If you applied the 5 money-making tips we discussed in part 1 and have seen good results, get ready to level up your efforts with 5 more eCommerce success tips that can keep your checkout counter busy and buzzing year-round.
1. Present Social Proof
When you go to a restaurant and ask the waiter, “Is the food here good?” what do you think the waiter will say?
Of course, the waiter will say “Yes” and in fact, he might exaggerate a bit and say “Our food is the best you’ll ever have in your life!” The question is will you believe him?
It’s a given that you’ll claim your products and services are the best on the Internet. Some will believe you, some will think it’s a self-serving statement, while others won’t.
The bottom line is your claims can’t be quantified. However, you can qualify or validate them with social proof.
Social proof is an opinion expressed by someone that influences the behavior of others. The official term for social proof in Psychology is “Normative Social Influence” which expresses the belief that people will conform to the conveyed opinion in order to be liked or accepted by the influencer.
If the rate of cart abandonment on your eCommerce site is quite high, incorporating social proof might reduce the number of foregone purchases.
Here are 2 examples of social proof:
- Customer Testimonials
A testimonial is a powerful statement because it is voluntarily given and vouches for the quality of your product or service. Customers don’t give out testimonials for average-quality products. They reserve it for purchases that exceed expectations.
The same can be said about testimonials from influencers. Yes, influencers are usually paid to issue testimonials but they have a reputation to protect. They just won’t accept arrangements to give testimonials unless they’re convinced the product is deserving of their endorsement.
- Product Reviews
In-depth and highly detailed product descriptions are great but adding product reviews to the mix makes for a combination that can keep your checkout counter busy.
Product reviews are effective because shoppers use them to compare with other brands and be more assured of their purchasing decisions. A survey has shown that 82% of customers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by product reviews.
Another benefit of collecting product reviews is that they can give you valuable insights into how your customers view your products. Create a summary of all the complaints, issues, and concerns that are shared by the end-user and immediately address the items in the top 3.
For example, if there are frequent complaints about the durability of your product, take it up with the manufacturer. Then, respond to the comments and assure them that you’ve taken steps to improve the quality of the item.
2. Create Definitive CTA Buttons
When clients come to us to run an audit on their website and find out why it isn’t converting visits into sales, one of the culprits that we identify from the get-go is a weak Call-to-Action.
A Call-to-Action or CTA is a command that you are relaying to the website visitor. It should answer the question “Okay, I’m here on your website. What do you want me to do next?”
The visitor landed on your homepage presumably because he was interested in what he read about your website on the search results page, your social media posts or perhaps he was referred by an existing customer.
Now that you have his attention, you should get him to do what you want him to do – definitively, conclusively, no “ifs” or “buts”
- Buy Now
- Click Now
- Sign Up for Our Newsletter
- Click For Your FREE Ebook
- Sign Up for a FREE Trial Period
- Book Your Schedule
Weak CTAs include “Find Out How”, “Contact Us to Find Out More”, and “Get More Clients” are weak CTAs because they leave the visitor with more questions than answers.
You can have more than one CTA per web page but they must all be clear on the action that you want the visitors to take.
3. Your eCommerce Website Must Be User-Friendly
According to a study by Statista, there were 4.28 billion unique visitors to the Internet in 2020. This means that 90% of searches online were made from a mobile device.
If a potential customer is having a hard time viewing or accessing your eCommerce website from his smartphone, you’ll be leaving money on the table. The first step to having a user-friendly eCommerce website is to make sure it’s mobile responsive.
What are the main qualities of a mobile-responsive website?
- Fast Download Time
Buyers don’t want to be kept waiting. A study conducted by Google showed that for most websites, 53% of visitors will only wait for 3 seconds before they decide to click out and go to your competitor.
However, another study revealed that visitors might stay as long as 15 seconds before they decide to leave or explore the pages further.
Based on our research and experience, these types of visitors who tend to be a bit more patient are those who go to eCommerce websites. The reason is that shoppers want to spend time on research. They’ll go over your product descriptions and testimonials if any.
The bottom line is to make sure that your eCommerce website can download before 15 seconds is up. Have your site audited frequently so you can identify the issues that could be slowing it down and have them addressed right away.
- No Downtime
Nothing is more annoying to customers than clicking on a URL and instead of a homepage, they’re greeted with the following message:
“We are presently undergoing maintenance services to address technical issues with our servers. Please bear with the inconvenience as we’ll try to do our best to resolve the problems and have the website off and running in an hour.”
While shoppers might forgive you, downtime translates to one thing.
No sales.
In addition, you won’t be able to access your emails.
We always advise our clients to take the time when it comes to choosing their web host service providers. Yes, the price point must be a consideration but there are other factors you should consider such as level of security, reviews, availability of customer support services, and backup services.
To help you find the right web host services provider, read our article “How to Choose Your Web Host”.
- Multiple Payment Options
Giving your eCommerce shoppers more payment options will push them toward making a purchase.
