13 Ways To Improve Online Shopping Experience And Increase Ecommerce Sales

The customer's happiness and satisfaction are directly proportional to the rising bank balance of the eCommerce store.

Customers are kings for every business. If the honorable kings are displeased and frustrated from your eCommerce store, your store will be soon out of business. Therefore, every business, physical and online, strives to please its consumers and provide them with the best shopping experience.

There are 1.8 million online stores in the United States of America and around 12 to 24 million eCommerce stores worldwide. If you fail to please your customers or make your customers angry, they will exit your website and turn to your competitors for shopping.

The competition in the online world has become like swimming in the sea full of hungry sharks. Your one mistake, and your competitors (hungry sharks) will grab and retain your potential customers.

Did you know that failure to provide excellent customer service by U.S companies results in a loss of $62 billion per annum?  Moreover, people share their shopping experiences in their social circle. One bad experience, and you will lose the customer forever.

But hey, you don’t have to worry!

If you are looking for tips to improve the online shopping experience for your customers and boost your eCommerce sales, congratulations, you have won a jackpot!

In today’s article, we have mentioned 13 ways that will enable you to work on your eCommerce sales strategy to improve the online shopping experience for your visitors and customers.

Let’s get started…

13 Ways To Improve Online Shopping Experience And Increase Ecommerce Sales

1. Make Your Website User-Friendly

Online shopping has gained immense popularity over traditional brick-and-mortar stores because they provide ease and convenience to buyers.

If your website is not user-friendly and visitors have to jump from one page to another to look for the products, the essence of online shopping, i.e. ease and convenience, is lost.

Your website should be easy to navigate. A simple website makes it easier for the users to explore the pages and products. Moreover, your products should be arranged appropriately into different categories, just as a physical store creates a different section for various articles. For example, a store dealing in perfumes should have separate categories for men, women, and unisex fragrances. It will make it easier for the buyers to look for the products in specific categories.

But what if your customers are in a hurry and they do not want to search by category? 

No problem! To accommodate the customers who are short on time, provide a search option on your website. Visitors can type what they are looking for, and the result will be displayed in milliseconds.

2. Optimize Site Speed

Online users are always in a hurry, and they prefer online stores that save their time. If a website loads slowly on the user’s digital device, he will not think twice before pressing the browser's back button.

When a visitor exits your website, you lose a chance of making a sale and earn revenue. Did you know that if a website takes longer than 3 seconds to load, it loses 40% of its traffic?

You won’t only lose prospective buyers; a slow-loading website will also affect your SEO. If the bounce rate of a website is high, search engines do not rank it higher on the result pages.

Your website speed should be an integral part of your eCommerce sales strategy. No matter how fantastic products and customer service you provide, he would never learn about your products or services if the user abandons your website.

Declutter your website from unwanted elements, for instance, the plugins that you aren’t using, videos, loaders, and sliders. Also, do not forget to compress your code files. The less load on web pages, the faster they will load.

3. Use High-Quality Pictures 

You must have heard the saying ‘action speaks louder than words,’ this saying is changed to ‘Picture speaks louder than the words’ in the online world.

Customers rely on the images provided on the website to add goods to their carts. Unlike a physical store, people cannot touch the product or try it before purchasing it on a website. An e-seller must provide them with high-quality pictures of the item from every angle to give them a better view of the product on the screen.

Use aesthetic pictures on your website. Provide the option to zoom the image. To make your product pictures more appealing, capture them in good light with a pleasant background. It will attract the visual sense of your buyers, and they will be tempted to buy it.

4. Create An Easy Checkout Process

Once you have succeeded in convincing your customer to fill up their carts, do not infuriate them at the checkout process, or else they’ll abandon the cart and deprive you of the revenue that you could have earned.

Make the checkout process seamless for your customers. Instead of presenting one long-form, divide it into small fragments. Do not ask for information that doesn’t concern the shopping or the shipment process—for example, asking about relationship status, profession, age, and income. 12% of the buyers abandon their carts if a website asks for too many details. Stick to the basic information such as name, address, phone number, and email address.

Do not ask the customer to make an account to checkout. Keep the option of guest checkout to finish up the checkout process quicker. 14% of consumers will abandon their carts if a website doesn’t have the option of guest checkout.

Provide secure channels of payment. Do not rely on just one; give your customer choices to select the most convenient medium for him.

5. Personalize Your Customers’ Experience 

Personalization is not only limited to adding customers’ names on emails and SMSs. To boost your sales and retain customers, you must provide them with a personalized experience on your website.

Use your current and prospective audience's browsing information to create and provide personalized offers, product suggestions, and content.  Keep track of the type of products, and content audiences like, and the history of their previous purchases from your store.

Personalizing and providing relevant offers, products, and even ads can help your website maximize sales and keep the customers happy. 97% of the marketers report a significant boost on their website after personalizing their buyers' experience.

6. Offer Multiple Customer Support Channels 

People quickly purchase goods from physical retail stores as they have salespeople to guide and answer the customer's questions and queries. People get cold feet in buying from an online store as there is no one to ask questions related to the product or services.

