Crafting your e-commerce website is an artful process, and each detail deserves care and attention. It’s like a fine wine uniquely aged to create the desired outcome. Daniel Alves, at Mashable, does a great job of breaking down the basics so you can fine-tune to your heart’s content.
Particularly, he does an excellent job dissecting your shoppers (and I mean that in a purely allegorical sense!). Alves addresses the Power Shopper, who is on a mission to buy; the Recreational Shopper, who prefers to browse through your products and makes impulsive buying decisions; and the Reluctant Shopper, who needs some hand-holding and is concerned about privacy and security.
Alves then proceeds to cover every aspect of e-commerce sites, from the Add to Cart button to the cookies (the kind that your site can leave on a user’s computer, not the chewy, delicious kind).
Although the article is packed too full of great hints to address each point, here is a supremely brief overview. Alves gives us hints on how to make products easy to find for each consumer type through search bars and visuals; how to showcase your products with clear prices and photos so the consumer is not distracted by peripherals; and how to seal the deal, eliminating registration and offering on-page checkout.
Here’s the theme I see: follow convention. “How boring,” you might say. Sure, but between sales and excitement, which would you choose? Wines are generally crafted using the same process, but they are anything but mundane. The key to exceptional e-commerce comes in creatively addressing the consumers’ needs, and two important needs are consistency and easy usability.
Check out the full article at: http://mashable.com/
Psst, an added bonus fact from the article: “A Forrester Research study found that requiring users to register before checking out decreases ecommerce conversions by a staggering 23%.”
