You already have your e-commerce site up and running, but how can you improve the visitor experience? How can you develop your site and make it more appealing, and keep visitors returning?
Investing some time in developing your e-commerce site will help you understand your visitors and customers that little bit more. It will also help you find direction for building and maintaining a positive reputation and brand.
Continue reading to find out how to improve the customer experience.
Start Thinking Like a Customer or Visitor
Your first task is to start thinking like a customer or visitor: look at your e-commerce site with fresh eyes; think about what you would see as a first-time visitor; consider what is appealing and eye-catching; and think about what is turning you away.
Customers and visitors of your e-commerce site want to have a memorable experience and visit (for all the right reasons), so ensure they are able to browse your site freely (with minimal ads and pop-ups as these can be frustrating). Also, make sure they feel secure and safe, especially if you want to convert visitors into sales.
Think about what you like to see when you visit and use an e-commerce site and try to replicate this where you can.
Focus on What Happens Behind the Scenes
Once you have seen what your customers and visitors want it is time to focus on what is happening behind the scenes: developing your e-commerce site into one that runs smoothly and efficiently behind the scenes too should be a high priority, and therefore looking at how often you manage your site and how you monitor and maintain your stock and inventory is crucial.
If you are selling across multiple channels you will need multichannel inventory management. If you are selling products or services on your site then make sure that prices, images, and descriptions are up-to-date and accurate. Also, look at how you monitor visitors and what measures you have to keep them safe. Scams are getting more sophisticated all the time, so ensure the backend of your e-commerce site is safe and secure in order to protect your customers and visitors as much as you can.
Committing a regular amount of time to running and maintaining your e-commerce site will be essential, and you will need to block out a specific time each day or each week.
Create a Development Plan
When you are running and maintaining an e-commerce site it is important that you remain fresh, and to make sure this happens you need to create a development plan. A plan will lay out what you will be doing, when, and why. For example, it may show you that you need to introduce new products and services to your site within the next 12 months in order to retain customers’ interest; or your development plan may focus on your website; that is, building links and partnerships with others to help foster and build a positive reputation.
You must always try and give visitors and customers a reason to return to your e-commerce site. You must offer them a unique experience, or you must provide them with added value. Consistently developing your e-commerce site and improving it will require you to reach out for feedback (and take it on board).
