Ecommerce Website Design: The Biggest Problems to Fix

Lately, e-commerce website businesses have registered huge revenue and success. It is predicted that this trend will continue and even get bigger in the following years. Therefore, it is no surprise that such types of businesses pop up at the speed of sound. But, when putting your thought into developing e-commerce websites you need to consider that there are several problems that you need to approach to make your website effective, functional and reachable.

Showcasing a wide range of products is not enough to make your ecommerce boost. A lot of problems can be avoided with more careful consideration, research and planning.

Here are some of the biggest problems that every ecommerce development company may encounter:

Lack of shipping and return information

As your customer, I want to know what my options are in case I am not satisfied with the product I have bought from you. Therefore, adding shipping and return information can make me decide whether to proceed with my purchase, if the information is detailed and clear enough, or simply go find another platform that offers the same products, in case your website doesn’t give the information I am looking for.

Short product description

When shopping in a store, you have the chance to feel the product, to examine it from all sides, to read the label and other information that is written on the packages, if the product comes in a package. Online shopping doesn’t give you such opportunity.

Therefore, you need to make sure that all customers’ questions about every product showcased on your ecommerce site are answered. Such information as sizes, material, weight, dimensions is important for product description.

Few product images

If you are managing an online clothing or footwear store, this problem is what makes your customers leave the page before making any purchase. It is known that people tend to pay more attention to the visual elements, feeling more comfortable in making a shopping decision. That is why include more than one picture of the same item from different angles and even add shots of some special features of the product.

Few payment options

With the ecommerce business expanding so quickly, it is essential to make this option available to as many customers as possible. Don’t concentrate on adding payment options with PayPal account or credit card, such as Visa and Master Card only.

Think broader. There are people who don’t hold a credit card, but who are willing to buy a product from your website. Come with an option that will satisfy these customers’ needs too and make-shopping experience reachable to as many people as you can.

Lack of shipping rates

As your customer, I want to go to checkout, complete it and think that I will soon be holding the product I dreamt of for so long. If you say that for my territory, or for a certain product, special shipping rates apply and that they will be sent in a separate email, I will definitely lose interest in completing my purchase. There is no reason why shipping rates can’t be included on the website.

Confusing navigation

If the website doesn’t provide categories and subcategories of products, then site navigation is not effective. Think of a solution for this if you want to convert visitors into buyers and make navigation enjoyable and user-friendly for them to move around the site.

Shopping cart design problems

The shopping cart that your ecommerce website has must allow users to add more than one item, to revise the products they want to buy before checkout and make changes, if required. A preview of total amount to be paid, including shipping fees, will give them the feeling of security.

Conclusion

Ecommerce website design has come a long way. Now, there are thousands of such websites, with interactive design, using different approaches and tricks to convert visitors into customers. If you take into consideration these basic problems that you can deal with when creating your own ecommerce platform, your business will avoid the unnecessary trouble of getting through multiple functionality fixing procedures.

What are other problems of ecommerce design that you know of? Share them with us in the comments section below.

Improve Customer Satisfaction by Tweaking Mobile

Mobile devices play an important role when we talk about how to improve customer satisfaction, as more and more people use them for searching info in Google and making purchases.

Recently studies confirmed that the number of people, using Google search on mobile devices is already greater than the number of people u sing Google search from their personal computers or laptops.

Mobile devices are the bridge between the real world and e-commerce online stores.

They allow customers to browse your website and read reviews, make purchases and use the help of your customer support agents while being in another part of the world in the convenience store or taking a ride in a bus.

Nevertheless, the way people are using their mobile devices to contact the customer support of the online store they want to make a purchase in is gradually changing.

And if you use it incorrectly now, when it's all about customer satisfaction, your conversion rate will plummet and you won’t get positive marketing.

In the majority of cases, when a customer requires help, he uses Live Chat, available on almost every e-commerce website. In case, he doesn’t find the answer he was looking for he calls the store.

Thus, one customer is now connected to two different customer support operators, taking twice more time and resources to resolve the issue. What is even worse, in some cases online stores have a different database for each channel of communication, which is why customer needs to fill out the form twice and the 2nd customer support operator knows nothing of the customer’s interaction with the first one.

This results in irritation of the customer, who is on the verge of quitting his attempts to reach customer support and convert. Moreover, he may even leave a bad feedback on forums or website, specific to your nature of business.

Proactive websites are now using new way to improve customer satisfaction, forcing customers to call and talk to a live operator. Thus, more meaningful relationship is formed, where customer will feel much less irritation, while calling because he’ll be hearing a polite and positive voice, asking for the details of his account and calling him by name.

Given the situation described above, proactive websites need to consider the following customer experience strategies for 2016 to have an edge over the competition.

Key drivers to improve customer satisfaction

Uniformity

Keep in mind that customers need their experience to be consistent. You can achieve it by giving operators from various channels of communication an option to see the information client provided on any channel. This will spare customer the trouble of entering the same information over and over again, as he moves around the communication channels, trying to solve the problem.

Updated Technology

We are living in the era of ever-evolving technology, which is why we already have the option to keep other customer support operators apprised if one of them is already on the line or in live chat with a client. This will help you to avoid spending twice as much resources on the same problem.

