Google Shopping, Nextag, and all the other great places online that will accept your product feed. Not only does this allow for more opportunities for sales, but you are expanding your audience and reach significantly and helping to get your product indexed by the major search engines. Some of these sites require payment, while others have no charge associated with them.
Let your site shoppers know that you mean serious business.
Important pages to have:
- FAQ – Avoid having to answer the common questions via email and direct shoppers to your FAQ page that answers those questions right away.
- Return Policy – Not necessarily required by law, but showing that you have a return policy helps boost customer satisfaction and alleviate some of the confusion. Tips on writing your return policy include avoid threatening words such as “We Refuse… or We will not be responsible…”, but rather keep it simple and clear as to what your policy on returns entails.
- Privacy Policy – Make sure that your site visitors are aware that you do not intend to resell their contact information. Some site visitors are extremely interested in how you intend to use the information they collect. Being straight forward and honest with your intentions will help ease the shopper and encourage them to complete the sale online.
Quality images &/or video
The quality of the images on your website is very important to help sell your product.
I highly recommend hiring a professional photographer for the quality images on your website. However, in the event you are going to take pictures on your own, here are a few quick tips to help you out:
- Use lots of light, but not direct lighting
- Try to avoid shadows on your product
- Use a white background
- Take all product shots at the same time, using the same lighting and background
- Use photo editing software such as PhotoShop to resize the images for web-use
Quality video is just as important. Video helps site shoppers to get a feel for how the product can be used, or hear live testimonials on the product. Post the videos on a number of video sharing sites such as YouTube or Vimeo. Then share them on your social media networks.
Social media sharing buttons
With all of the sharing going on right now, why wouldn’t you want social media sharing buttons on each product page? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, Email to a Friend are all important to have tied to every product page for ease of sharing.
Utilize these social media channels to your advantage
- Facebook – Create a Fan Page for your business/ecommerce website. Facebook allows you to post images of your products and include a link in the description of the image that can take them right to that product page.
- Twitter – Create a profile and include a link to your website in the bio line. Utilize hashtags and lists to fine likeminded individuals who are interested in your products.
- Google+ – Create a profile and then a page for your business. Post images of your product, links to your product, online reviews of your product. Find individuals to follow and “Add to Circles” who can endorse, use, or promote your product.
Be upfront about additional costs
Don’t share the cost of shipping as the last step in the process, include those details right away. Someone may be really jazzed up about buying your product, and then when they get to the last page find out its $50 to ship. They may be very disappointed to leave the site without finalizing the order. Letting the shopper know upfront what the cost associated with shipping (and other costs) is will help alleviate the shopping cart abandonment.
Ask for the Sale
Adding those little “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart” buttons is important to your website. It’s easy to use, it’s direct and helps the online shopper know what to do next.
What other tidbits have you done to your ecommerce website?