In this day and age, e-commerce is taking over the online world. According to Statista.com, in 2020, over 2 billion people purchased goods or services online. During the same year, e-retail sales surpassed 4.2 trillion U.S. dollars worldwide. If you want your e-commerce website to be successful, there are several factors you need to consider that contribute to running a successful online business.
We put together this list to help ensure you have everything you need for your e-commerce website. Here are 11 essential features you can use on your e-commerce website.
1. Product Recommendations
Showing customers other products related to their previous purchase and search history is a great way to get your customers to keep coming back. Also, show your customers related products to the ones they currently have their eye on. These are both great tactics to increase future sales. This can also improve your customer’s loyalty to your brand.
2. Customer Login
Having a customer login is one of the most important features you can add to your e-commerce website. With window shopping becoming more and more popular these days, giving your customers the ability to save their items for later is a huge bonus that they will appreciate.
Giving them a wishlist option is also another great way to get your customers to come back to your site over and over again. Another great perk of giving your customers a login is personalized recommendations. Being able to see your customers shopping history is a great way to give them even more personalized recommendations.
3. Calls to Action
Calls to action are another very important feature to include on your website to ensure users take the actions you want them to. Buttons like “add to cart” and “shop now” direct your customers’ actions in a positive way. These simple additions can influence your business’ growth in a major way.
4. Product Filtering and Sorting
Finding products on any website, especially one with hundreds of products, can be difficult and time-consuming. Having a product filtering and sorting feature on your website will make your customer’s shopping experience much easier and smoother. Being able to filter by product type, color, size, etc. will make your website easy to navigate and will give your customers a reason to leave a positive review.
5. Customer Reviews
Speaking of reviews, having a section on your website dedicated to reviews from your customers is always a plus. This will make the shopping experience for potential new customers easier. Being able to see what other consumers have to say about a product or service can greatly influence new customers to purchase that product as well. Including reviews on the product page is a great way to inform buyers about the product from other happy customers.
6. FAQ Page
Customers have a lot of questions when it comes to shopping online. Buying online can be a tricky business when consumers aren’t able to hold the product in their hands. Having an FAQ page can help get your customers’ questions answered quickly and easily. This way they’ll be less likely to have to reach out to your customer service directly, which can have a longer response time.
7. Contact Information
A contact information page is also another extremely helpful aspect to have on your e-commerce site. Having all of your information on one page makes getting in touch with your business extremely easy. This way customers can see all of your contact methods and choose the one that best suits them.
8. Mobile Friendly
With buying online becoming more popular year by year, most consumers are purchasing products directly from their mobile devices. Having a website that is mobile-friendly is vital to ensuring your customers have a pleasant experience when visiting your site.
According to Business Insider, smartphones have become the driving force behind mobile commerce growth. US volume is expected to increase from $128.4 billion in 2019 to $418.9 billion through 2024.
9. Fast Loading Site
A fast-loading site is one of the most important features you need to include on your website. This goes for every website, but especially e-commerce. If your website has a slow load speed, it’s more than likely that your customer will switch over to another site to purchase a similar product. Consumers already have websites in mind that are fast loading, so make sure that yours is on that list
10. Payment Icons
These days there are so many different ways to pay while you’re online shopping. Having icons of all the payment methods you accept located at the bottom of your website can be extremely helpful for your consumers. This way they can see the accepted payment methods before the checkout process. This is super convenient and stops the unnecessary back and forth between product pages and the checkout process.
11. Security Information / Trust Signals
Buying online can have a lot of your customers worried about their payment information is being secure. Putting trust signals on your sites such as your security system’s emblem and an “HTTPS” URL helps let the buyer know your site is safe to use. Also including some information about your site security on your “About Us” page is another way to prove your site is secure.
There are so many ways to improve your e-commerce website, the list could go on forever! With these 11 essential features, you will be off to a great start for your business.
Check out some of our e-commerce clients here!
Looking to start your e-commerce website? Look no further! Give us a call at (801) 890-3839 or email us at info@webaholics.co to get started.
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