The customer is undoubtedly the most vital link in the selling chain, whether you sell online or offline. Running an eCommerce business is a bigger challenge because the customer cannot see or experience the products physically. Moreover, there are challenges related to transaction security, shipping and order fulfillment, inventory tracking, and more. This is the reason that you should focus on having all the basics covered when it comes to building a well-rounded eCommerce store.
At the same time, it is crucial to understand the customers’ perspective and give them everything they expect. Right from the point when they land on the store to the conversion, they should be able to navigate seamlessly so that they stay on and complete the buying journey. Hence, you need to make sure that the eCommerce store matches the expectations of the customers to perfection. Here is a list of the things that they would expect and you must ensure that your eCommerce development company implements them all in your web store.
1. Interactive design
To start with, your eCommerce website should have an appealing and interactive design that makes a great initial impression on the visitors. Creative and responsive web designs play a key role in promoting online sales at your store. The idea is to use relevant elements creatively so that they catch the eye while excluding the redundant ones that the visitor would probably not be interested in.
2. Intuitive navigation
While an appealing UI is a necessity to render a smooth user experience, intuitive navigation is even more important. Essentially, this means that even a laymen visitor should be able to explore your eCommerce store with ease. From moving from one page to another to understanding the functionalities of Call To Action buttons, everything should be easy as a breeze.
3. Search functionalities
Since a majority of eCommerce websites have large product catalogs with numerous products, they need to have easy search functionalities for helping the customers. These functionalities should empower them to filter products on the basis of parameters such as prices, colors, sizes, and more so that they can shortlist the ones that they would be interested in. Image searches and voice searches are some forms that can make your store a favorite for tech-savvy buyers.
4. Speed
Of course, the look and feel of the store do matter but customers have expectations in terms of good loading speed as well. If your store takes a few extra seconds to load, the chances of losing the potential customers go up. Therefore, make sure that the store loads at a lightning speed. Right from the time you engage eCommerce development services to the routine running of your website, ensure that speed optimization is on priority.
5. Easy checkout
Another thing that any online customer would expect from an eCommerce store would be an easy checkout. Multiple steps and complex form filling is something that discourages them and increases cart abandonment rates. However, you can prevent this by enabling guest checkout, reducing the number of steps, and eliminating useless form filling during checkout.
6. Product recommendations
Another functionality that can ease the customer’s journey to a considerable extent is product recommendations. This requires the use of technologies like Artificial Intelligence and data analytics to track and understand the behavior and shopping preferences of individual visitors. Accordingly, you can pick relevant products and send across contextual recommendations to the users for maximizing the chances of conversions.
7. Offers and deals
Typically, any shopper would look for special offers and deals to shop from your store and leave the other options available on the internet. While you can attract them with special first-time discounts, festive offers, loyalty points, and referral bonuses, personalized offers make them feel even more special and drive customer retention. You can use push notifications and e-mailers to send these special discounts while regular offers can be displayed on the site itself.
8. Free shipping
Shipping cost is something that every online shopper detests and expects to be eliminated or at least reduced to the minimum. So if you can offer them free shipping or discount on shipping, it can make all the difference to the conversion rate of your online store. Also, make sure that speed is on top of your mind because your buyers would want to get their orders as soon as possible.
9. Easy refunds and returns
Online buyers are more likely to return or exchange the products because they may not find them good enough or have issues related to sizing, color, etc. Having a well-defined and easy refund, return and exchange policy is important to win their confidence and get them to shop from your store.
10. Responsiveness
Since a majority of online shoppers purchase with mobile devices today, responsiveness becomes essential for every eCommerce store. Therefore, you must make sure that your web store delivers seamless experiences irrespective of the device used by the potential customer to access it.
Conclusion
Now that you know everything about the customers’ expectations from your e-store, you can visualize a new one or assess the current one to identify where it lacks. The choice of the right eCommerce development platform matters because it should have all the features that are needed to render the aforementioned functionalities in your online store.
Magento is a platform that you can trust in this context because it offers a wide range of features to develop high-end eCommerce websites. You can choose the advanced Magento 2 version for availing the benefits of high speed, scalability, and simplified checkout. Mage India is a reliable agency to hire Magento 2 developers to give you a head start with a good-looking and functionally-superior eCommerce store. Share your requirements with us and we will assist you in creating an impressive web presence.