If you own/operate an ecommerce business, the new year is a perfect time to give your ecommerce website the refresh that it needs. With the holiday season behind us, it is time to prepare for the year ahead. An important part of that is making sure your website is a viable platform in this current market. Not only do you likely need to update products or service offerings, but making an easy-to-use and well-designed website can definitely keep customers coming back for more.
To help you make the most of the new year, below are five New Year’s resolutions you should make for your ecommerce website. By making and keeping these five resolutions, you can increase your chances of success before the end of the year.
One of the top rules you should keep in mind during the ecommerce design process is “KISS”—Keep It Simple and Seamless.
A simple and intuitive design is what positively impacts customer engagement and can contribute to better sales figures. On the contrary, adding too many components can crowd up your pages and even distract users from the entire point of your website: closing a sale. Adding white space, limiting the content to just a few key pages, and adding more images instead of paragraphs of text can go a long way in boosting the overall simplicity of your website.
There is no need for things that are not relevant to the overall objectives of the site. If you think something is a bit too much or unnecessary, it most likely will act a distraction. Simple designs that boost ease of use and offer a memorable experience are much better than designs that boast aesthetic value but end up being complex in terms of user experience. Avoid adding components that compromise on usability no matter how pleasing you think they might be.
For example, live chat pop-ups can be very useful if your business wants to engage with customers. However, if constant engagement isn’t a necessity or your audience does not want it, you should avoid using that functionality.
Another way to captivate a customer’s attention is to tell a compelling story about your company. Incorporating storytelling into your website can create a coherent experience for visitors to identify with. Customers engage with businesses that they can identify with, which is why it is necessary that you create that perception.
One of the first things businesses do when developing an ecommerce website is focus on the products that they are selling. After all, that is what customers want from you. However, you should do more than just sell your brand, you should also sell the idea behind your brand and how it makes your customer’s life better.
Consider what type of story you want to communicate and how your audience will react to it. You should select the type of story that suits your product theme such as: why potential customers should buy your product or service, why your company exists, your successes, and your value propositions.
Ask yourself: what do you want to be remembered for? Then select the medium best for your story. You can describe your story in many forms such as written, audio, or digital. Nowadays, video stories are most preferred as it is the most engaging content type online thanks to device functionality making it easier than ever before to stream video content.
Square found that 98% of ecommerce patrons want to connect with businesses through their mobile phones. The rise of mobile commerce, which is a form of ecommerce and also known as mCommerce, goes beyond just shopping. Mobile commerce includes receiving appointment notifications, order notifications, text or email marketing messages, text or email loyalty messages, scanning QR codes, texting with a business, and receiving invoices.
Businesses that provide a fast and seamless experience on mobile devices have a better chance of customer conversion, and 29% of consumers said they’d leave a site or app if it doesn’t satisfy their needs.
If your site is not mobile-friendly, you could be missing out on a lot of business. It’s not enough that your site can be accessed on a mobile device; it’s essential to make sure that it works well in a mobile environment, too. Consider offering an app-like mobile shopping experience to customers such as receiving personalized product recommendations, offering the option to save their payment information, and track their past purchases.
Images are a core part of an ecommerce site’s appeal as 75% of shoppers say they rely on images when shopping online. After all, customers need to have high-quality images to determine if the product or service they are buying is worth the investment. Therefore, it is important to use high-quality images and try to avoid using stock images.
Stock images might work for certain industries. For ecommerce, you are better off leveraging original photos for authenticity and delivering your message the way you want to. Afterall, your brand is unique to you and is not something that can easily be found through a provider of stock photography.
You may outsource the task to professionals or hire one of your own. Either way, using the best images for your product pages and website will not only make your ecommerce website look outstanding, it will convince more customers to buy your products and turn your shop into a successful one.
Lastly, content is king in an ecommerce world and 2023 is not going to be any different in regards to content. Content is how customers learn about your product and make purchasing decisions. So be sure to incorporate blogs, images, and social media posts into your ecommerce site.
If you want to get your point across while also driving sales, you need to make your content scannable for visitors. Be sure to break up your content—whether it is in the form of product descriptions, blog posts, or an “About Us” page—into an easy-to-scan format. Keep sentences and paragraphs short, use bolding to call attention to key information, and use bulleted lists to break up large blocks of texts.
The easier to scan your content, the more likely your audience will absorb your key messaging, and the more likely you will be able to make a sale.
In closing, research suggests 80% of New Year’s resolutions quickly fall by the wayside by February. However, if you make and keep these five resolutions for your ecommerce business, this year can be one to remember. Use the energy of the new year to begin making these updates to your website. There is no time like the present to achieve these resolutions and make this year one of your most successful ones yet.
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