Better Database

You need to create one database, which will be accessible to customer Support Operators from all departments. Thus, voice operators and live chat operators will see all the account information and e-mail of the customer.

This will greatly facilitate the issue resolution and your customer support operators will be instantly able to have an intelligent conversation with the customer, knowing exactly who he is.

IVR technology


Interactive voice response (IVR) has been around for a while now. It can be successfully used for those customers, who use voice channels to get an answer. Clear understanding of the customer’s problem or desire, obtained via will allow you to redirect call to the operator, that is best suited for answering it.

Use mobile apps to avoid data sharing

At the moment, there exist a lot of apps, using which client provides personal details to get easier access to the accounts or profiles that he needs. These are great tools to improve customer satisfaction. You can also make use of this apps, integrating them in your customer support system.

Thus, all the customer’s information will be immediately passed to the customer support operator, while the customer himself will only have to push one button to contact your company. Just imagine how pleasantly surprised he will be, when he hears: “ How do you do, Mr. Johns? May I help you with anything today?” instead of “please provide your order number”.

These are some of the simple ways to improve customer satisfaction with minimal expense. Implement them and soon you will be pleased to see great results.

Email Personalization Practices to Boost Conversion Rate

Convert more customers

Every internet user like personalization. If so, why not to use Email Personalization to boost click rate, hence make more profit.

Recent studies reported that only 5% of companies do use email personalization, while 94% of them stated that it's critical for their business.

Let's make use of personalized marketing to get customers to buy our products. How? Read further to find out.

Initially, we all had funny-sounding e-mails that were very similar to our usernames. However, we can’t be young and reckless our entire life, which is why the majority of us changes e-mails and the reasons for change can be very different.

Some people deem necessary to change their e-mails for work, so that they sound more professional, others do it just cause they don’t like the previous childish one. E-mail has become the integral part of our digital life. Practically, every website and service requires you to sing up or login, using your valid e-mail.

Therefore, it is only natural that due to the general change in the role of the e-mail, marketing strategies, connected to the e-mails were also bound to change. No matter whether you are a startup or have a well-established business, the huge impact of successful email marketing strategy cannot be underestimated, especially if we’re talking about the conversion rate.

Just imagine how embarrassing it will be to have the necessity to explain everyone that you’ve lost customers because you’ve ignored the new trends in e-mail marketing. People like to be treated personally and that is the main feature that marketologists need to exploit.

1. Personalized e-mails are the key for building strong ties with your clients

Always keep in mind that not all e-mails in marketing are directed on profit generation. If you see that a user has signed-up for updates, it means he finds the information on your website to be valuable, but not because you cram advertisement in it.

E-mails with notifications about useful content, unrelated to sales can help you build trusting relationships with your clients. You need to analyze what they like and send them the information accordingly.

If they see that you aren’t just pushing your products or services, but instead care about their preferences and want to supply something useful free of charge, they will be much more inclined to read those of your e-mails that do contain sales-related info.

Let’s see an example: you have a car dealership and also a blog related to automobiles, where you upload interesting info and news. If you send all your users info or updates regarding both of them – some of them will most likely unsubscribe, because the 2nd part of the e-mail will not be interesting for them. Some of the users just want to read your blog and will gladly find out if you have any updates, new articles and so on.

Other part of the users are only interested in cars and are awaiting news regarding new models that are expected to be in stock in your dealership. Therefore, it is crucial to divide these two categories and send them e-mails of the separate nature. Eventually both categories will browse your blog and dealership website and generate traffic.

2. A couple of personalized e-mails a week can secure a lot of long term clients;

Some companies believe that constant daily notifications for their clients will generate sales. However, they couldn’t be more wrong. Daily e-mails can actually be a way to get yourself unsubscribed from. It’s simply too much. No one wants to receive daily e-mails from a business, it’s annoying and utterly unnecessary. E-mails like this are often marked as spam. One or two e-mails per week will be more than enough.

You simply need to make sure that they are qualitative and provide useful information. Content you include in your e-mails must be intriguing, not just sales-related. For instance, if you have a big sale coming up – don’t send your customers the remainders every day. One e-mail before the sale starts and one, while it’s in progress will be more than enough. These sales notifications must be a pleasant surprise, not a tiresome nuisance.

3. Personal follow-up e-mails must be sent out at the right time 

Follow-up e-mails are a great way to return users to the website or re-ignite their interest, especially if they couldn’t accomplish the purchase because they’ve experienced problem in the shopping cart

section. Nevertheless, timing of such e-mails must be thoroughly studied.

For example, in case user intends to buy an item, but had a problem and abandoned the page – quick follow-up e-mail can return him to the page.

But, if the follow-up e-mail is sent right after your journey ended, or you got out of the theater and the company that sold you tickets instantly asks if everything was up to your liking.

You didn't have the time to collect your thoughts after the experience and yet you need to reply. Such e-mails are perceived as a nuisance and cannot be regarded as something positive.

As a part of internet marketing, Email Personalization is indeed a great way to get your customers engaged in what you sell or do. Pay attention to data about your users you can collect and how you can make use of it. Don't delay too much. Start today to send personalized emails: it's simpler and easier than you can imagine.