E-Commerce

What Makes a Good E-Commerce Website?

Your website is a selling tool, ok we know that! Is your website a good showpiece for your products or services? Can you imagine John Lewis stores not cleaning the front windows and organising the displays? Of course you can’t – because they are professional retailers. Their website is treated with the same reverence – hence it is very successful.

From a web perspective, you may have many number 1 positions in the search engines, but are not converting that traffic into sales – sound familiar? So let’s look at how we can turn that around.

Know What Your Customers Want

A fundamental rule in any retail business is that you provide what the people want – NOT what you want to sell. In a web application, most searchers know what they want, so make sure that they can get to your products and services quickly – more clicks equals lower conversion rate!

A guide to keeping it simple:

■Make sure the navigation is easy to follow;
■Categorise your products in a logical fashion;
■Ensure your prices are clearly marked;
■If necessary, include extra functionality, for example:
■Site / product search
■Quotation calculator
■Ability to view colours
■Make certain that the checkout process is simple
■Use as established payment system on a secure server

Display the right information

All your product information – colours, available sizes, dimensions etc. will be stored in a database. When a potential customer views your product on the website, you will have already decided (with the developer) what information will be displayed. Remember, don’t make them click elsewhere – it may be to a competitor.

Managing an E-Commerce Site

It is important that you have full control of your website after it has been built. You may wish to:

■Show products as “out of stock”
■Add new product lines
■Create special offers
■Change prices

Whatever your needs, you will need a Content management System (CMS) to manage the website. Be careful not to get locked in with one developer, they may seem reasonable in the beginning, but funnily, prices escalate when you want changes made once you are locked in!

A good developer will build a customised CMS system which is invariably far more simple to operate than an off the shelf product. There are also many free solutions out there.

Ask us how we can help you along this journey.