Online marketplaces continue to grow and attract consumers and businesses that are offering their products and services. The recent influx of dropshippers has made competition fierce on the business side of things. This has led to increased customer expectations, and e-commerce businesses need to go to great lengths to ensure customer satisfaction. To boost conversion rates, online businesses need to provide their customers with an exceptional shopping experience. Let’s take a look at seven ways to improve e-commerce customer experience and increase sales.
- Have a user-friendly website
One of the best ways to ensure that customers have a positive shopping experience is to have a website that is a joy to use. You can hire professionals to design your website with all the latest features. If your website is responsive and works well on mobile devices, users are more likely to spend time on your site and make a purchase. However, there are a few additional benefits to having a user-friendly site. Google’s search algorithm has improved and promotes websites that offer a good customer experience. This means that by giving users a positive experience, you will also boost your SEO – which will increase your organic traffic.
- Streamline the checkout process
Once users reach the checkout stage, you should make it simple for them to complete their purchase. The core purpose of e-commerce websites is to let customers buy products online. Strive to make this process as simple and streamlined as possible. Ask only for the minimum amount of information, and try to reduce the complexity of your checkout forms. For example, you can include radio buttons to select frequent answers and reduce the amount of necessary typing. Additionally, you could include contrasting colors and strong visual cues to guide users through checkout. On the contrary, an overly complicated and drawn-out checkout can frustrate your customers and could even lead to shopping cart abandonment.
- Offer educational content on your website
A good way to support your audience and improve e-commerce customer experience is to host quality content on your site. The content you create should be informative, original, and educational. It’s generally considered that the product is intended to solve a problem for your users. Therefore, you can write detailed explanations which help users overcome those problems. Offer guides and tutorials which feature your products and the benefits they provide. If you answer the most common questions users typically have, you’ll also save yourself a lot of time from addressing individual inquiries. Quality content can inspire user engagement in the form of comments and shares on other websites, which will also cause your website to get a boost in SEO.
- Optimize product pages
Besides just writing about your products, you should also dedicate some time to optimizing individual product pages. Unfortunately, this is an often overlooked feature on small business e-commerce websites. It takes a lot of time to fill in all of the details, especially if your company has an extensive product catalog. Some site owners just duplicate product descriptions and other content related to similar products to get around this. However, this trick won’t fool users or search engines. Instead, you should have unique product descriptions, meta titles, and alt tags. You should also include product reviews in the form of pictures and videos. If you want to further improve e-commerce customer experience, you can implement advanced features on your website, such as side-by-side product comparisons.
- Have a way for customers to contact your staff
One of the best ways to let customers know that you care about their shopping experience is to offer 24/7 support on your website. Have click-to-call widgets on your site to enable direct communication with a sales representative. If none are available at the moment, you can always let users leave you a message or implement AI chatbots. Remember to include these features on your checkout pages so that customers can get support if they have trouble completing a purchase.
You should also leave customers the option to leave you a comment or review. However, you should always respond to customer issues and resolve any problems immediately. If your company has positive reviews, you can proudly display them on your site. Social proof can encourage other users to make a purchase on your site.
- Offer discounts and promo codes
Improving the customer experience is all about making your customer happy. Nowadays, that includes offering promo codes and discounts. Certain users have practically started to expect to see at least one item at a discounted price. If your company has a large enough item selection, try to have something on discount at all times. You can rotate which items are on sale and let users create a wishlist with reminders for when their favorites are discounted.
Another good way to create goodwill with your customers is to offer a first-time visitor promo code. This can entice users to make their first purchase on your site. You can also implement a referral program with rewards for loyal customers.
- Personalize shopping
It’s generally advisable to separate leads into segments. Basically, not every user will be a part of the same demographic, and you can create separate categories based on their behavior, interaction with your website, and previous shopping habits. Using automated customer segmentation is vital for your marketing campaign, but it can also be used to improve e-commerce customer experience. Create user-specific offers and display the products those users will be interested in first.
The bottom line
Customers will notice that you care about them if you listen to their feedback and cater to their needs. You can use these seven ways to improve e-commerce customer experience and provide your customer base with shopping they will remember. Satisfied users can act as great brand ambassadors and spread positive word of mouth about your business. Stay ahead of your competition and earn the trust of your users. By offering a great customer experience, you will build trust with your customers and ensure they return and shop with you again.