Why Opt for an eCommerce Platform?
In August of 1994, Dan Kohn sold a Sting CD online for $12.48 plus shipping. This marked the first legitimate online transaction and marked the genesis of an eCommerce movement that has taken over the global economy.
In the modern world of online shopping we can order anything we desire at the touch of a button, a fact that has led to the decline of many brick and mortar businesses and the huge success of online retailers like Amazon, a business boasting a massive net profit of $1.86 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017.
The overwhelming dominance of online shops in every industry shows the extreme importance for every business to have an ecommerce platform, but what goes into making a successful one? Simplicity. Studies show that 55% of people spend less than 15 seconds on a website.
This means that lowering the barriers and time it takes for users to get to your products is essential. The eCommerce website development professionals here at Border7 have compiled a list of helpful design tips and tools to start simplifying your complicated eCommerce store.
Design Tips for Navigation Ease
The best ecommerce sites are intuitive, functional, and beautiful. Having a large and clunky eCommerce store can take a long time to load, and if your viewers are left waiting for more than 3 seconds about 57% of them will leave.
Here are some easy to implement ecommerce solutions to lower bounce rates and expedite conversions.
Familiar Design Elements & Intuitive Layout: While you want your store to stand out, all ecommerce web designers know that having an easy to use and intuitive layout is king. Having common design elements like tabs across the site top, a left hand menu, and a navigation bar across the bottom can help consumers recognize where they are immediately and set them closer to reaching your product. Throw out the clever and flashy designs for something conventional and extremely quick.
Optimized Navigation: Making the headings of your site descriptive and distinct is important for making site navigation meaningful after just a quick glance. Once your customers get to your product you want them to understand what your selling quickly, therefore ensure your text and product description is scannable. By breaking up your text into chunks and adding subheadings you can instantly make your website easier to read and understand.
Tools to Simplify Your eCommerce Efforts
You want your customers to get to your products as fast as possible, this is done through site design as well as through social media marketing, online shopping automation, and SEO campaigns.
Instagram Shoppable Tags: A great tool for the single business owner to the largest ecommerce agencies is the relatively new feature of Instagram Shoppable Tags. This provides quick information about any product you post a photo of; just click the photo and a bubble containing the product name and price appears. This tag then links the viewer directly to the product page on your site.
Increased Use of Automation: A great way to get potential buyers directly to your products is sending emails of new product launches and putting out updates on new deals. Websites like MailChimp can help you automate the emailing process and set up a sending schedule. Another way to automate your eCommerce process is through tactics like Single Click Payments. This can give the user to ability to buy another product without entering payment information, this ecommerce solution has proved extremely successful for companies like Amazon.
SEO: Having the easiest to navigate shop ever won’t do you any good if people don’t know it exists. Having a site that is optimized for functionality and search engines is essential to begin showing up for search results. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves filling your site with keyword-focused content, optimizing pages, and implementing a variety of techniques that allow your site to rank higher on websites like Google and Bing.
Overall, the most effective eCommerce solutions are the ones that make your shop scannable, easy to navigate, and lets your customers go through a series of simple steps to make the complex decision on what to purchase.
There is a lot that goes into ecommerce website development, but the effort put into optimizing and simplifying your eCommerce store can yield an amazing return on investment.
Border7 has a team of experienced designers in eCommerce website development that can turn your shop into a simple, functional, and beautiful conversion-making machine.
