How to meet the needs of the eCommerce customer?

What’s the recipe to create a perfect online store? With the rapid development of this sector and ever-growing customer expectations, the list of boxes that need to be ticked is becoming longer and longer. However, there are some basic rules that you have to stick to in order to satisfy your customers and provide excellent customer service. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

If you want to succeed in eCommerce, you have to think about three primary elements of your offer:

• The range of products
• The quick and intuitive purchasing process
• Effective development strategy

Let’s take a closer look at each of these elements.

The range of your products

Amazon offers over 12 million products. And yes, that’s an unquestionable global eCommerce leader. But they are where they are for a reason. Your users want to have a broad choice. Take any successful e-commerce business – surely they have at least several hundred products in their inventory. If you want to succeed, you have to make sure customers have access to all the most popular products and brands in your store. Of course, there are stores that operate in a very specific niche, where there aren’t even hundreds of available products, but that’s not the strategy for you if your main goal is to make money out of this business.

Find out what products, product categories, and brands are desired in your niche and ensure that you have at least a majority of them in your offer. And tirelessly work to extend your offer, look for new options and product categories. Don’t limit yourself to one specific sector. Here, Samsung is a perfect example. Of course, you know that they make smartphones and fridges. But did you know that they make cars as well?

This strategy can prove effective in your case, too. Think about the ways to expand your offer. Look for new product categories or even new market sectors. Work with different vendors and contractors. Be creative and open-minded. That’s always a good starting point!

The quick and intuitive purchasing process

All the best eCommerce websites are easy to navigate and to place an order. Analyze your purchasing process and get rid of anything that’s unnecessary or overly complicated. Don’t ask customers to do or inform you about something that’s not necessary to finish the order. There will be time for that later. Once a customer decides to buy something at your store, your goal is to make it as convenient as possible. 

In 2022, Baymard Institute conducted a study to find out why users abandon their carts. Here are the answers:

image source: https://baymard.com/blog/ecommerce-checkout-usability-report-and-benchmark

Six out of ten reasons are related to too a complicated or flawed checkout process. Don’t make any of these mistakes. Make sure your website is 100% operational and that users can place an order without the need to create an account. Also, be transparent about order-related costs and procedures. Your customers will be thankful for that!

Is there anything else you can do to make sure your store is user-friendly? Yes! Here are a few ideas. Ensure that you offer:

• 100% mobile-friendly website (over 50% of global internet traffic comes from mobile devices)
• Quick and secure payment and delivery options
• Smooth navigation between the cart and the website (products should stay in the cart even if the user goes back to browsing products)
• Exhaustive product descriptions and high-quality photos
• All the necessary information and details (you can use a blog for that).

Effective development strategy

ECommerce is one of the most dynamically developing market sectors, especially now, in the pandemic. Online stores invest and look for:

• New sales channels
• New technologies (e.g., augmented reality and intelligent chatbots)
• Effective and creative ways to communicate with customers
• Non-standard marketing possibilities (e.g., affiliate marketing, loyalty programs)

You should do the same thing. Never rest on your laurels and continually think about the ways to make your store quicker, better, more effective. Use your community – ask questions about UX and the ways to improve it. Run tests and analyze different options. And lastly, optimize your prices. That’s also a part of the user experience. If your prices are well-calculated, you will be able to attract more customers looking for great deals. If the pricing strategy gives you a hard time, you can use online tools that facilitate setting and maintaining optimal prices.

In conclusion, if you don’t stand still and try to improve your business, you can outrun competitors and win customer engagement. And that’s the whole point, isn’t it?

At Global4Net, we support eCommerce entrepreneurs in their way to success. We are a certified Magento partner that will help you build a successful online store from the ground up. If you want to know more and see what we can do together, just visit our website and drop us a line. We’re at your service!