Improve Your eCommerce Website by Implementing These Essential Features 

Improve Your eCommerce Website by Implementing These Essential Features 

People invest a considerable amount of time and money when setting up a website to market products online. You ideally should expect your efforts to be rewarded by quickly recouping the money you’ve invested and more from the eCommerce website’s revenues.

For that to happen, when creating or upgrading your eCommerce site, there are certain essential features you need to include. In this article, we offer you a walkthrough of these features and how they’ll help your eCommerce website.

#1 Responsive Design

Google’s, Bing’s and Yahoo’s search engine ranking algorithms are designed to improve the relevance of search results for their users. They’re far more likely to rank sites with a responsive design than those without. In other words, sites whose display adapts to different screens from mobile to tablets and PCs will be ranked higher and viewed by more people.

And responsive design isn’t only important for search engines either. An adaptable website is also important for users who want an ergonomic and efficient site to make their purchases across all the platforms they might use. According to a study, 40% of customers have moved to a competitor after a bad experience on the mobile version of an eCommerce website. You don’t want your site to be in that 40%.

#2 Site Organization and Search Functions

The user must be able to easily find the products that interest him. For this, it is necessary to integrate categories and subcategories, in addition to allowing your users to search and sort your products in a variety of ways from type to price. Ideally, the search function on your website will be smart and tolerate minor mistakes, because there is nothing more frustrating than a search that ends with “no results found” just because of a minor typo, an extra dash, etc.

In today’s fast-paced internet, many e-commerce customers will decide whether they’re interested in your website in a matter of seconds, and if you fail to show them what they want in a matter of minutes, you’re likely leaving a sale on the table. That’s why navigation and a competent local search function is so important.

#3 User Reviews

Although some site owners might be initially cautious about implementing user reviews for the fear of receiving overwhelmingly negative feedback, this caution is largely unjustified and the benefits of adding a ‘user reviews’ section generally outweigh the drawbacks:

• It increases the time the user spends on your website and how much they interact with it, which is important for search engines.
• It makes your website more trustworthy when you have a section that displays good and bad user reviews alike.
• It is a way for you to receive honest feedback and have a way to improve your services and the products in your line up.
• And it is, ultimately, a feature that improves the user experience and drives up sales.

#4 Implement Transparent Return & Refund Policy and Feature

If there is one feature that almost every e-commerce site needs to have, it is a return and refund feature. When shopping online, people know you can never be 100 percent sure that the product is what you want. It isn’t like a physical store where you can touch and check the product. A customer who knows an eCommerce website has a clear and transparent return & refund policy will more readily make the purchase. This has been an observed trend in almost all e-commerce websites.

So, if you don’t have a return & refund policy, start designing one now, and make sure it also becomes part of your eCommerce development efforts as well.

#5 Loyalty Program

Have you ever heard of the 80-20 rule? It states that 80% of an outcome is generated from only 20% of the participants. This holds true for e-commerce clients as well: 80% of your revenue is generated from only 20% of your clients, so you have to make sure those clients are happy.

By adding a direct loyalty feature into your e-commerce programs that give your long-time clients instantaneous discounts, better recommendations, etc., you’ll be able to make them happy and increase the likelihood they’ll stay with your website.

Initially, when your e-commerce website only makes a dozen sales a month, this feature isn’t important, but as it grows, this feature becomes an essential part that you need to implement as fast as possible.