In our last blog, we listed a few important ways to make your online shop more user-friendly. To reiterate one of our main points, it’s vital that your company website is easy to use in order to lure customers away from your competitors. It’s important, however, for your company website to contain favourable elements that keep customers coming back.
Here are three keys to eliciting return visits to your online store:
1. Free shipping.
We are hard pressed to think of anything that will motivate people more than the word “free”. Amazon has certainly taken note of this. The e-commerce giant has vastly multiplied return buys by having customers sign up for Amazon Prime. The major benefit of membership is free shipping on the vast majority of purchases. If you can offer such an option, you will practically guarantee return business.
According to Jennifer Landry on Semrush.com, just about everyone is offering free shipping. “It may be for a minimum purchase, or it may be a loyalty statement, but free shipping is almost like table-stakes in online retail these days,” she writes, “It’s definitely a huge factor in lifetime value of the customer relationship.”
2. A mobile-friendly design.
This is a point that cannot be stressed enough. Make no mistake about it. Most online shoppers do their online shopping on their mobile devices. It’s imperative that your e-commerce store is fully functional and easy to use on all smartphones, tablets and laptop computers. As Katie Dean points out on TheSelfEmployed.com, mobile Google searches now make up for more than half of the 100 billion monthly queries made on the search engine.
“If you want to increase your sales and be more accessible to your customers, ensure that your online shop is mobile-friendly,” she advises, “Responsive design ensures that your online store adjusts automatically to fit the screen on which it is being viewed. Thinking of your mobile users has the added advantage of improving your ranking on search engines, thus increasing your store’s visibility.”
3. A wish list option.
You are bound to have people log on to your online shop just to browse. Don’t worry. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, it’s certainly wise to give your site’s visitors opportunities to make note of their items of interest. Create a wish list option that allows them to keep tabs on the products they may wish to return for.
“Many consumers visit online stores just to look around,” affirms Dean, “They may not be able to afford an item at the moment but may be able to purchase it later. Providing them with a wish list feature makes it easy for them to return and easily purchase items that caught their eye on a previous visit.”
Does your company website need a safe and secure e-commerce solution? At Unity Payments, we have got you covered! With our help, selling your products online can be made easier than ever! To learn more, please don’t hesitate to call us at 1-800-661-3761 or email us at info@unitypayments.ca.