When people are doubtful about a product, they will leave your online store. Do not make them feel alone in the eCommerce store. Provide them with multiple channels to find answers to their queries. 

Many successful stores are using the feature of live chat to talk to their customers and guide them during their shopping spree. Customers trust the brands that extend their support to them and answer their questions on time.

You can also create a separate page on your website that answers all the FAQs. For example, if an online store deals in contact lenses, it can answer all the questions about cleaning the lenses and what to do if it irritates the eyes. You can also embed videos from your YouTube channel to demonstrate how to use, assemble, disassemble, or clean the product.

7. Compelling Product Descriptions

A compelling product description along with a visually appealing product picture can tempt your visitors to press that ‘Buy Now’ Button without giving it a second thought.

Use unique and creative product descriptions to provide all the relevant information about your product, such as its size, height, color, width, weight, and price. Do not write long paragraphs praising the product. Customers do not read text that is long and boring. Use easy to understand language. Include bullet points to describe your product.

To make your product page look appealing, add the number of pieces left under each product that a visitor is viewing. The depleting number of the items left will create an emergency for him, and he will speed up his decision process.

8. Mobile-Friendly

In the past six months, approximately 79% of smartphone users have shopped online using their phones.

People use their smartphones to enter the online world and communicate, buy, and sell their products and services; if your eCommerce website is not mobile optimized, bid farewells to many prospective buyers.

Your website should display and function properly on mobile devices. The text, links, navigation, and images should be viewable without zooming in or out. Hire a frontend developer to optimize your website if it is built on HTML. Shopify, WordPress, Wix, and other CMSs can choose a theme that works perfectly and smoothly on various digital devices, including smartphones.

9. Create Educational And Useful Content 

Creating content can prove to be an excellent tool to market your online store and optimize SEO. Helpful content on the website that solves the customer's problems can keep the audience engaged on your website and make them learn more about the brand and the commodities it offers.

Create a blog page on your website and post content on unique and creative titles that fall under your niche. For instance, an online store that sells exercise equipment can create content on beginners' cardio exercises or how to do strength training at home.  Similarly, a brand dealing with skincare items can create content about how to hydrate the skin or cleanse the skin at home.

Unique and informative content helps the audience to place their trust in your brand. Make them believe that you are a professional brand that is well equipped with its niche and business knowledge.

10. Display Testimonials 

Your happy customers can be the best brand advocates. If customers share their reviews with you, do not keep them with you. Share it with the entire world. The buyers have become very smart these days; they no longer purchase a product solely based on the company's advertisement. After all, which brand will say that their products are not up to the mark or substandard?

Customers trust the general public’s opinion on a brand and its products. To market your brand and attract more customers, display your loyal customer reviews strategically on your website. Let your visitors read what people have to say about you.

Allow people to share their reviews on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Social media marketing reigns in digital marketing; therefore, use it to welcome prospective audiences to your website.

11. Be Upfront About Shipping And Returns Policy

Be very honest with the customers about shipping costs, return and exchange policy, and other costs and fees.

60% of buyers abandon their carts filled if extra charges are added to their bill during checkout. Display the shipping charges and the time it will take to deliver the goods clearly on your website's homepage. Disclosing the shipping charges at the checkout phase, no matter how nominal it is, puts the customer in a bad mood. 

Similarly, provide a separate section that expresses return and exchange policies clearly. It will avoid the problems that your customer might raise in the future.

12. Offer FREE Shipping

The word FREE works as a magnet to attract visitors to your store and make them add products to the cart.

If you can absorb the expense of shipment in your profit margin, then provide free delivery to your customers. Your customers will spend extra if they do not have to pay for the delivery. For instance, if an online store waives $30 as delivery charges, a customer can spend $30 buying goods for that website.

However, if it is difficult for you to provide free shipping to your customers, set a shopping limit after which your customers can avail of free shipping. For example, you can mention on your homepage that free delivery on the shopping above $550. It will lure your customers into shopping more to avail free delivery.

13. Hire Enough Seasonal Staff 

Customers love to shop on special occasions and holidays. For example, people shop more on Christmas to buy gifts for their friends and family. Similarly, a brand that deals in women’s items observes a spike in its sale on women’s day and mother’s day.

Holidays and occasions are the best time to hold sales and offer deals and bundles to your audience. Online stores receive much traffic when they hold sales; therefore, make sure you have enough people on board to cater to your customers' needs.

Responding to the queries, booking and dispatching parcels, and keeping a follow-up of the shipped goods. Moreover, people might come to your site to return or exchange their bought items and be prepared to address those problems.

If you do not have enough helping hands, you will lose the chance to pump up profits into your bank accounts. Invite your friends, family members to help you during the busy days and earn reasonable remuneration. You can also hire a small team of people for managing orders during sales and holidays.

Conclusion 

It has become more than easier to establish an online business. But, the business's establishment is not enough to reap hefty profits from it. To make a store successful, it is imperative to keep customers happy to welcome them again in the future.

The above-listed eCommerce sales strategy will improve your consumers' shopping experience and spike the sales of your store.