eCommerce

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Mobile Web Design

, payment gateways, shopping cart optimization, conversion rate strategies, and more.

Your guide to a successful e-commerce design starts here. We've put together the essential design elements that make up a great web store, how many of these features does your store have?

 HTTPS is essential to provide security to your customers. The green lock icon tells visitors your site is trustworthy.

 The hero image and headline strongly influence your visitor’s perception of your business by providing users with your most important offer and/or service.

 The call to action tells users exactly what you want them to do. Usually in the form of a brightly colored button, CTA’s direct visitors exactly where you want them to go.

 Displaying featured categories provides users an even easier way to find products relevant to their interests.

 Bring attention to promotional items by displaying a badge or similar element. This catches the user’s attention and will result in more page views of this item.

 Promote top-sellers, high-margin items, or products with high search volume.

 Use an add-to-cart button to make purchasing easier for users who already know what they’re looking for or are return customers who have decided to purchase.

 Use a “new arrivals” section to promote your latest and greatest products; visitors may be looking for new items.

 Build an email list to retain traffic and drive repeat traffic to your site. Email newsletters can be used for promotions, retargeting, and sharing news and features.

 Enable social sharing links to allow visitors to spread your business via social media. This improves search engine rankings and provides social proof to skeptical shoppers.

 Many customers will want to contact you directly; make it easy to find your support phone number.

 Significantly improve users' search experience and utilize this feature to suggest your featured products.

 Providing a category menu will allow visitors to quickly and easily find what they’re looking for by browsing categories.

 Clearly display your shipping, support, and other policies. No one likes to be surprised by shipping costs.

 Displaying recently viewed products increases the chance that a user will purchase a product they may have hesitated to purchase in the past.

 Clearly display your contact information, and if you have a physical location, list your address and hours of operation. This should be visible on every page of the site.

 Breadcrumb navigation shows your visitors where they are on the hierarchy of pages. This is especially useful when you have many categories and subcategories.

 This is the first image a shopper sees when looking for their product. A quality photo can increase the value of the product itself and improve trust in your brand.

 Simulate the experience of walking into a store and being able to pick up a product and look at it from every angle. This provides customers a better feel for the product.

 Video is the most compelling way to engage consumers, especially those viewing your site from mobile devices. Consumers are more likely to buy after viewing a video.

 Displaying related products is an easy way to cross-sell directly to your customers. You can offer them products that work well together or alternative brands.

 Your product title should be large and easy to read, but it also needs to capture their attention and provide enough information to differentiate the product.

 Most people consult reviews or ratings before making a final purchase. As a result, they are more likely to buy from your site if you have product ratings and reviews available.

 Your design should make the price of the item clear and noticeable. Any promotional discounts should be obvious; confusing pricing schemes will only frustrate users.

 Allowing customers to specify the number of items to add to their cart not only improves the number of sales you get but reduces friction and intuitively makes sense.

 Customers want to see all of the options available for an item they’re interested in. Make sure you show customers all of the product details with clickable color swatches.

 Use color and contrast to make the Add to Cart stand out from the rest of the page. The button should be fairly large and include an arrow or design element to draw the eye.

 Display a “trust seal” to overcome skeptical customers’ fears and increase conversions.

 Sometimes a shopper isn’t quite ready to order but wants to remember the product and your store. Make it easy to do so by providing an “Add to Wish List” button.

 Customers have questions about products. Your product description should answer all of the questions before they get to checkout. If they can’t find the information they’re looking for, they are likely to abandon the sale completely.

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The Complete Guide to Writing Product Descriptions That Convert

The Essential Ecommerce Web Design Guide

Having the trust of consumers is very important for online retailers. There are a number of different ways to build trust for your store. Becoming a Google Trusted Store and displaying the Trusted Stores badge on your site goes a long way towards building trust with your potential customers.

Being accepted in the Google Trusted Store program and displaying the badge on your site lets consumers know that their orders are protected by Google for up to $1000, and they know Google will help in resolving any issues they have with your store.

