Virtually all retailers are now aware that an online buying experience is not only essential for growth, but also for survival. But time and again, too many suffer from the same basic pitfalls that stop their site from achieving its full potential. There are many elements to consider, but they often come down to the same basic elements, elements which retailers either ignore, or don’t get quite right. Take a look at the 7 deadly sins of ecommerce – how many are you guilty of?
The penny has long since dropped – every retailer should have an online presence and sell via ecommerce. As footfall in high street stores drops across the country, customers are increasingly moving online, and finding plenty of options to excite them. But retailers rush online, there are a range of very common pitfalls that many fall into. All can be safely bypassed with the help of a good ecommerce partner, who can establish and manage your e-commerce platform – whether on premises or on cloud. Here are seven of the most common:
Sub-par design
Online design is about much more than pictures and colours (though that’s important). It’s about the user experience, the journeys that you expect customers to make when they visit your site. These should be clear and easy to follow – which sounds simple, but actually takes a lot of planning and expertise to make happen. Customers make split-second decisions when they’re online, and an ambiguous link can make all the difference between a sale and a drop-off.
Content also needs to be reviewed regularly to make sure it’s up-to-date and being displayed at its best, in a way that customers expect to see, with working links and that descriptions and reviews are well-presented and easy to find. Your ecommerce partner will help you with this, and with the optimal infrastructure solution to ensure your content is speedily and easily delivered to your site. Using a CDN is one example of this.
Poor shopping basket experience
Your checkout procedure must be as quick and simple as possible. Industry research [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonment_rate] shows that the typical shopping cart abandonment rate for online retailers varies between 60 per cent and 80 per cent, with an average of 67.91 per cent. Your platform has to make it very smooth and fast. The checkout process should be straightforward, simple, minimal and very easy to understand. If it takes more than five steps to buy an item, you’ll be losing customers.
Not taking SEO seriously
Yes, it’s important for customers to find your site. But it’s also important for the right customers to find the right product at the right time. You’ll stand much more chance of converting a visitor into a customer if your search engine optimisation strategy is carefully targeted to match the search terms that best apply to your products with the people who are using those search terms, rather than just going for high traffic numbers. Of course your onsite optimisation needs to appeal to search engines as well as customers.
Insufficient website maintenance
The internet moves fast, and it’s important to maintain a quality review schedule for your site to ensure that all product details remain up to date, that links are relevant and intact, that new innovations and improvements are being incorporated regularly. It’s a time and resource-intensive process, so if you can engage a third party to do it properly, such as your ecommerce partner, then so much the better.
Ignoring upselling and cross-selling
Upselling to customers on Ecommerce websites is 20 times more effective than cross-selling. A scrolling lookbook can help you offer products as bundles and catalogues which you want to highlight. Retargeting, digital marketing and personalization are very important methods that you should not omit. And don’t forget links to partner sites you might choose to affiliate with, so you can earn commission on services or products that they offer, but you don’t.
Susceptible to fraud
Online security is a key bugbear for ecommerce sites, with armies of hackers literally working around the clock to try to exploit any potential loopholes. Every so often, they succeed, and there have been some very high-profile scalps over the years, including British Airways and Dixons Carphone. So it’s important to be ever vigilant and use the latest security software, techniques and best practices to guard against the threat. A good ecommerce partner will have this as standard, constantly updating and maintaining your system to make sure it’s always the best it can be.
Website’s too slow
Websites that take too long to load because of excessive content or third-party applications are a big turn-off for customers – and the fact is that they don’t have to put up with it any more, they’ll just go to the site that offers the smoothest, most straightforward experience to help them find what they’re looking for. Partnering with a good ecommerce partner will ensure that your site is optimised for all browsers and all devices, providing a smooth, sleek, browsing and buying experience for your customers, every time. Consider that the most efficient, cost effective and scalable option for this can be to go with Cloud. The Cloud can empower your website with ways you never deemed possible.
Runibex
Runibex is an MSP specialising in e-commerce with it’s own NGI Commerce Suite allowing you to increase your customers’ shopping experience and delivering unlimited technology, functionality, and flexibility.
Runibex’s NGI Commerce Suite has a modular structure, a fully integrated and PaaS based architecture enabling you to focus on your business perfectly.
While your business is growing, our NGI Commerce Suite provides you with the means to increase your revenue with omni-channel functionality. It prevents you from redundant investments with platform scalability. Runibex manages many e-commerce projects with various e-commerce platforms like Hybris, in house solutions, as well as its own solution – NGI commerce suite.
Runibex is an MSP specialising in e-commerce, cloud services and SAP consulting. Find out more about how our insight and expertise could help your business.