The evolution of e-commerce has changed retail forever by changing how customers interact and purchase things. Here are some features every good online shop should have.
A Chat Box
Quick and effective feedback is essential for any good business, but it is particularly pertinent for retailers. Retailers and customers need to have a semi-reciprocal relationship. You might be letting customers know what you have to offer, but you also need to listen to the desires and disappointments of your customer base.
Subtle problems in your marketing, your product, or your website are often only detectable thanks to customer feedback. Traditionally, feedback would have to be collected via email and phone correspondence. Chat boxes drastically cut down on the work needed to effectively address feedback and also improve customer experience.
Chat boxes provide a way for operatives to deal with basic customer queries and complaints so that more complex issues can be dealt with more efficiently. They provide a direct means of communication to the customer as soon as they load up your website. This is a huge confidence booster.
Links to Socials
Most businesses are online in more than one place. Having a presence on social media is crucial if you want to spread the word about your brand and entice new customers. There are around 60 million business pages on Facebook alone. Social media platforms are far more useful to a business if they can all link back to one central hub – preferably a hub connected to your shop.
Using your e-commerce website as a terminal for all of your social pages is the perfect way of linking all the strands of your online presence together. Make sure to have a dedicated page for links, and to incorporate them in your copy.
A Mailing List
You should make it easy for customers to sign up for updates from your company via a mailing list. If you are using WordPress, there are lots of plugins available that make the visit-to-signup process very slick indeed. Plugin developers really take WordPress to the next level. They are free to work with WordPress’s open-source coding to create innovative new ways to add features to your website.
In recent years some 3rd party WordPress developers have been streamlining their code to reduce their carbon footprint while still offering unique services. If you want sound advice about which plugins to employ in your website design, consult with a dedicated WordPress development agency.
A Quick and Simple Payment System
Getting visitors from the home page to the “order confirmed” page as smoothly and seamlessly as possible is the name of the game in e-commerce. Make payment as simple as possible by removing some of the complex stages often found on e-commerce sites in the past. Do not bombard your customer with special offers or marketing materials after they add something to their cart. This can cause “shopping cart abandonment”, which is when a customer gets fed up with the process of shopping and leaves their cart full without checking out.
A User-Friendly Interface
Ease of use is one of the most important features of any website. It is especially important if you are wanting to set up a successful online shop. Customers are very unlikely to shop for long on a confusing, unfriendly website that is difficult to navigate.
