The ecommerce industry isn’t the golden frontier it was when the concept of ordering things online was fresh. Businesses back then had novelty on their side, and customers didn’t expect much from their operations. Today, though, we’ve been through years of ecommerce as a mainstream staple. The bloom, as it were, is off the rose, and it’s now a market like any other.

Above all else, what this means is that a modern ecommerce business can’t get away with a poorly-designed and ill-optimized store. The marketplace is far too competitive. The most successful ecommerce stores don’t just ferry visitors to the point of conversion. No, they provide seamless and cohesive shopping experiences, leading to bigger purchases, greater customer satisfaction, referral traffic, and excellent brand growth.

If your store is going to not only survive the challenges of online retail but also thrive, it needs more than a half-hearted design effort. You need to put a real effort into making it everything it can be. It’s the core of your operation, of course: how can you do anything less and hope to get results? And in this post, we’re going to set out four top tips for polishing it to a mirror shine. Let’s get started.

Assess and refine the user experience

Providing a smooth and enjoyable user experience (UX) is critical for attracting and retaining ecommerce customers. Strong UX work not only makes it easier for customers to navigate your site (helping them find the products they’re looking for) but also helps build trust in your brand.

Looking professional is extremely important, after all, as there are plenty of scam stores floating around the internet. Here are some tips for creating an exceptional user experience:

• Commit to a mobile-first approach. Many shoppers now use their smartphones to buy online, so your ecommerce store needs to be responsive and mobile-friendly. Taking a mobile-first approach involves creating the mobile views first then expanding them to tablet or desktop views as needed, and it works so well because the smallest views are the toughest to get right.
• Focus on achieving intuitive navigation. It should be easy for the average visitor to parse your site’s content and category links. Use clear and descriptive labels for menu items, and make sure that important pieces of information (e.g. shipping and return policies) are easily accessible.
• Reduce your page loading times. Slow-loading pages can frustrate users and lead to abandoned carts. Optimize your site’s performance by compressing images, minifying CSS and JavaScript files, and using a content delivery network (CDN) to speed up page load times. Fast-loading pages can also lead to improved search engine rankings.
• Polish your product descriptions. It’s important to provide detailed and accurate product descriptions to help customers make informed purchasing decisions, but you also need to be compelling. Highlight key features and benefits, and add high-quality images and videos to showcase your products effectively.

Make better use of internal and market data

Data-driven marketing is essential for ecommerce businesses looking to expand their reach, increase conversions, and drive growth. It may sound highly intimidating (particularly if you don’t have a background in tech), but you can start small, take advantage of simple tools like Google Analytics, and work up to more sophisticated efforts.

To implement successful data-driven marketing strategies for your ecommerce store, consider the following tips:

• Address each page’s weak points. Looking at the metrics behind your site will give you a lot of information about how each page is performing. Look for pages that are strong in certain areas, then seek to shore up their weak points. If a page is ranking very well but not converting, for instance, work on the design and CTA. If a page with a great conversion rate isn’t ranking well, work on the content with a focus on keywords.
• Learn from competitor actions. Ecommerce is dominated by massive businesses with long records of learning from research, so it would be a waste not to take advantage of that research. Whether you’re doing some manual UX research or scraping product pricing data (if you’re not familiar with scraping, check out the guide to data extraction from ScrapingBee), you can see what rivals are doing well and what they’re doing poorly. After that, you can learn from the former and exploit the latter.
• Use customer data for personalized marketing. Though you need to be discerning to avoid falling foul of data collection regulations, you should get into the habit of collecting and analyzing customer data (looking at their browsing choices, purchase histories, and demographics, to name just some elements). You can then use this data to create targeted marketing campaigns capable of delivering superior results.
• Run A/B tests to trial alternatives. There’s no such thing as a perfect store, so you should never stop trying to improve. Keeping A/B tests running to see how pages perform relative to their potential replacements will ensure you stay ahead of the curve (but be careful not to read too much into minor fluctuations).

Streamline the checkout process

A smooth and efficient checkout process is crucial for maximizing conversions, as it’s frustratingly common for a shopper to fill their cart only to reconsider at the checkout stage and leave the site. This can happen for any reason, of course, but having an awkward or confusing checkout process can certainly be one of them.

The easier you make your checkout process, the less frequently your store will lose a shopper at the last second. To create a seamless and user-friendly checkout experience, consider implementing the following strategies:

• Reduce the actions needed. Completing a purchase should take as few steps and inputs as possible. Combine steps whenever possible (link billing and shipping information, for instance) and avoid asking for unnecessary information. If you give shoppers too much time, they’ll use it to change their minds.
• Offer a guest checkout option. Requiring customers to create accounts before making purchases can be a major barrier to conversion. Instead, offer a guest checkout option, allowing a shopper to complete a purchase with just an email address. You may also want to support social logins through services such as Auth0.
• Accept multiple payment options. Different customers have different payment preferences, such as credit cards, debit cards, or online payment services similar to PayPal. The more you can accommodate them, the easier you’ll find it to get them to the point of conversion.
• Provide clear trust signals. Online shoppers are increasingly concerned about the security of their personal and financial information. Implement strong security measures (SSL encryption and secure payment at a minimum) to protect customer data, and display relevant trust signals (e.g. security badges) to reassure shoppers.

Focus on customer service

Exceptional customer service plays a vital role in the success of any ecommerce business. Great customer service not only helps resolve issues and address concerns but also fosters customer loyalty and promotes positive word-of-mouth.

By prioritizing customer service, you can differentiate your ecommerce store from competitors and create a loyal customer base that contributes to your store’s long-term growth. To offer outstanding customer service, try the the following actions:

• Offer multiple support channels. Individual customers will have distinct preferences for how they communicate. One may prefer phone calls, while another may like to use emails. The more channels you support, the more people you’ll be able to help, and the more customers you’ll be able to retain..
• Maintain quick response times. It isn’t enough to respond to customer inquiries and concerns: you also need to do so promptly and efficiently. If you wait too long to reply, a customer may get angry and give up. Set response time targets for your support team members, then strive to exceed those targets.
• Implement live chat (and chatbots). Live chat is a hyper-convenient communication channel that can handle anything from concerns to requests for product recommendations. Pair a live chat system with a smart chatbot capable of answering common queries and you can have the best of both worlds: the scalability and 24/7 availability of automated support and the rich engagement of live chat.
• Request detailed customer feedback. Making an effort to actively seek customer feedback and reviews will return valuable insights into how well you’re doing. Additionally, you should find the time to respond to public reviews, whether positive or negative: show appreciation for praise, and address any concerns raised.

Wrapping up

In this blog post, then, we’ve been through four top tips to help you improve your ecommerce store and stay competitive. If you can implement these tips to the best of your ability (and use any and all resources available to you), you can put your store in a much better position to endure market turbulence and perhaps even edge ahead of its rivals.

So if you’ve yet to invest heavily in your store design and development, what are you waiting for? Other store owners in your niche are no doubt making it a priority, so if you keep putting it off then you’ll fall behind. It’s time to take action.