There are Zillions of e-commerce shopping carts out there. Hence providing on the money solution is very significant to your business. Although narrowing on a list of the best features for your e-commerce shopping cart is a matter of opinion.
I wish to provide you a list that you just cannot live without!
Running a business means donning many hats!
As a business owner, you could be getting pulled into doing a hundred things each day.
From keeping your customers happy to how much stationary your employees need this week.It isn’t a cakewalk.A site owner or say administrator needs to only lay down the business rules whereas his shopping cart should do all he talking for him.
I aspire to provide you a little cheat sheet. Tick out all the options you already do and follow the ones that you need to integrate Today! Here it is —
(I) Show the advantages of your products
- Large and functional product images: These communicate effectively with the customers. An impressive photo is the best conviction method.
- Product reviews: Customers review posted online help shoppers make good buying choices. Most websites provide ratings on each product. This helps highlight the best of many options.
- Layered and Faceted Navigation: These tools help the buyer to find just what he was looking for. It’s their steering wheel to navigate till the checkout screen. This process needs to be extremely precise, data driven and programmatic. It could be done according to the Brand, Color, Gender, Price etc. Best suited for your product description.
(II)Make your visitors TRUST you
- PCI Compliance: Using best practices and following industry standards will only instill trust into your potential buyers. Being PCI compliant is a quick and easy few step process. It enables a certification that you can proudly boost on your cart.
- SSL Certificates: The primary reason why SSL is used is to keep sensitive information sent across the Internet encrypted so that only the intended recipient can understand it. It prevents from hacking, identity thefts and phishing malpractices. You could choose any one based on the extent of transactions your site undertakes.
(III) Trial Version
I would strongly recommend taking advantage of the product’s trial version.
This way one could gauge the extensions, features and versions offered. You could badger the support team with your questions and assay their ability to provide accurate solutions within a specific time period.
At the end of this trial period, you usually land yourself with great customized discounts if you continue with the communications.
(IV) User-friendly Payment System
- Single Page fast checkout: If you have multiple checkout windows and multiple sign-in options, you are in for a downfall! Just like the supermarket, online shoppers want the shortest wait on the checkout line. A single page option to pay for the products bought is crucial.
- Coupons and Discounts: In the Age of Groupon, coupons and discounts offer those crazy shoppers their ultimate savings fix. A Good e-commerce will have these in-built in its shopping platform.
- Analytics and Sales Reporting: Quickbooks has become a rage among all e-commerce shop owners. Most carts have modular solutions to integrate popular accounting software.These help in tracking your product sales down to significant details.
(V)Social Media Links
- Attract new clients: Increase in the number of ‘likes’ or ‘shares’ or’re-tweets’ on your existing e-commerce page means, there’s a great chance that your existing customers can bring in more targeted customers.
- Customer engagement: It’s a proven fact, the more engaged they are to updates and upgrades to your latest version, the more business will they bring in. Running contests and polls, seeking opinions and sharing testimonials makes them affectionate towards the brand.
- Sales with Social Media Strategy: Treat each social media site like a different baby! Each of them is different and has a unique audience reach. Devise your marketing and promotions plans periodically. But don’t forget to enrich their minds too. The shoppers are moving to a knowledge base wherein sellers educate them about the pros and cons of just about anything under the Sun.
(VI) Online Chats & Support
Live Chat
- Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment: A one on one chat can helps in simplifying the decision making process. As your chat agent will respond to specify questions in real-time.
- Cost Efficient: It eliminates the need to maintain an expensive toll-free customer support number.
- Visitor Monitoring: It sends a notification when a new visitor arrives at your site and monitors which pages he or she is viewing.
- Active Chat Button: If no operators are available, the status of the chat button automatically changes to “leave a message”
Support: This is the ultimate tool to set you apart in the game. A Dedicated, Responsive and Accurate Support Team form your Competitive Edge. It is the beacon of the invisible ”WOW Factor” that each buyer looks in while investing in your products. A support team needs to set higher performance and delivery standards for themselves .The ability to differentiate between the critical and not so critical requests will help reach a great amount of customer satisfaction.
There is a pool of features one could install, really!
Some solutions could work across the broad, but some will only be specific to your site.
I would say use the above methods to enhance User-experience in E-commerce shopping.
Kalpana Dogra
Marketing @ AvactisNext
[email protected]
