I’m getting a website for my business, what features does it need to stand out and help the business?
A good e-commerce site should provide a seamless shopping experience for your customers. The goal is for your customers to be able to enjoy the browsing experience, easily find what they are looking for, and be able to effortlessly complete a transaction.
So what features would I recommend? There are countless which should be included to ensure a great user experience and best practice.
To start, investing in great photography of your products is a must. At milandirect.com.au we have always paid for one of Australia’s best photographers to capture our products from all angles and in their best light. As a result, our product images look great and our customers can see exactly what they are purchasing. Compare this to some competitors, who have photos on their sites that look like they were taken on an iPhone. It pays to invest in great photography.
Taking it to the next level, I would also recommend making product videos, which are proven to increase conversion rates, and reduce product returns as they help your customers make informed decisions.
Along with great photography and product videos, it is also important to provide full information to your customers via detailed product descriptions and specifications.
Site navigation and search functionalities are also essential features, as you want to assist your customers in finding the product they are looking for in as few clicks as possible. At Milan Direct, we do this via clearly defined categories and sub categories plus a finely tuned search algorithm.
Other key features to include are: multiple payment options to make it as easy as possible to transact; a site build that has extremely fast page load times; and sufficient infrastructure to handle big spikes in traffic.
At Milan Direct, we also have a live chat functionality built into the site, which has proved to be really popular with our customers.
If you can include all of these features, whilst keeping a nice clean site design, you are well on your way to having a leading e-commerce site!
