Great e-commerce websites don’t happen overnight. There’s a lot of details and features that need to be considered, which make the difference between a website that converts visitors into consumers and one that delivers a frustrating window shopping experience. For an e-commerce just starting out, there will usually be elements that will require tweaking once you begin to serve customers—no website is 100% perfect from the get go—but there are 9 things you can do to ensure the best start.
1. Use Large Product Images
All the best e-commerce sites use large images that show the product in the best light possible. Since online shopping takes away the joy of physically inspecting and handling merchandise, your website should recreate that experience as high-resolution as possible to satisfy your customers’ curiosity and entice their wallet.
Villebois - one of our latests projects – is a good example of the right use of images in a product page. Next to the product description, there’s a big photo of their slippers which thumbnails of the product from other angles for people to get the full picture of what to expect if they purchase them. When clicked on, visitors are able to see the full size version of the photo.
Here’s how to do it right:
- Get professional quality product photos.
- Showcase each product from various angles—front, sides, and back.
- Make images zoomable so that customers can appreciate all product details.
- Make sure the proportion of the images makes sense—having a pick-and-mix of image sizes does nothing to showcase your product.
- Consider the image’s background. A white background can be minimalist and clean, but natural, everyday backgrounds (e.g. a wooden bench, creased fabric, stone tiles) that show the product in the real world can be appealing too – just make sure it’s relevant!
- When it comes to product images, sometimes no background is your best option. You can easily remove an image’s background using Photoshop tools such as Lasso, Pen and Magic Wand, and for an even more accurate trim, you can use the function “pinch” in 1px.
- Don’t forget to optimize your images so that they don’t affect your website loading speed.
2. Include Detailed Product Descriptions
Customers don’t just want a nice looking product. They want to make sure that what they are buying will satisfy their needs, which is where product descriptions come into play. Having detailed, enticing descriptions shows an e-commerce site’s passion for its products, making customers more likely to buy.
The online shop of Oxwork is a great example of product descriptions done right. Being a work clothes shop, having complete and detailed descriptions of their product specifications is extremely important. This is why on every product page, you will find specifications such as material and sizing, and any certifications it might have for specific work environments.
Some product descriptions must-do:
- Include all important details about a product—weight, dimensions, material, available colors, sizes, age restrictions, etc…
- Highlight the product’s features and advantages, who they’ll benefit most (e.g. best for small apartment dwellers, perfect for gardeners).
- Be careful with adjectives – too many and you’ll sound cheesy and like you are trying too hard, too few and your description will read like a user manual. Try to balance the technicalities with just the right amount of flare for your particular product.
3. Have Clear Categories and Navigation
Categories make it easier for customers to locate the product they want to buy or at least narrow down their options if they are still window shopping. If you want your business to succeed there is absolutely no reason why you’d make it harder for your customers to make a purchase, so having well organized and easy to navigate categories is crucial.
The Les Petites example below is a great example of what categories should look like. On the left sidebar we have categories for the types of clothes (shirts, trousers, coats, accessories, etc…), while the size and color filters are displayed above the images once a category is selected.
Les Petites Online Shop
Here’s how to achieve a great navigation:
- Make sure your categories and subcategories are as organized as possible.
- A nice touch is to have categories that suggests items to customers and help them with their decision—for example, has categories like Gifts for Animal Lovers or Gifts for Couples.
4. Have a Useful Search Function
A search engine complements your website’s categories, but it can become confusing when it turns up lots of results that have nothing to do with the customer’s query. In some ways, having lots of different results can catch the attention of curious customers who just might click those items, but what about your serious buyer who already knows what he or she wants? These are the people the search function serves; the ones who know what they came to buy and don’t feel like sorting through the whole website to find what they need.
The search function for Prime Loops makes it incredibly easy to find any sounds you have in mind by not only having a predictive search input field where potential options display in a drop-down menu as you type, but also by having categories and filters for everything from label and genre, to price and popular items.
Prime Loops Search Results Page
Most of the CMSs have their own way of crawling content. For Magento the classification of results can be random, chronological or by relevance. For a Magento project like Prime Loops, we organized the search by assigning relevance points – a search term found in the title will be 10 times more important the one in the description. For example if you are looking for Bass (as in the example below). All titles that feature bass will have a weight of 10 and feature at the top of the search results; if it’s featured in the description then they get an additional point or two if written twice. If results are equally weighted, then most recent product will show up first in the search.
Ensure flawless search results:
- Know your CMS enough to be able to customise your own search function and prioritise the content you would like your user to see first.
- Include filters in your search results page to allow customers to refine their searches, and quickly find what they are looking for.
5. Simplify the Check-Out Process
Once customers are interested in your product and have clicked that Buy button, you’re in a delicate position to maintain their interest. If too many steps stand between their way and the check-out process, there’s the possibility they might suddenly change their mind. Obviously, you don’t want that. So make the check-out process breezy, smooth, and distraction-free as possible.
Villebois’ one-page checkout is as simple as checkouts get, while remaining perfectly functional. Once customers are done shopping, they just need to go to their cart, click “proceed to checkout” and enter their details. As simple as that.
Villebois One Page Checkout Process
Achieve the perfect check-out process:
- Keep the process short and sweet – combine pages into a single-page check-out if you can and use 2 column layouts (for example by placing shipping and billing information next to each other) to make it look shorter.
- Label input fields clearly to prevent misunderstanding addresses or accidentally checking the wrong boxes.
- Make sure customers have a confirmation page before and after the check-out to confirm they placed the right order.
