Get The Best Results From Your E-Commerce Website

As more and more businesses create and broaden an internet presence, the number of e-commerce sites is on the rise as well. It only makes sense, considering how many people shop online these days. Putting up an online business website is just common sense for anyone with a product to offer, since most shoppers these days look to the internet first rather than last. Success in an endeavor such as this will only happen if attention is paid to creating a good website and then incorporating a purchasing capability as part of the design and function. This internet user shopping forum can indeed profit a company selling a product or service if customers can navigate through the shopping experience to the checkout page in as few steps as possible.

Navigation - Providing easy ways to shop is essential in order to make sales. Of course, many online retailers attempt to entice shoppers to their internet location and fail because navigation has not been given enough attention in the design process. Menus should be easy to find, easy to use, and lead to a product sales page within two clicks. Product descriptions, specifications and other information should be easy to locate as should other essential links such as a good search function, shipping information, FAQs, contact forms, etc. Users should be able to sign-up and login with ease, find information or products, easily manipulate an account and a shopping cart, and be provided with a means to have questions answered, either through an online search or a contact email. A frustrating shopping experience has a high risk of becoming an abandoned shopping cart.

Filtering and Searching - With so many sophisticated means to search and filter retail websites, customers are used to looking for certain items and then clicking away any unnecessary ones to rapidly narrow down selection lists. Keeping up with the many other business internet locations that now use such detailed search filter functions makes for a better customer shopping experience and lends credibility to a company that has taken the time to provide this modern and trendy feature; it does indeed provide the best service to shoppers. Additionally, this helps keep the number of menu links to a minimum since a category page can be reached and then any further searches narrowed down from that point. Being able to step back with one click is where these types of filters really shine.

Product Presentation - Having a fantastic website that works well and does everything an e-commerce presence should do can end up being worthless if the products are not presented well on each page. Photography in particular needs to be exceptional, with multiple clear, well-lit images of each piece of merchandise to prevent buyers from turning away because the item to be sold cannot be seen well enough to convince a shopper to make a purchase without ever touching it. All product, shipping and return information should be complete as well, leaving very little reason for a potential customer to make a final purchasing decision clearly and without any confusion. Between product information and images, shoppers should be able to feel confident in what is being bought, enough to the checkout and actually make conclude that transaction.

Overall Website Design - While there are a lot of important features on an e-commerce website, the overall design itself should not be ignored. It must fit the image of its company, be well laid out in regard to colors, fonts, white space and image use and be fully functional in all necessary ways as well. Even though it is a retail sales shop, it should still look like any other professionally made website that a company would present without shopping cart functionality.

Shopping Cart Security - Security today is a high priority for anyone wanting to start selling online, as customers have become more and more careful about being willing to provide banking or credit card information. The best way to earn and keep customers' trust in this instance is to stick with the tried, true and trusted financial and security options. This will not only make customers more comfortable with providing private information, it will increase belief that the selling company does indeed care about its customers and wants to conduct good and honest business with all potential buyers.

By creating an e-commerce website that provides services seen in the upper echelon of internet sellers such as Amazon, even companies new to online selling can do well. The less online hassles for customers to deal with typically means better sales and higher return rates. Then after creating a well built, efficient website, a seller's main responsibility is merely to live up to that sales promise with good products and offline service as well.