In the rapid development of e-Commerce and the constant introduction of technological innovations, it has become crucial for online businesses to keep up with the latest trends and technologies. To be successful, online sellers need to regularly analyze their tools, identify errors and make improvements. Any online business owner may need help in making smart decisions and taking their business to the next level. Even if you outsource software development and testing to remote professionals, you need to understand the key aspects and trends directly.
The following are the key aspects to look out for when choosing a strong strategy to improve your online business in the face of constant competition.
Try navigation in a simple user’s way
To make a purchase on a website, users must be able to easily find what they need. It sounds very obvious and simple, but in reality it is often not so. To understand your customers, consider the customer’s journey from landing on your resource to making a purchase. Was it easy? You found what you were looking for? Do you have enough information about the product? Ask yourself dozens more questions, the answers to which will definitely improve the navigation of your site.
Many online business owners recommend testing sites quite often, and the more often, the more pages of products and services can be added and promoted. This can help you make improvements based on the feedback you receive. Improved navigation boosts the user experience and motivates users to make their next purchase. It’s not always necessary to have your own testing team to make sure your e-Commerce site is working correctly. The need for outsourcing testing is not always obvious until the online store begins to lose millions. It is better to take care of this issue in advance and attract the QA specialists in the field of e-Commerce testing for a specific purpose. This is definitely cheaper than potential site issues and will allow the remote testing team to focus without being distracted by other potential issues.
Check site speed
Today’s online consumers don’t accept e-Commerce sites whose pages take too long to load. Imagine that, according to statistics, every fourth user will leave a site that takes more than four seconds to load, and a delay of one second reduces customer satisfaction by 16%. With numbers like these, it’s clear that no matter how much traffic a website attracts, without the right speed it won’t generate sales.
Plan advertisement campaign
Constant work on advertising for online stores is required to increase sales. Analyzing customer experience data is essential to better understand new customers. How and why they come to you, what they are looking for, what else they might need, why they leave the site, why they don’t pay, etc. This information will help you predict user behavior, correct errors and wisely plan your advertising budget and new activities. Find where site visitors stay the longest—product pages, blogs, customer comments—to understand what they like and improve it. Understanding customer behavior will help you understand where you can meet new customers and which tools are best to use.
Product images and description
Product images are extremely important in e-Commerce. In offline stores, customers can see and touch products, but in online images are the most powerful tool in making purchasing decisions. High-quality images with the ability to zoom, 360-degree rotation and 3D tours inspire trust and interest among buyers. When posting photos on site, don’t forget about the speed factor. Even if the images are great, if they take too long to load, customers may leave.
A manufacturer’s product description can be so boring and uninteresting that it causes people to scroll past it. It is better if you explain the benefits of the product in simple words, its composition, functionality and application technique if required. Take advantage of the opportunity to fully demonstrate your product when a customer is already on the site.
Website content and design should complement each other and together form part of a comprehensive e-Commerce test strategy.
Checkout process
Making the purchase easy for the buyer is of paramount importance. If there are many obstacles during the checkout process, customers will leave the store. If there are multiple steps to follow, give clear instructions. You should provide the opportunity to pay for purchases in different ways: in addition to Visa and MasterCard, consider payment systems such as PayPal, ApplePay, Stripe, Payer, Skrill etc. This will increase the possibility to pay more clients, which will result in more sales.
The Baymard Institute calculates that the average abandonment rate for online shopping carts, no matter how simple they may seem, is 68.06%. This figure is based on 44 different studies containing statistics on e-Commerce shopping cart abandonment. To make sure the checkout process works perfectly, you may need to hire experts to test your site.
The key is to track abandoned carts and resolve the issue. You can set up special software to send reminder emails about your purchases. In such cases, additional discounts or a purchase deadline can become a motivating factor.
Upselling and cross-selling
It is worth continuing contact even after the customer has completed the purchase. It took a lot of effort to attract a client and in the future it will be easier for you to work with such a client because he has already had a positive experience. Introduce sales, limited offers, discount coupons or personal offers. Customers should be aware of similar or complementary products and what additional items can be purchased as part of the package. Improving up-selling and cross-selling can often be accomplished without any software changes. If minor software changes are required, outsourcing development may be considered.
Shopping from mobile devices
This may or may not be a top priority, but it should be considered a top priority for e-Commerce companies. Today, a successful e-Commerce business not only needs a responsive website, but also the ability to make purchases on smartphones and tablets. Already, about 50% of online purchases are made on mobile devices, and mobile optimization increases sales. After analyzing the sales market, we can come to the conclusion that the majority of users in certain regions make online purchases exclusively from mobile devices. Therefore, it is worth paying more attention to this potential source of customers. And don’t forget to analyze the target market, because it may be that your clients are waiting for you on another platform.