6. Make Opening an Account to Check-out Optional
Opening an account on a website when you know you’ll be a frequent visitor and make repeated purchases is a great time saver and a great way of ensuring that customers get the best possible experience in the long term. However, forcing everybody to create an account before processing their order is probably the most annoying thing you can do to potential customers, not to mention an extra step they need to take before checking out and therefore another chance for them to abandon cart.
If you don’t want to risk losing business, Les Petites is again a great example of how account opening at check-out should be done. When you reach the check-out page after confirming your order, you can login to check out or fill in your contact information. After your order has been placed, you get the possibility to create an account using the information you already entered.
Les Petites Checkout
Customer account best practices:
- Give customers the option of creating an account after the order has been placed, by asking if they’d like to save their information for future purchases. This makes their life easier next time they visit and gives you the information you want without being disruptive of their shopping experience.
- If collecting information isn’t your main goal, give customers the option to check out as a guest.
- If customers opening an account is important for your business, make it as quick, easy and unobtrusive as possible. For example, by asking customers to create a password at the end of the checkout so that they can access their account with the email they entered before and see the status of their order.
7. Provide a Good Range of Payment Options
Nowadays, all good e-commerce sites offer an array of payment options to serve customers better. Yet some sites still have unnecessarily limited options (just credit card, but no PayPal for example), which is inconvenient for customers and can quickly prevent a sale from taking place. Now, this doesn’t mean that you should add every payment method known to man to your website just in case someone happens to want to use it. Be strategic and think about what your customers’ needs are and how they align with your business proposition. If you are a small local delivery service, you could run your business perfectly fine taking payment on delivery. If you are a multinational company selling products on the more expensive side, this wouldn’t work.
Being in China, we rely on VPNs for a lot of our online lives – both for work and for play – and I’ve always been impressed by Astrill‘s extensive payment methods. Considering their clients span the entire world, having any less options would be detrimental to their business. Not only do they offer online payment methods, but they take it offline too via bank transfers and they even accept BitCoin.
Astrill Accepted Payment Methods
Payment options must do:
- Offer as many payment options as it makes sense for your target customer – whether that is 2 or 10.
- Make it clear from the beginning of the shopping process what payments methods you accept. There’s nothing worse than getting to the last step of the checkout process only to find out you won’t be able to pay.
8. Make Contacting You a Breeze
One of the things that can make customers hesitant about buying from your e-commerce site is the absence of basic contact information. We all know how important contact forms are, and when it comes to online shopping, having the assurance that the store can be reached in case of any problems is crucial. Whether this means having a contact form, online chat, service hot-line or something else, making it easy to find and use is a must.
To prevent potential customers from feeling apprehensive about buying from the TEK Shanghai website, they ensured they had an easy to find, dedicated support page, an online chat and a contact page where people can find all of their contact information as well as a contact form to message them with any enquiries.
TEK Shanghai Contact Methods – Contact Page, Support and Live Chat
Here’s how to do contact the right way:
- Remember you’re competing with established brands whose trustworthiness is already proven – think Amazon or, if you are in the Chinese market, Tmall. If customers can verify through your contact details that your company is just as trustworthy as your competitors, they will respond positively.
- Integrate a live chat function if it makes sense for your business. It is a great way for your potential customers to get help clarifying any concerns they might have and hopefully encourage them to make a fully informed purchased rather than “sleep on it” and not make any purchases in the end.
- Having an FAQ page also goes a long way in putting customer concerns at ease, as do reliable testimonials.
9. Make Store Policies Clear
Just as with contact information, having store policies and clear terms and conditions for purchase adds another level of trustworthiness to your e-commerce site, giving customers much needed peace of mind regarding what to expect post-purchase. This avoids customers becoming frustrated if something isn’t as expected with the purchase but they weren’t aware of company policies, while at the same time saving the company hours wasted on unnecessary customer service.
Although it is an already established brand throughout Europe and the US, ASOS recently entered the Chinese market with their own Tmall store. In order to serve their customers better, they have a dedicated “Help Center” page reachable right from the main navigation, where they detail everything from pre-purchase must-knows and shopping guide, to returns & exchanges policies, contact details and after-sales service information.
ASOS Store Policy on Tmall
Perfect your website’s policies:
- Make everything clear in your store policy— warranties, exchanges, returns, refunds, time applicable, procedures, etc.
- A detailed store policy has to be easy-to-read and understand too, not full of technical jargon.
- Don’t bury the link to it in your footer written in a tiny font. Make it part of your checkout process or add it to your product pages.
10. Include A Store Locator (if you have a store)
Having a great e-commerce shouldn’t just increase website traffic, it should also be a way to increase foot traffic to your brick-and-mortar store too. Having a store locator does just that, allowing potential customers to visit your store to maybe look at your products before deciding on a purchase, which would clearly help you expand your business. Store locators can come in the form of a location page with address and contact information or as a search function within a location map, for example.
Villebois’ store locator comes in the form of the former. On their “Store location” page you can find the address, contact information and photo of their 2 locations – one in China, one in France.
Villebois Store Location
Here’s how you increase foot traffic through your website:
- Make sure the store location is easy to find – either on your contact page, footer, or on its own page with easy access from the navigation menu.
- Include at least your address and telephone number. Having store opening hours are a plus too!
- If you have multiple locations, include a map so that visitors can easy plan their routes to your store.
There you have them, the 10 small e-commerce tips you that will help your business be a success from day one. Following these best practices will ensure that your website in on the good rails, but this is only the beginning. Keep in mind though, this is just one aspect of e-commerce. With mobile shopping quickly rising to the top of the online shopping methods – particularly here in China – it’s extremely important that you take the time to figure out your mobile strategy too.
If you have any questions or have something to add, please leave us a comment below. Or if you are planning on setting up your own e-commerce business, give us a shout, we’d be happy to help!