Is it time to upgrade your ecommerce site?

Written 24.06.03 by: Jonathan Briggs

It is easy to build a cheap online store and since the late 90’s many people have. But it is gradually dawning on customers, and some store owners that there is a big difference between a good online ecommerce site and a bad one. Here is a checklist of problems to look out for. If your current store suffers from more than a couple of them then it’s probably time to think about rebuilding. It could make a huge difference to your business!

1. Design looks very different from your offline presence

Are you proud of how your site looks? Does it reflect the same qualities and values as your advertising, your catalogue or your stationary? Is it as good as your competitors? Producing clean effective design takes time but will repay the investment. Customers want fast loading attractive sites which demonstrate trust and value in every aspect of their design.

2. Customers are not finding your site

Is your site easy to find by a customer who does not know your web address? Does typing one of your products into Google get your site get listed on the first page? Has your shop been designed to be found by the search engines or does it use of frames or excessive Flash? Simplifying your design and thinking about how you will be found requires some real knowledge of how search engines work but without it many of your potential customers will never find your store and never buy!

3. Customers are not finding your products

Many stores are great if you know exactly what they sell but useless at helping people browse the full range of products on offer. Does your site provide interesting ways for your customers to browse, jump from category to category or provide a buyer’s guide to find the perfect gift? Providing such tools is not rocket science but is often beyond the capabilities of ‘out of the box’ software used to produce cheap sites. Take a look at some of most successful online stores and you will see why they have spent time and money to help their customers explore the things they sell.

4. The buying process is awkward

Pretend to be a shopper inside your store. Add items to your basket. Hit the browser back key a couple of times. Return to the basket and remove an item. Search for something else and add it to your basket. Press the back key again. Does your shop still operate as you want it to or do you get errors? Is the buying process smooth and clear? Do you have to register to buy or can you only ship to your credit card address? Remember that real customers are complex, often change their minds and make mistakes. A well-designed store will cope with their behaviour and not break. A poorly designed store will break and the customer will never come back.

5. Your shop is hard to update

Different stores need different content management systems depending on how often they make changes and how many items need to be updated. How long does it take to change a price, update a product description or insert a new image? Streamlining these processes with better tools will be well worthwhile.

6. Your shop is not integrated into your offline business

How are orders passed from your online system to your offline ordering systems? Is this fully automatic? If you are a tiny company this probably isn’t a major issue but for bigger shops this can be expensive. One of the reasons to go online is to cut the costs of your conventional business and proper integration between your systems will help you achieve this.

Look at all of your processes. Is it possible to automate information flows from suppliers or to fulfilment and delivery companies? Is your site able to provide live stock availability information online? A properly designed ecommerce system will handle all these issues and keep the costs of running your business down.

7. Customers are transferred to another site to handle payment

Commerce online is all about trust and customers get confused and suspicious when they are transferred from one site to another in the middle of a transaction. That is why all the major and successful online stores tightly integrate secure payment steps into the buying process. There is no change of design, popup windows or break in the flow as you enter your credit card information and have it processed.

8. You cannot include features and other content within your shop

Effective selling online is about more than simply a product list and a shopping basket. It is about providing customers with rich information, buyers guides, background notes, hints and tips and more. Your site and your shop should be tightly integrated and you should be able to create features and promotions throughout to provide a much higher level of customer service. This needs a proper content management system with a rich variety of templates and tools to allow you create new sections, pages and illustrated product lists.

9. You cannot offer partner deals to other sites

Amazon has driven its success though a sophisticated affiliate scheme in which it rewards other sites for referring customers. Can your shop do this?

10. Your site does not recognise repeat customers

Finding customers and drawing them to your site is hard and expensive. Once they are there it is vital to try and help them come back and that means making subsequent shopping easier. Does your site know what they bought last time? Does it make them type the same addresses on every visit? Why should they stay loyal to your site rather than go elsewhere?

Your site needs to store information about your customers securely and privately, recognise when they return and offer them extra discounts or services. Although technically more challenging this should increase repeat purchases and customer loyalty. You can further enhance your business by recognising your offline customers too.

Having the ability to capture such data makes the value of your presence quantifiable, which not only means that your ebudget is more easily justifiable but also redundant pages or functionalities can be dropped leaving funds for pages your customers want to use.

11. Offers and promotions are hard to create

Can you offer 10 per cent off to repeat customers? Can you run a ‘buy 3 and get 1 free” promotion? Can you create a product of the day feature or use industry information to discount best sellers? Your competitors are probably already using such sophisticated selling techniques to reduce redundant inventory and drive sales.

12. Your site does not provide the information you need to build your business

Can you tell who has been to your store today even if they did not buy? What they looked at and where they came from? Can you see the search terms they typed into Google that allowed them to find your site? Are you using this information to change your product mix or to add new features to your site.

13. Your site breaks some of the rules about selling online

Did you know that taking payment for goods that you cannot ship within 28 days is illegal?
Running an online business can be very complex particularly if you sell ranges of goods that constantly change like music, books or DVDs. Your ecommerce system must support you in running your business legally; automatically holding orders that cannot be fulfilled or splitting orders as necessary to allow some items to be charged and shipped.

the OTHER media

If you are looking at rebuilding your site you should talk to us at the OTHER media. We’ve redesigned stores big and small with significant improvements in traffic, flexibility and revenue. We have considerable experience in linking to internal processes, payment partners and fulfilment systems and in creating fast and effective design. We don’t use off-the-shelf software but have designed a powerful set of ecommerce components that can be customised to meet your needs.

For more articles on ecommerce business and technology check out www.jonathanbriggs.com

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