malls – what is the equivalent online? Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
Get to know and love keywords. Look for keywords that both represent your brand and offering, will perform well, and don’t just mimic the keywords your competitors are targeting.
How much is it?
List the price of all goods clearly upfront. If you are bundling items into packages, or providing different costs for services, make the total cost clear. It seems obvious, but don’t make users do the maths themselves – they’ll wonder what you’re trying to hide.
Touch it, feel it (well, as close to)
Let users really see what they’re going to be buying. Put as much into this as you can. If you’re selling a physical product, provide the closest experience to actually touching the thing that you can. Different angles, the ability to zoom in, video footage, detailed specifications (this model is wearing a size 10; the length is 70cm from neck to hem; the book is 324 pages; the toaster slots are 4cm wide) and analogous comparisons to make the item seem more real (the lamp is as tall as a bottle of wine; the wallet is sized like a deck of cards) all get the user closer to making a purchase decision.
If you’re selling a service, the challenge shifts. Design the information around the service for digital telling. Tables, flow diagrams, bulleted lists of features, and graphs all help to tell the story better than dense text. Even better, provide video explanations, tutorials, testimonials – anything that brings your service offering to life.
Regardless of what you’re selling, you need to give people the confidence that they know what they’re buying.
Find it
Shops have lots of things in them, and a bricks and mortar offering is great for browsing these things. This becomes a significant challenge when the store is shrunk to the size of a computer or mobile screen. You need to provide a crystal clear search, sort as well as filter options, and top notch classifications to ensure shoppers can find what they’re after in your online store.
Also consider how best to recreate a browsing experience for those shoppers who are unsure about what they want. Consider grouping products into less traditional categories (For my Boyfriend; Action and Adventure; Homemade Market Feel; Big Night Out) and curate product offerings into easily digestible chunks. Top rated, most popular, recently added, and most viewed are also useful ways to sort through products.
Clear calls to action
Your customer has found what they want to purchase – but is it easy for them to do so? Provide strong calls to action for your users – first among them a ‘buy now’; ‘add to bag’ or similar instruction (don’t forget to use active language!) But what if they’re not ready to purchase? Don’t lose your customer. Include clear options to speak to customer services; compare products; view related or similar products; or discover where they can get it in store. Remember, many users research products online, before heading to the store to purchase it.
Seamless shopping
Don’t push users onto a separate ‘shopping cart’ page when they add items. Allow them to add items smoothly and seamlessly as they shop. Let the shopping proceed unhindered without forcing users to peer deeply into their shopping bag every time they add something to it, and they’re likely to buy more.
Manage expectations
Provide information on delivery, returns, costs, and timeframes upfront. Don’t make users hunt for that information. Confidence and trust in your brand will increase as a direct result of users being able to see what they’re ‘getting themselves in for’ before entering their credit card details. Even better, make it simple and clear before they hit the checkout button, ensuring the primary process of checking out is not slowed down by providing that detail.
Throw up barriers, lose sales
Don’t put up any barriers to users checking out. I know you want their information, but get the sale, impress that user, and they’ll want to give over their details to ensure transactions go more quickly with you in the future. Allow users to continue through the transaction process without signing up. Don’t even force them to choose between signing up and continuing as a guest. Ask for the bare amount of information you need to complete the sale, when you need it. At the end, offer for users to save the details they’ve just inputted to allow a quicker process next time around.
Think the checkout experience you’re providing now is good? Watch this video and it may make you think again…
Provide peace of mind
Ensure contact with your customer doesn’t end as soon as they type in their credit card number or sign in to PayPal. Provide a clear confirmation on your website that you have received the order; then follow it up with an email confirmation. The email should confirm the items the user has purchased, the total cost, and should reaffirm details on delivery (method and timeframe), returns, and other policies.
Make it mobile
In 2011 53% of Australian smartphone users searched for products on their devices, with 26% going on to make a purchase. Don’t provide a mobile optimised version of your website at your peril. Whilst shopping on a mobile is still primarily centered around research over purchase, if your offering cannot be viewed on a mobile screen (this includes tablets) shoppers are certain to take their custom elsewhere.
Beyond the basics
57% of Australians are searching the Internet for something to buy
at least once a week. How do you ensure they’re buying from you rather than the competition – because chances are your competitors are doing everything I’ve listed above, and more.
Target your offering to customers – provide personalised recommendations for items that may interest them. Create compelling content around what you’re selling, and curate products and services into niche offerings that are supported by that content. Go to where your customers are – social networks. Engage with them socially, and sell to them direct from platforms such as Facebook. Create strong ties between your offline and online presence – create a seamless experience across your selling properties to give customers the flexibility they need.
The list goes on, but consider who your customers are, where they are, what they want, and sell to them accordingly. Keep your customers front of mind, make your decisions for them, and make your online retail offering a success.