Have you recently built an e-commerce website? Setting it up can be easy, but to gain traffic, promote more products, and get customers to buy your product, you need to maintain and manage your website properly. Remember, e-commerce is competitive, so it’s important to put effort into managing and maintaining the website to guarantee success.
Not sure where to start? From choosing the best web designs to using social media to promote your e-commerce site, we’re here to help. Here are our top tips!
How to Manage An E-commerce Site
Keep Your Website Design Simple and Clutter-Free
The website design template you choose is key, as this will dictate the look and feel of your e-commerce site and how easy it is to maintain and update. Make a simple website with plain HTML, and maintain a consistent aesthetic on all your pages.
We recommend using an easy-to-read font and avoiding huge pictures on every page, which may slow load times and distract from clear focus points. Visitors should be drawn to calls to action and products – so keep things clutter-free if possible!
Use Simple and Easy to Understand Menus
Menus are the perfect way to stay organized and group what you’re selling. Keep them consistent and make them easy to navigate with links to Home, Categories, and Product Pages, ensuring they are all easy to find. This is key for user experience, but it’ll also help with those all-important conversions and sales.
Add a Search Bar
Adding a search bar is a simple yet effective way to make browsing easy for the customer. If users land on your homepage with a specific content, category, or product in mind, they might prefer to type it in rather than rely on click navigation. If you’re unsure, you can add a search feature and track user activity to determine whether your search bar is being utilized – you might be surprised how much it is!
Make the Most of Product Descriptions and Images
Remember that online shopping doesn’t have the same in-store experience. Shoppers can’t see or try your product in person, so they rely heavily on product imagery and descriptions. This is your chance to highlight the USPs of your product, so invest in clear product images with multiple views. Get creative with shoots and visuals – have some fun!
When it comes to descriptions, keep these short and snappy, but make sure they highlight the key attributes of the products. Many websites now use bullet points to make content more digestible, too.
Add Video Demos For Your Products
Another way to showcase your product is via video, which gives customers a real feel for what it might look like on and at all angles. Video and imagery help users quickly understand the product value, which is why more and more e-commerce sites are using this to sell.
Monitor Site Speed
Website maintenance includes testing your website’s site speed regularly and when you add new content, which could affect load speeds. This will help prevent customers from abandoning your site out of frustration, ultimately resulting in lost sales. We recommend monitoring them monthly and keeping an eye on them when new listings are added.
Simplify Your Checkout Process
Keeping the checkout process simple is key for ensuring customers don’t abandon their purchase. Many customers will give up at this stage if the checkout is long-winded – so ask for key details such as billing and shipping address and keep everything else to a minimum.
Allow Customers to Check Out As Guests
As we just mentioned, you’ll want customers to be able to check out as easily as possible, and offering a guest checkout can help with that. Rather than making customers create a profile, which may put them off, you can offer a quick guest alternative with more subtle sign-up features that don’t pressure them.
Accept Lots of Payment Options
A surefire way to ensure sales? Offering multiple payment options. Remember, not everyone uses Visa or Mastercard nowadays, so offer multiple card options and alternatives such as PayPal and Apple Pay. Everyone shops differently, after all!
Offer Coupons and Discounts
Offering coupons and discounts will help engage existing and new customers, offering them more incentive to buy. It also helps grow a repeat customer base since discounts and rewards can drive curiosity to keep returning to the website.
Offer Free Shipping/Next Day Delivery
Another effective incentive is to offer free shipping and/or next-day delivery, as expensive or slow delivery can drive customers away at the point of checkout. If customers know they can get free delivery, they’ll be more likely to return to you than your competitors. Win, win!
Create an Email Strategy For Cart Abandonment
Email marketing is key for growth and an important method for managing your e-commerce site. It allows you to reach a wider audience over time, build trust, and even reduce the number of people who abandon their carts.
When someone leaves your e-commerce site without carrying out their purchase, you can send them an automated email reminding them to return to their cart. You can even send them a discount to encourage them to complete their purchase.
Create a Content Marketing Strategy
Creating a content marketing strategy can also increase traffic and sales. To do this, it’s a good idea to start creating blog posts and guides you can push across different channels. It’ll help build a brand identity and make you more recognizable! Create a monthly plan for what you’ll focus on and talk about, but also be reactive.
Use Social Media to Promote Your Brand
Social media is a powerful tool to reach new people and create a brand identity. All channels have different benefits, but visual ones such as Instagram and TikTok have become increasingly popular for people searching for new products and brands.
Take your time to curate content for these channels and plan a social media schedule to guarantee success. Remember, tracking your engagement is key, so you can see what works and what doesn’t.
Clearly Display Your Security, Delivery, and Return Policy
Security, delivery, and returns policies are things customers care about, so it’s important to make them easy to find on-site. You could display them on your bottom navigation so they’re always surfaced and visible. Check out how your competitors do it!
Provide Accessible Customer Service
Not all purchases from your e-commerce website will succeed but don’t panic. Customers coming with queries and issues is only natural – the key is to be prepared and ensure it’s easy for them to get help.
It’s important to have a customer support service that is easy to access; popular services include phone, email, and live chat. Ensure staff are trained to efficiently handle many queries and requests, maintaining good customer service.
Collect User Reviews and Display Them On-Site
To bring credibility to your brand and encourage shoppers to trust you as the go-to destination, it’s important to showcase testimonials and reviews on your e-commerce site. After a customer shops with you, ask them to review their purchase via email. Don’t be afraid of a few negative reviews either, it’s all part of the process! It’s about the long game here.
Always Test, Measure Results, and Improve Your Store
To know if your store is getting the highest amount of conversions possible, we recommend running regular tests so you can understand what’s working – these are known as A/B tests. This will help you to measure which pages and products are performing and make tweaks that could boost your sales. Easy wins!
Conclusion
Setting up your e-commerce site might seem daunting, but if you follow these simple steps, you’ll be well on your way to creating a successful and lucrative venture – whilst having some fun. So get creative and enjoy your new venture!
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
1. How do I choose the right website design for my e-commerce site?
- Answer: When choosing a design, prioritize simplicity and consistency for an effective e-commerce website.
2. What payment options should I offer to boost sales?
- Answer: Offer various payment options, including credit cards, PayPal, and Apple Pay, to accommodate different customer preferences.
3. How can I encourage customers to complete their purchases after cart abandonment?
- Answer: Use email marketing to send reminders and discounts to customers who abandoned their carts.
4. Why is social media important for promoting my ecommerce brand?
- Answer: Social media platforms help you reach a wider audience and build a strong brand identity.
5. What should I do if I receive negative reviews on my e-commerce site?
- Answer: Embrace negative reviews as an opportunity for improvement and respond professionally to address customer concerns.