Here at AmeriCommerce, we’re all about
giving you the knowledge and power you need to run a thriving Ecommerce
business.
So, to mix it up a little, we thought we’d
focus our latest blog article on how to ‘achieve’ the exact opposite!
Yup, this is a sure-fire guide to creating
a lousy store that will ensure that, in the unlikely event your customers even find it, they’ll be scrambling for the
‘X’ button faster than you can say ‘bounce
rate.’
1. Use bad product
descriptions – or just don’t bother with them at all
Product descriptions are a
great chance to proactively answer any questions your customer may have, or
simply sell the products’ benefits and features.
This content is also
incredibly useful in getting your products discovered through search engines. Remember,
Google can’t see product images. The
SEO performance of your product pages depends entirely on the quality,
descriptive content you create.
So, if you want to miss a
chance to persuade potential customers – and steer away search engine traffic –
go ahead and use skimpy product descriptions, or just don’t bother with them at
all.
2. Showcase low quality (and
not enough) product images
If you walked into a
bricks-and-mortar store, you wouldn’t buy a product without taking a good look
at it first.
Similarly, once a customer
hits your product page, they expect a comprehensive range of images to help
inform their decision. These should always be high quality images – the more
the better – and should provide the customer with a nuanced view of exactly
what they’re buying.
If you want to establish
just enough doubt in the customer’s mind to discourage them completing their
purchase, just include one or two product images, and don’t worry about it if
they’re low quality.
3. Design a cluttered site
with confusing navigation and too many fonts and colors
The last thing you want to
do is confuse your customers the second they land on your site.
It’s absolutely vital that
your users feel comfortable and confident browsing through your store, which
means it must be visually attractive and easy to navigate.
Flat design is in vogue
these days – this is a minimalistic design approach that emphasizes usability.
So, to turn your customers
off in an instant, go ahead and use tons of fonts and colors and forget about
making a beautiful, stripped-back store page that is easily navigable.
4.Don’t prove your
trustworthiness
Although record numbers of
people now shop online, there’s no escaping the fact that it still makes some
people feel uneasy.
It’s important that Ecommerce
stores take steps to reassure customers – that their data is safe, their order
will be delivered on time to the expected quality, and that there’s a policy in
place should they change their mind. This means displaying security icons, and
having clearly defined shipping and returns policies in an easily accessible
place on the store page.
If you don’t want your
customers to trust your store, don’t worry about providing this stuff. They’ll
trust you anyway, right?
5. Make the buying process
too complicated
Online shopping shouldn’t
be a difficult process, but many stores still
expect their customers to complete the online equivalent of a lengthy
obstacle course.
You’ve done all the hard
work in driving traffic to your store, and your hard work on content and design
means your customer has the product in their basket. Losing them at this point is pretty much the most
soul-destroying blow you can face as an online retailer.
If you want a checkout
process that pretty much guarantees your customer abandons their cart, make
sure they have to jump through plenty of hoops. It must be more than three pages, and be sure to make it compulsory that
customers sign up for an account
before they complete their purchase.
6. Don’t worry about SEO –
and forget about Social
The importance of SEO in
Ecommerce cannot be overstated. Forget ‘Build
it and they will come’ – optimizing your store and its products to be visible
through search engines is crucial, and it takes hard work on the content side
of your business. After all, nearly half of all web traffic comes from
natural searches.
Social media is also
a huge factor in your success – not only does it represent an enormous
potential pool of customers waiting to engage with your brand, but social
signals are now hard-wired into Google algorithms, meaning it’s essential to
your SEO performance too.
If you don’t want
people to discover your store, don’t bother with product descriptions and original
content, and stay away from social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
7. Make it difficult for
customers to shop on different devices
Unless you’ve been living
under a rock, you know that the days when people accessed the internet solely
via their computer are long gone. In
fact, studies have shown that mobile
devices have now surpassed PCs in online retail.
If your store isn’t
optimized for ease-of-use across multiple devices, odds are that your customers
are going to look for – and most likely find – another site that is.
8.Don’t bother offering
support
Just as you’d expect
someone to be on-hand to answer your questions in a bricks-and-mortar store,
online users are coming to expect the same level of support online.
There’s an immediacy to
online retail that means that your users want support right now, and many will be on their way if they don’t get it.
If you want to run a
really unsuccessful store, make sure you don’t offer live chat support, and don’t list your contact details on your store page. If they need help enough,
they’ll find a way. And just answer any enquiries when you get a spare minute –
your customers will wait for you to get back to them, right?
9.Use the wrong platform
There are countless
Ecommerce platforms out there you could work with – but they aren’t all created
equal. Many platforms are rooted in a ‘one size fits all’ philosophy, meaning
that they’re using the exact same solutions to cater for new starters and
seasoned veterans. They offer dozens of ‘light’ features but you can be sure
you’ll hit roadblocks as your business grows.
At AmeriCommerce, we help
you get started, and then grow with you.
We’re all about giving you powerful tools to drive your business forward in the
challenging world of Ecommerce.
Why not get in touch and see
what we can do for you and your business?