As all of us already know that how important is ecommerce to your business so here in this post we are not going to discuss about that. What we are here is to discuss features, design and layouts which can add more value to your e-commerce store.
There are no fixed features and design defined which guarantees the success of an e-store, but several essentials are there which should not be ignored while creating an online store.
So here we are – with some desirable features to increase the usability of your e-commerce store :
Business Logo
While shopping online, most of the time both the parties (Customer and the store owner) are unknown to each other. At that time what make customers to shop from there is Trust. Now the question is from where that trust come from? Its your logo that creates your identity and make others trust in your services. Hence it’s a good practice to keep your brand logo at the home page of your e-commerce store to make your identity clear in front of your customers.
Hot Deals & Discounts
To make people shop from your e-store, it’s must to keep them engaged otherwise what they will do, they just leave your store and will go to some other online stores. To make people stay, it’s must to have a home page with attractive deal banners as discounts and deals are what that attracts them more and make them to shop.
So, discounts and deals are usually the first things that visitors look for, hence to make your online store usable keep such kind of deals at the home page of your website.
New & Popular Products
Homepage is the best place to house new and popular products of your store as buyers are not supposed to browse your website for an hour or two just to search for the new products added in your store.
Branded Products
You have an e-store with lots of products, so it is practically impossible to show all of them on your website’s homepage. Your store can have many kind of customers, some may be looking for discounted products and other may be for branded one. So, better to keep a category display of branded products available at your e-store at the landing page of your website as this can help you to grab the attention of potential buyers.
Shopping Cart & Search Box
Shopping Cart : It’s almost practically impossible to establish an online store without a shopping cart functionality and it’s must to have a shopping-cart icon at the homepage of your e-commerce website as this can help buyers to shop easily.
Search Box : While dealing with a large e-store with lots of goods, it’s must to have a search box. Search box helps customers to locate the specific products they are looking for.
Payment Mode Icons
An e-commerce website can have customers from all over the World and hence there can be a possibility that payment methods have some technical limitations. So, it’s always better to keep the icons of the modes of payments you accept either at the footer or at the header of your website’s homepage.
Social Media Usage
People are inclined to take in public opinion and social media websites are one of the best sources nowadays to get the info you need about anything. Also, social media accounts provide a wonderful platform for self-promotion. Hence for e-store, it’s a good platform to promote their products and keeping their customers up-to-date with hot deals.
Customer Support : Contact Number & Live Chats
While managing an e-store, there is a need to provide round-the-clock, pre-sale and after-sale support because when there is a problem or query, customers would more likely prefer to have someone they can talk with.
Store Locater
Some customers prefer to shop from the online store nearer to their place or located within their city. Hence it’s must to have a store locater tab on the homepage of your e-commerce website. It will be better to have a special store locater tab where customers can search actual store with Country and City.
Customer’s Trust
Visitors would be more inclined to make a purchase if they know that their payment details are in safe hands and this can be done only by gaining their trust. Websites are supposed to clear a security test to show their authenticity so that visitors can trust them. Some of these trust-makers are Network Solutions, clear design, detailed description of products and user reviews. Trust really plays a very important role in a customer’s zeal to shop.
We hope that the above tips will help you to make your e-commerce store more usable and interactive for website’s visitors and hence increase its profitability.
If you have some more ideas that would be helpful, be sure to leave them in the comments section below.
About the author
Rohit Singhal, a marketing pro working with PixelCrayons, a renowned web development company having a specialized division for ecommerce website development . You can follow PixelCrayons on Twitter.