Google doesn’t just let any online retailer display the Trusted Store badge; There are several requirements you will need to meet to earn that badge:

Currently, the program is only available to US merchants

The site’s content and customer support must be in English

Merchants must process 600 orders on a 90-day rolling basis

The Merchant must maintain a minimum 4 star rating on Google Trusted Stores customer survey and seller ratings over a 90-day rolling basis

No more than 1 in 300 protected orders shall be escalated on a 90-day rolling basis

It shall take on average no more than 4 calendar days for a merchant to resolve any issues

If the annual payout of refunds paid by Google exceeds $5000 the client’s participation in the program may be suspended or terminated.

If you believe your store qualifies, head over to Google Trusted Stores to 

. Google will ask you several questions about your business. Once you answer all the questions you are ready to integrate the Google Trusted Store code into your site. Depending on the platform you use this could be relatively easy, both Yahoo! Stores and BigCommerce have built the code into their platforms, or may require more technical knowledge to integrate the code with your site.

Once the Trusted Store code is in place you need to test the code to make sure it is working correctly, Google gives you a special URL to test the code. If the code is working correctly, your store will enter the Trusted Stores qualification period. The qualification period can last anywhere from 30 – 90 days, depending on your order volume. During this time Google will monitor your store and the badge will not appear on your site. After the qualification Google will notify you whether your store passed and was accepted into the program. If it was the badge will automatically appear on the site.

How Can I Make My Store a Google Trusted Store

Properly merchandising your online store is just as important as merchandising a brick-and-mortar store. Having a well-merchandised store can lead to increased conversion rates and higher average ticket sizes.

Online merchandising is, at its most basic, a way of displaying your products that entices your customers to make a purchase. There are a myriad of different ways and methods to properly merchandise your store. We will take a look at some of the most important.

Make sure people can easily find what they are looking for. 

 This includes proper categorization of your inventory. A store with poor categorization can be a nightmare for your potential customers to navigate through. Make sure your navigation is clear and easy to follow. The fewer steps a customer needs to take to get to the product the better. Make sure your store has a search function.

Writing your own product descriptions is more important than having your own product photography. Using the same generic product description is going to hurt your SEO as Google will see it as 

, and you will be lucky to make it on page one of the search results. Writing your own compelling product descriptions will give you the opportunity to include any important keywords that the manufacturer may have missed. It also allows you to optimize the content to your customers and fit within your store’s culture.

Use high quality photos and product descriptions not provided by the manufacturer. 

 This may seem like a no-brainer, but many stores just use the product descriptions and photos provided by the manufacturer. Using the same photos and descriptions as your competitors will not set you apart from the crowd. If possible, hire a professional photographer to take product photos for you.If professional photography is out of the budget, take your own photographs. You should only take your own photographs if you can match or exceed the quality of the photos that the manufacturer supplies. Poor photography shows a lack of attention to detail and makes your business look like an amateur operation. Make use of alternate images by showing different angles of the products or a close-up of important details.

Make sure any promotions you are running are prominently featured

. Use attractive banners with compelling graphics on the home page to draw attention to your promotions. If you run promotions that are category specific ,don’t forget to add banners to the category page as well. Feature your best selling products or newest items on your home page. And don’t miss the opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell by adding related / alternative products and accessories on your product pages.

Make it easy for your customers to make a purchase from you. 

 You have done a good job of merchandising your store, you have killer photos and product descriptions, cross-sell and up-sell is properly set-up, and promotions are prominently featured. All this hard work could be wasted if it is difficult for your customers to make a purchase. Make sure your buy button is prominently featured and easy for customers to see.The checkout process should be as streamlined as possible. Do you force customers to sign up for an account before they can buy from you, or can they check out as a guest? Remove any obstacles that may prevent a guest from completing the checkout steps. Do you offer PayPal as a checkout option? Many consumers are reluctant to give credit card information to merchants they are unfamiliar with, but they will use PayPal since that information isn’t passed on to the merchant and it gives the customer a degree of better security.

eCommerce

The Essential Ecommerce Web Design Guide

How Can I Make My Store a Google Trusted Store

5 Tips for Properly Merchandising Your Online Store