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In my last article, I explained how consumer psychology affects sales through your online ecommerce store. We talked about few factors that need to be taken care for maximizing sales through your ecommerce store like
1. Is your store visible to your consumers?
2. Does your online store look professional?
3. Can your customers find the products they are looking for?
4. Are you providing peripheral information to consumers? (Sales person of brick and mortar)
In case you have not read these points and their solutions, please read here. How To Increase Sales Through Your Online/Ecommerce Store -- Part 1
Ok, so finally you are able to draw your prospective customers on to your website, your products are easy to find and you have all the relevant information, a consumer might be interested in.
What next? Consumer may want to buy but would want to be sure about security in your system.
5. Is your website secure?
Internet security has always remained a major concern with online consumers and these concerns are periodically reinforced with high profile Internet fraud news stories. Even though Security has come a long way, with strong encryption becoming the norm, security is still a matter of concern with online consumers. In short, if a website doesn't look secure to a consumer, the consumer will not buy from the website.
Solution:
Decide on an ecommerce platform that employs strong encryption for payment processing and consumer data retention. Your website host play an important role in securing your website. Ask your hosting provider about the security system at the data center that physically hosts the consumer data. As well, ensure that hosting facility has proper disaster recovery procedures, servers are backed up daily, back-ups are periodically stored off site in case of physical disaster.
Importantly, all the above measures need to be communicated to the consumers to gain their trust. Generally online shoppers are aware these days to look for a small lock and https:// in the address bar to ensure security before going ahead with online transaction. However it is important to still reinforce at checkout pages that consumers are in secure area and their information will not be compromised. In addition, an important way to gain consumers trust is to have a prominently displayed Contact us page with phone number and physical mailing address. Consumers will be confident that they can contact you in case of any incident while shopping online on your website.
6. Is your Checkout process simple enough?
Almost 50% of consumers abandon the checkout process. Studies show that the top reasons for abandoning the checkout process are: * Registration required to buy * Product was out of stock * Hidden charges at checkout * Customers were there for just price comparison * No time to complete the checkout.
Possibly as an online store owner, you are shocked to know about this loss of customers. It is now imperative to take the steps needed to reduce this shocking loss of sales.
Solution:
Problem 1 and 5 are somewhat related. Some customers just don't want to register but want to make purchase. Though for marketing purpose it is good to have customer's data for future promotions, Your online store should have option of guest checkout in case user doesn't want to register. For already registered customers, platform should auto fill most of the checkout details like billing and shipping information with a provision for user to override it.
For problem 2, the eCommerce platform should track stock and match sales to stock. If the eCommerce platform's stock tracking function detects a product has sold out, the online store can either flag the item as out of stock for the consumer or doesn't show the product on website.
Ensure that the Ecommerce platform always displays the running total of purchases prominently with all overheads so that it's not a shock for customer to see those hidden charges only at checkout.
For customers who come to website only to compare prices, Ecommerce platform should provide features like Wish list so that these customers are not forced to go till check out to compare prices. As well, store owners can provide retail price and online price upfront for customers to decide or possibly comeback to their wish list section.
7. Is your website multilingual?
Whole essence of having online store is to reach customers beyond what brick and mortar store can serve. Though English is a common business language, it is important to consider other important languages for business like Spanish, Arabic and French etc. Computers don't offer accurate translations and making a site multi-lingual invariably requires human translation services and this mean contracting out at a very high hourly rate.
Solution:
An eCommerce platform can cut down translation time if properly architected. The system should allow all translation to be done centrally. A translator can quickly translate product names, descriptions, etc. without having to toggle between multiple screens. This will reduce the time and effort required for translations.
8. Does you website offer multiple currencies and metric system?
An online store has potential to cross borders to reach your customers across the world. Your customers may use different weights and measures, and currencies depending on geographic region. If your products get popular in, say Spain, but your system doesn't support the weights systems and currencies, you are bound to loose those customers.
Solution:
Choose an Ecommerce platform with customer-friendly features like allowing customers to see goods in their own currency and measurement system.
CONCLUSION TO INCREASE YOUR BOTTOM LINE
Effective Ecommerce on your Web site = Increased bottom line
Statistical data says that an Ecommerce solution to any Website can substantially increase profitability for the Web site or business owner, as well as effectively drive traffic to your site; provided you choose the right platform to cater to your existing and potential customers.
Happy Sales!
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