Trust us when we say, shoppers will be looking for more than just credit cards, debit cards, or PayPal as payment options. Find out what your customers prefer. Do many use ApplePay? How about other platforms such as Google Pay, Stripe, or Square?
Again, having a money-making eCommerce website means creating a wonderful shopping experience for your customers.
- Contact Information
What’s so special about having complete contact information available? It shows you’re a legitimate business and alleviates fears that your eCommerce website is a fly-by-night operation.
You’ll be surprised at how many shoppers run a due diligence check on the businesses that own the eCommerce website. Which pieces of contact information should be readily found by visitors?
- Email addresses; including those of your designated contact people
- Business address
- Landline number
- Toll-free number (if available)
- Mobile phone number
- Store location; including a map
Make sure to keep your contact information updated. If a customer finds himself in the wrong address because you didn’t indicate the new one, that will create a bad impression that could spread like wildfire on social media.
4. Address Cart Abandonment Issues
Getting visitors to your website is one thing. Finding ways to get them to stay longer and explore your eCommerce store is another. And getting them to buy the items they put on their shopping cart is still another thing you have to be concerned about.
The fact of the matter is cart abandonment is a serious problem for many eCommerce websites – even for the biggest players in online retail. Statistics show that 70% of eCommerce shoppers will abandon their cart after putting items in it.
There are many reasons why shoppers abandon their carts. Here are just a few of the reasons:
- Security concerns
- Lack of payment options
- Computation of taxes and final shipping costs significantly increased the cost of buying the item.
- Not enough information about the product.
- The visitor was asked to create a user account.
- The checkout process felt tedious and time-consuming.
- No or lack of return policy.
It’s also possible that the visitor was just browsing your website probably for research purposes. He might be comparing your products and costs with a competitor.
Regardless of the reasons for cart abandonment, the problem can easily be addressed with 2 quick fixes.
- Automatic Cart Abandonment Email – A cart abandonment email notifies a customer that he has left some items on his shopping cart. The purpose of the cart abandonment email is to generate engagement with the buyer.
It’s not intended to embarrass the buyer. In fact, the best cart abandonment emails inject humor in the copy.
For example, if the buyer abandoned a shopping cart that carried supplements, the email could include the following message:
“You might get sick because you didn’t buy our vitamins! Please click on this link and proceed to the checkout counter. Let us know if you have questions about the product.”
- Integrate a Chat Plug-in – Sometimes a buyer might abandon his cart because he had questions and nobody was there to assist him. Adding a chat plug-in is a simple and quick solution.
If you have a Business Facebook page, you can add your FB Messenger chat plug-in to your website. This way, a person who has questions about a product can simply click on the Messenger chat box and converse with an agent.
5. Highlight Website Security
eCommerce sites account for 32.4% of attacks on websites every year and are the clear favorite target of cyber-criminals. Among the more popular attacks launched on eCommerce sites include eSkimming, Attack Bots, Cross-site scripting, SQL Injection, and installation of malware.
Shoppers are well aware of the threats they face when they go online. You have to assure your eCommerce site visitors that your website is a safe place to shop. Here are our 3 tips on how to secure your eCommerce website and entice visitors to shop.
- SSL Certificates – Secure Sockets Layer certificates are used to protect information from being stolen by cyber-criminals.
Google has made SSL certificates a ranking factor and if yours doesn’t have these certificates, your URL will be preceded by an image of a padlock with the slash mark across it.
In addition, the words “Not Secure” will appear before your URL. Would you explore an eCommerce site that says “Not Secure”? Neither will your customer.
- Authentication Processes – Many websites include a dual-authentication process whereby the site user has to undergo “tests” to prove his intentions for visiting are legitimate and not malicious.
A good example would be the Captcha test. The site visitor will be asked to answer a few questions or perform tasks to prove he’s human. It only takes a few seconds to complete and many shoppers won’t mind going through them to be assured of their safety.
- Frequently Update Security Programs – If your web developer installed a number of top-end security programs, don’t get comfortable. Make sure your website security programs are regularly updated and improved upon.
Do you have programs and plug-ins installed that you no longer use? Remove or update these apps. Outdated apps and those that are barely used need to be updated every few months. Otherwise, the cybercriminals will use them to get inside your eCommerce website.
Cyber-criminals launch hundreds of thousands of attacks every day. Online shoppers are aware of this. You need to assure your visitors that your eCommerce site is a safe place to shop at.
Conclusion
With the ongoing concerns regarding the pandemic, people will continue to shop at online stores. There will be opportunities for you to turn your eCommerce website into a money-making machine if you cover all the bases we discussed in this two-part article.
If you’re thinking about setting up an eCommerce website, give us a call. Let’s arrange a meeting via Zoom or whatever online video conferencing platform you prefer and we’ll map out the plans for your first online store.
And if your eCommerce website is having problems generating consistent income, allow us to have a look at it. We’re sure it’s nothing we can’t fix.
Feel free to share this article as well as part 1 with your friends.