10 Ways to Enhance Your Online Store

10 Ways to Enhance Your Online Store

The number of online stores has exploded in recent years. A new online retailer may get up and running without investing a ton of money on an e-commerce website thanks to free open-source shopping cart solutions. When the eCommerce script has been implemented and the website is "live," the store's proprietor can begin adding items for sale. A new online store pops up seemingly every few months.
Digital Market Place

The hardest part is over with.

Assuming you've gotten your eCommerce website up and running, you need consumers. While most brick-and-mortar companies are fairly easy to find, your online store will be lost in the sea of millions of others. If Google finds your eCommerce site useful, or if you pay for clicks with Google AdWords, Google will send you traffic. If you don't have enough visitors, you won't make enough money.

Enough with the obvious; here are the rules:

Truth in Content Must Rule!
Many online stores only list the product's name and price, with no more details provided (and maybe a photo). Would you buy anything at a neighboring store if you couldn't examine it beforehand?

First, a Tip for Optimisation
Create one of a kind product descriptions for each of your offerings and highlight their defining characteristics for your target audience. It is incorrect to utilize few words while also writing a whole book. Do you provide multiple images of each product, following the same standard?

Suggestion No. 2 for Maximizing Performance
Never forget that your customers have to buy something they can't touch, and give them as many visual aids as you can in the form of photographs. Advertise products that are used actively by showing customers photographs of those products in use. Make use of a range of image sizes, provide access to enlargement tools, and highlight certain areas of interest. If necessary, fine-tune the format of your shopping basket.

Lookup by category and item
Sort up your products into categories! There are a lot of online stores that list product categories, but if you click on one, you won't see everything in the store since the store owner forgot to "link" all the products to the correct category. What if there was only room in your shop for one massive table that displayed all of your wares? A potential buyer may get down on all fours to investigate your wares, but how will he ever find what he needs? In the same way, online stores need to have a layout that makes it easy for customers to find what they're looking for:

Tip #3 for Optimisation
Make sure you have enough categories, but don't make any of them too huge or too little. Each category should include between 10 and 50 products. If you have a lot of products, divide them up into subcategories. Include a brief description and image of the type of product that can be found in each category.

Advice 4 in the Optimization Series
It's not always enough to simply have a well-organized set of categories; customers also need a way to perform direct searches. It's unfortunate that on many retail sites, customers are unable to locate items since those items do not contain the words they are looking for. Always include relevant search phrases in the product description and, if your eCommerce platform allows for additional search keywords, make use of them to include any additional terms you couldn't fit in the product description.

Some of our clients require further details.
While your clientele may run the gamut, it's important to cater to everyone. For some consumers, all they need is a good picture and the "best" price, while others can't make a purchase decision without first hearing what others have to say about the goods.

5th Optimisation Hint
Reviews of a product can be a powerful marketing resource, but obtaining genuine reviews is challenging. There is a small probability that a customer will return to your eCommerce sites and write a review after receiving the merchandise. To "assist" him, you should give him a discount in exchange for writing a review of the product he just purchased from you. Include a card or pamphlet with the shipment detailing the "review discount," or follow up a few days after delivery with an email asking for feedback.

Sixth Optimisational Trick
There are shoppers who can't afford to make any mistakes when making a purchase. Your store needs a comparison function if you sell products that are similar. For these shoppers, even a subtle distinction in, say, color or cost might make all the difference.

Processing of Payment and Shipping
Please DO NOT be coy about things like accepted methods of payment, any additional fees for handling, and shipping details. Visitors who struggle to discover the information they need on your e-commerce website are a warning indication that something is wrong. Don't put up barriers and instead provide easy-to-understand details on the purchasing procedure.

Seventh Optimisational Hint
Once the shopper has brought their basket up to the checkout counter, they should not be able to leave for any reason. Account registrations are useful for post-sale support and repeat business, but you shouldn't need a new customer to create one. I've encountered online stores that required me to verify my identity by verifying my email address (through my email account) before completing the purchase. You should prioritize making a sale above registering new users, so keep things simple.

Suggestion #8 for Optimisation
Include a number of different methods for customers to pay. Not all customers want to use credit cards, so it's important to have other payment options available. Compare the shopping carts of similar businesses if you need to determine the preferred form of payment. Do you accept PayPal as a form of payment currently?

Tip #9 for Optimisation
Just before the customer completes the checkout process, you should briefly review with him what items were included in his order: An overview of the items in your shopping cart, including the total price, any applicable shipping fees, and an estimated delivery date, if one is available. Don't let him leave the screen to ask about the order until absolutely necessary.

General Search Engine Optimization
When asked how long it takes to create an online store, I often tell my clients, "It depends on how many things you have." In many cases, the product catalog has nothing to do with the configuration of a shopping cart script. The bulk of the work is going to be spent inputting data on products and categories. I realize it would be impossible to input data for more than a thousand products if you offered them.

10th Optimisation Hint
Prioritize the most crucial items, and then go on to the more often sold ones. Because people are buying your wares doesn't mean you should stop adding new content; just as in a physical store, you need to constantly improve how your things are presented online. Each piece of data you add will boost your store's Google search results. Most on-site optimization is also Search Engine Optimization (SEO) due to the high volume of stores (SEO).

I'm sure a lot of shopping portals won't let you customize everything to your liking. If your eCommerce site's product display and search functionality aren't optimized as described in this article, you may want to look elsewhere.