10 Golden Rules you cannot miss while designing an eCommerce website
The digital world is empowering with each passing day. It is overtaking the physical stores and shops and from an ‘extra’, it is turning into a necessity. Ease of access, quick delivery, customer reviews, quality and infinite product options with variable features and discounts on different brands are some of the options that are not readily available in physical stores.
If you are thinking about creating or updating your eCommerce website then these are the few rules that you need to focus upon :
Rule 1: Don’t force the visitor to signup/login
In a standard sales process first, you have to attract then offer. Well, the same law is applicable to eCommerce websites too. Never force the visitor to signup unless they wish to.
Rule 2. Product Reviews should be Genuine and Human Readable
Make sure that the product reviews and ratings are genuine. That will maintain the credibility of your platform. Most of the time the customers make a decision by ratings and reviews of the product. In this way, you will have to return customers and they will be trusting your platform.
Rule 3: Separate the ‘Out Of Stock’ and ‘Empty’ Category
Out of Stock should not be mixed with live products as it may annoy the buyer so you can be categorized that in a different section and add a punch like ‘ we will notify you when it is in our stock’ in email or on the website page. Well, this will not only motivate the buyer but also force them to register so as to receive the notification.
Rule 4: Product Delivery Date should be taken care of.
There are many sellers available who give the fastest delivery, sort those sellers accordingly. Provide the tentative date later than the actual date of delivery this will result in happy customers. This strategy is often followed by Flipkart.
Rule 5. Don’t delete Negative Reviews
No product is ‘perfect’ and it might happen that a user is not happy with the product and want to file a complaint about the product or delivery. It the responsibility of the eCommerce website to maintain the transparency of the product. At the same time make sure you have applied spam filters as well for the product review. Amazon is an ideal example.
Rule 6. Hassle Free Transaction Process
There are many payment gateways that will ask you multiple questions while payment. Keep that short and simple and with varied options to pay like e-wallets, EMI, cod, debit/ credit cards, gift cards etc.
Rule 7. HD pictures of the Product
Add a realistic picture of the product as possible. If there are color variants in the product then add that too.
Rule 8. Too many pop-ups will push them away from your website
‘Subscribe to the newsletters’, ‘ ‘offers of today’ or be it anything, pop-ups will anyway annoy the visitor of the eCommerce website. So act smart and keep the website simple, strategic, searchable and attractive.
According to the standard website strategies framed by google :
“Even if your pop-ups generate leads, you’ll be losing others by interrupting user sessions. The spammy nature of pop-ups isn’t exactly a confidence boost for consumers and can ultimately damage the brand reputation. “
Rule 9: Use Bread Crumbs and visual assistance.
Using a visual progress bar results in a ‘ happy customer’. They are able to understand better with a clear picture to track the status of the product. Usage of bread crumbs may help you with this.
Apart from that you can also use chatbots to provide instant help to the user. There could be a technical glitch during a transaction process and instant help may result in a happy and satisfied customer.
Rule 10: Technically Efficient: Easily Searchable, Low Page Load Time, High on SEO Ranking
This is the most important part and should be taken care of consistently. With the growing existence of eCommerce platform, there is a cut-throat competition in the market. ‘ Usability ‘ is given the highest priority while ranking the best website. So the developers should keep in mind the Page Load Time, SEO and Usability of the website. The users often leave the website if any of the criteria are not met.
There could be many other methods to make your site efficient like ‘ deals of the day‘, ‘ discount coupons’ exclusively on your website which may attract the customer. So step into the shoes of the customer, understand their psychology and create an innovative and intuitive website to boost your business growth!
