What Makes a Successful Online Store?
Success in business has been described by a simple formula for centuries. Find a profitable location for your cart. To attract more foot traffic, shout louder than your opponent. Reduce your operating costs to increase your profitability.
It's not so straightforward in the twenty-first century.
Large, well-known businesses frequently fail to connect with today's consumers. The physical location can be a problem rather than a benefit. A tiny store can also be run on a shoestring budget with minimal inventory. All of this makes it simpler for digital-first retailers to carve out a niche in even the most crowded sectors. So, if you want to start an internet store in 2021, you'll have plenty of time.
By September 2022, smartphones will account for half of all internet expenditures. In 2020, American consumers will spend more than $190 billion on mobile devices.
Last year, 46% of Americans tested a new brand or placed purchases with new shops. Consumers are actively switching brands as a result of the convenience of internet shopping and the blurring of geographical lines.
So, what are the characteristics of a successful online store?
Check the following 8 characteristics and the best ways you can use to tempt customers to spend money in your online store — and to return.
1. Competitive Shipping
Customers expect to not have to charge a lot for shipping, and to have the option of expedited shipping as the concept of e-Commerce has matured. While this may not be feasible for all businesses, it may be worthwhile to consider offering free shipping to your customers. While the initial expense of covering delivery will eat into your profits, if you don't charge shipping, you may experience a rise in sales over time. If you choose this path, make this policy as explicit as possible so that your customers are aware of it.
2. Easy, customized website design
A well-designed online shop accomplishes two goals: It makes it simple and quick for your site visitors to find what they're looking for. You could have the most stunning product assortment on this side of Amazon, but if your website is difficult to navigate, your potential customers will conclude it isn't worth it. According to a Kissmetrics study, if your e-Commerce site generates $100,000 per day, a one-second page delay may cost you $2.5 million in lost sales per year.
3. Simple Checkout Process
To reduce your abandoned cart rate, your consumers' checkout experience should be as simple and accommodating as feasible. The misery of an online store's existence is abandoned carts. There are several things you can do to keep your cart abandonment rate as low as possible.
Make a path to the cash register. A one-page checkout, which is a typical feature among shopping cart software suppliers, can make the checkout process simple.
According to research, the most prevalent reason for customers abandoning their shopping carts during the checkout process was because the additional charges (shipping, taxes, and fees) were too high. Consider presenting all pricing information prior to checkout so that your clients aren't caught off guard.
If you don't want your consumers to get sidetracked and leave your checkout page, consider disabling elements like the header/footer and menu selections while they're checking out.
4. Multiple Payment Options
It's just plain sense: if buyers have the option of paying using their preferred method, they're more likely to complete their purchase. That's why it's critical that you give potential customers the choice of selecting from a variety of payment methods.
5. Good presentation
It's all too tempting to try to do the photography yourself in order to save money on the cost of outsourcing. After all, as a small business owner, you've probably had to "wear all the hats" at one point or another. However, consider this: The images on your website provide online customers their first impression of your products, and you might not get a second chance if your photos don't match the quality of your product. The higher the quality of your product, the higher the photo quality you'll need.
When it comes to product descriptions, think beyond the box. Create product descriptions that are suited to your target audience, highlight what the product will accomplish for you, and pique the reader's interest. A blog article on Shopify provides some excellent examples of the types of product descriptions that sell. Check full article from here.
6. Customer Support
Customer service in a modern online store must be attentive and thorough. As your company becomes more sophisticated, you'll need to respond to a wider range of client inquiries. A self-help area that is easy to access can save your clients (and you) a lot of time. Many websites have a FAQ section that answers the most frequently asked questions. Some websites maintain a knowledgebase including these FAQs, as well as articles, how-to articles, and instruction manuals. User forums are also available on other sites, which is a useful feature if your site has a huge user base.
7. CTA (Call to Action)
It's a bit of a psychological deception, but it works. If you provide a simple way for your site traffic to "buy in" to your business, the chances of them converting to a sale increase dramatically. Signing up for your newsletter, giving an email address to earn an instant first-time-visitor coupon, or just moving to the next page to resume browsing are all examples of buy-in actions.
A call-to-action, or CTA, should be used to gain buy-in. The CTA should be in the form of a button that clearly states the desired action (especially on a mobile page). Consider phrases such as "Sign Up for Free," "Learn More," "Subscribe," "Get Started," and so on.
8. Customer Retention/Loyalty
Customer retention is an extremely vital aspect of building a long-term business. According to Harvard research, boosting customer retention rates by just 5% raises a company's earnings by 25% to 95%. Customer retention issues are analogous to filling a bucket with holes in the bottom: you could keep adding to make up for it, but it's far better to figure out what created the holes and how to fix them.
Customer retention is important because it allows you to see how loyal and satisfied your customers are, how good your customer service is, and whether there are any red flags that might turn off future consumers.
Keep the money in the store and issue store credits to your customers and let them choose something else in the store using CreditsYard app.