10 E-Commerce User Friendly Selling Tips

Whether you have a traditional, free standing retail store with an online site to support it or just an e-commerce store, the tips below can help increase how long customers stay on your website, support sales growth, and improve the overall design of your e-commerce website. As a result, you should see more returning customers and more sales. This is, of course, the goal… Right?

User Friendly Selling Tips

1. Don’t use animation in your home page. It slows down the page and some shoppers lose patience when waiting for animation to finish loading and doing it’s thing.

2. Show new products, sale products, or featured products on the home page. This will offer a sneak peak at some of the exciting things you have for sale. Change this often, though! That is key to keeping returning customers returning!

3. All products for sale should be within 2 or 3 clicks from the home page. Don’t make your customers get “lost” on your site or have them work too hard to find what they are looking for. Make it easy.

4. Support all products with an accessible, visible “buy” or “add to cart” button. By offering a buy or add to cart button next to each item, customers won’t lose their urge to shop by the frustration of having to find out how to shop.

5. Offer a great search option on your site. Customers who know what they want can quickly type in what they are looking for. Customers who don’t know exactly what they want can type in key words. This is a win for everyone. In a sense, it’s your own personal store associate directing your customer to what they want!

6. Never, and I stress this, NEVER make customers register to shop to buy an item on your site. This will lose customers, period. I don’t care if you want more names for your mailing list - get over it and move on.

7. Give payment options. Visa, mastercard, PayPal, money order. Online merchants offer a variety of solutions for easy online payments. Make sure you offer more than one.

8. List any costs associated with purchases clearly. This includes tax, shipping, and anything else that you may need to charge your customer. Do not have hidden fees EVER. In addition, list all details pertaining to your privacy policy and security for purchases made.

9. Avoid a long checkout process. By eliminating mandatory registration, tihs will certainly help. In addition, summarize the details you need in a concise, clear, professional fashion.

10. When the deal is closed, give back to your  customers by offering a coupon or incentive for their next purchase. And of course, thank them for their recent purchase!

Finally, remember to update your site often. This includes highlighting products on your home page, changing prices to accomodate sales, and incorporating new, user friendly features that will keep your customers happy.

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