Lets go shopping…Online :: Improving your online store for customers

As you can probably imagine, I shop online all the time. Not just because I can’t stand queuing but because it’s good research for my job…well at least that’s what I tell myself when I get my credit card statement.

Today I want to speak to those of you out there with an online store with some tips on how you can improve the experience for your online customers. If you’re reading this then you have some clue that online customers are vital to the future of your business and yet a lot of sites I’ve seen are doing some really counter productive stuff.

I’m going to emphasize again how important your online customers are. They’re highly loyal as shoppers and they cost you much less than people who walk into a store (if you have a shop front), so the first tip is to reply to inquiry emails quickly! Auto-replies suck. They do not comfort anyone and if you auto reply to someone who also has one set up, you’ll end up in an auto-reply loop till someone’s mailbox fills up.

Reply to emails within an hour of getting them and you don’t need an auto reply and you’ll be rewarding people for not costing you anything for their phone call.

Next, have really great product descriptions. I can’t tell you how many sites only have just enough info that their online shopping program can catalogue the goods. Customers don’t have the ability to pick up and touch products in your online store so the more you descriptive you can be about the qualities of the products, the better. It also gives you another point to ‘sell’ the features, so try using words like luxurious, sturdy, reliable etc.

Another massive tip (and this is really important). Where ever you have an image of a product on your site, you should be able to click on it to buy it. I can’t tell you how many sites I’ve seen that use pictures of products to decorate but they’re not links to a purchase page. This doesn’t mean that you have “Buy Now” buttons on all your images, but it’s like the ‘serving suggestion’ on the back of a can of fruit, if you see a product being enjoyed on your site or presented in a nice setting allow your customers to click on it and buy it immediately. Yeah?

Lastly I want to mention sensible forms and an easy order process on your site. You should only need an address to deliver to, a credit card and a contact if something goes wrong. This process should only take a minute or two and be limited to one page. If it needs to go over more than one page then you need to have a progress bar at the top indicating where the customer is up to in the buying process. You should also be really upfront about the total cost, so is or isn’t GST included? Is or isn’t postage included? Be upfront about your business and customers are more likely to trust you.