Creating a positive e-commerce experience
Many Web development projects today involve e-commerce capabilities. The wide range of ready-made e-commerce solutions make adding online stores to websites easier for Web developers than even before.
Whether you've just started, or are about to start your own business and are considering selling products online, or you work in an established corporation with years of e-commerce experience, this article provides you with an overview of some of the most important factors to address so that your customers receive a positive buying experience and look forward to making repeat purchases in the future.
Even if you don't run an online store, this article can help you to evaluate the service quality of those websites you may use.
The key to running a successful online store is to provide customers with a positive shopping experience throughout the entire product selection, ordering, delivery and after-sales service process. Here are some of the most important aspects you'll need to address:
- Make all pricing, applicable tax and shipping costs clear on the shopping cart from the very beginning. Online stores that do not display this information often lose customers who forget to budget for these costs at the checkout.
- Make it easy to remove items individually from shopping carts. Only providing an option to clear an entire shopping cart is likely to result in lost customers who are purchasing multiple products, and won't be prepared to start their product selection again from the beginning.
- Clearly display estimated dispatch and shipping time-frames throughout your website. Delivery times are a major factor when customers decide whether to use your service.
- When selling physical products, ensure your e-commerce system keeps track of available stock so that customers can be informed of any delays before completing their purchase. If a delay is likely to occur, try to provide accurate delivery estimates to help the customer decide whether they want to wait. Providing customers with the option of receiving a refund if a product's delivery time is longer than expected will also help boost customer confidence. When customers order multiple products simultaneously, it is likely that you will ship all products in one package. If a delay is likely to occur, as the seller, you will need to take into account that you may need to absorb additional shipping costs when shipping delayed items to customers.
- Establish a means whereby customers can easily return and exchange faulty products. State this process clearly throughout your site. To maximise customer confidence, you should always cover the costs of receiving and processing returned goods. Making enquiries about a pre-paid postal or courier pick-up services in advance will help you make the process as easy as possible in the event a customer should ever need to make a return.
- Provide several delivery options that cater for different customer requirements. Some customers will want to pay a premium delivery fee to receive a product by express courier, other will prefer to pay a lower delivery fee and wait slightly longer for their product to arrive.
- Only use reputable, well known companies to process credit card transactions. Many of these companies have comprehensive anti-fraud checks in place to help reduce the likelihood of a fraudulent transaction taking place.
- Always use digital certificates to secure a customer's transaction.
- Keep the ordering process to a minimum - the less information a customer needs to enter, the more likely they are to complete a sale. Only collect the essential information you need to complete or follow up on the transaction.
- Always respect a customer's choice of whether or not they want to be added to your mailing list for future correspondence, and provide an easy means for them to unsubscribe. Never sell or otherwise disclose your mailing list to third parties. Make an easy-to read privacy statement clearly accessible on your site.
Due to the complexity of online stores, you should always seek expert technical and legal advice to help you set one up.
