Irrespective of the size or shape of your website, its design plays a critical role in its success. No matter how innovative your idea is, your web design will determine whether it will survive the challenging world of ecommerce. In order to ensure that your web design is on the right track, here are some mistakes that are usually made in ecommerce design. By rectifying these mistakes, you will be able to increase your chance of providing your users with the memorable experience that they deserve; this will go a long way in boosting revenue.
Difficulty In Finding The Right Product
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. How will you feel if you have even the smallest trouble finding a product that you’re interested in. According to Google, a website has about 4 seconds to give their customers what they need. Your search results should help your users to instantly find the products they need. Apart from the product’s name, your customer must also be able to find a product by using its size, color, model and lots more.
Annoyingly Slow Page
The average time that a website needs to load, according to GTmetrix.com, is 2 seconds. Anything higher than this is a waste of time and can annoy users. Factors such as hosting server, number of contents on the web page and internet speed amongst others influence the loading speed of a website. The most important factor that influences a website’s loading speed is web design. You need to ensure that your homepage loads quickly when compared to other pages on your website because Google considers its speed when indexing your site.
Images With Poor Quality
High Definition images with good attention to detail are very important in determining the success of an ecommerce website. A good design practice involves hiring a professional photographer. The photographer will help you pick high quality images that you can use for your website. As a matter of fact, this task accounts for about 30% of the work that needs to be done on an ecommerce website. Another practice that you should focus on is enlarging the features inside the product page.
Lack of Trustworthy Design
Your website’s design can be used to judge how trustworthy it is. If you have the necessary expertise in web design, then you can create a website on your own. Otherwise, it’s advisable to hire an expert with excellent skills. A professional knows the right design elements, good color selection and animations that will make your website trustworthy.
Irresponsive Design
According to data gathered from Google Insight, about 95% of internet users access the internet via their mobile devices. The use of desktops for accessing websites will greatly reduce in 2019. If your website is not responsive, you will not only end up losing potential customers, you will also be penalized by Google from ranking in top search results.
Confusing Navigation
You will be able to gain your prospects’ trust if every page on your website has an easy-to-understand navigational page. Most well-renowned websites have implemented professional designs that gave room for swift navigation and your ecommerce website must not be left out. It’s important for your website to adopt navigation that will provide a top notch user experience.
Conclusion:
The design of an ecommerce website should not be joked with if you don’t want to lose your spot for becoming the next big thing in the ecommerce industry. Hiring the service of a professional web design company, such as Orange Toolz, will go a long way in increasing your website’s credibility and boosting your brand image.
B2B has been lagging behind B2C ecommerce due to the technological innovations that the latter makes use of. The complex requirements of B2B ecommerce have not been adequately catered for by different technology platforms unlike B2C’s simpler needs. Highlighted below are five B2B trends that you should be on the lookout for in 2019.
Increase In The Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence and machine learning will keep expanding into B2B ecommerce industry in 2019. B2B platforms will take advantage of the technological advancements enjoyed by B2C and effectively apply it to their needs. The adoption of these technologies will help B2B companies to optimize the layout of their websites and identify the products that are relevant to their markets.
More Focus On The Design And Execution of Omnichannel Strategies
B2B transactions are more complex than B2C’s. They involve complex buyer and seller approvals, payments and fulfillment options amongst others. The benefits that are enjoyed when there is consistency across
different B2B ecommerce channels are numerous; however, it is very difficult to execute it. It is important to provide customers with easy access to online and offline channels and to sales executives that will help during any stage of the purchase process. As a result of these factors, the B2B industry will experience the evolution of omnichannel commerce.
Increase In The Use of Video Content
Videos are widely consumed by internet users. They are very useful for industries selling products that need some level of buyer education, or products that buyers need to see in action. B2B sales can be improved through the use of video contents that tell a brand’s story. The videos can also be used for product overviews sharing the value of a product through customer reviews.
Chatbots Will Be Used To Chat With Customers
One of the ecommerce trends that will be adopted in 2019 is the use of chatbots to interact with customers. Chatbots will be used to answer customers’ questions and to also assist them during the purchase process. B2B ecommerce can use this for basic customer support, personalized recommendations and complex sales interactions.
Increase In The Growth of Voice-Assisted Commerce
Consumers are already familiar with different software and hardware voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa and Echo. It shouldn’t however, be a surprise if by 2020 half of all searches are done through the aid of voice assistants. Voice commerce is a trend that is hugely developing. If you want to boost your B2B ecommerce sales, it’ll be reasonable to implement a voice-assisted strategy. You can start with search and then expand into other areas of B2B interactions.
Conclusion:
As a B2B company, you should do all it takes to benefit from all the expected trends discussed in this article. Despite the complexities involved in implementing these strategies, B2B companies will experience a boost in their sales if they focus on tapping into these trends.
Most professionals that work in the association industry must have come across (or heard of situations) whereby membership numbers were decreasing and there was difficulty in boosting revenue.
The number of younger people that are trooping into the workforce has skyrocketed and organizations are finding it very difficult to market their products and services against the unending supply of information that can be provided by the internet.
How can the challenge of decreasing revenue be tackled? The best approach is to go where your ideal audience is and give them the value that they need.
If you don’t have an ecommerce website yet, then your organization should consider having one. According to a report made by California University Stanislaus, online sales are expected to go beyond $1.6 trillion dollars by 2020.
So, what can you do for your organization to benefit from this figure? Highlighted below are tips that you should consider if you are planning to create an ecommerce presence for your brand:
Don’t Limit Your Sales To Only Tangible Goods
When most people think of ecommerce, all they think of are tangible goods such as accessories, clothes, hats, books etc. Although these may make sense for your organization, don’t limit your sales to them. If, after surveying the reasons why your members renew their membership, you discover that they do so because of events, seminars or continuing education resources, you can focus on selling these to non-members. By doing so, you will be able to expose non-members to the value that your organization provides. Your members will also benefit from this since they don’t have to pay for the items.
Ensure Your Design Makes Shopping Easy
Your design must be one that creates an easy shopping process. Relevant information must be prominently displayed on your website through your design. This means you shouldn’t flood your site with large text blocks, prominent calls-to-action and contradicting elements. Make good use of white space on your website. Your prospects will be able to easily find whatever they are looking for (and also buy again) when they are able to easily process the information on your website.
Give Your Customers Easy Check Out Options
Consider how Amazon makes it very easy to buy an item on their website. You should try to replicate the same experience for your site visitors. Make it quick and easy for them to move through the purchase process. You should also allow your site visitors to buy from your site without registering an account. This enables your site visitors to order for a product if they value the product more than membership. You can then serve them with engaging contents that talk about the benefits of memberships after they’ve completed their purchase.
Conclusion:
It can be a very tiring and challenging task to create and implement an ecommerce site for your organization. You need to have the right plan and design that aids the use of your site so that you can effectively create a successful niche of non-dues revenue for your brand. If you want to learn more about ecommerce best practices and ecommerce development process, don’t hesitate to contact Orange Toolz today.