When you’re out shopping in an area you’ve never been to before, why do you choose the stores you go into? Likely you go into a store because they look interesting; they have colorful, intriguing displays and when you poke your head into the door, the store is customer friendly; the layout is obvious, there are friendly staff, and a warm and inviting atmosphere.
Your ecommerce website should be the same way. A shopper may click on your link and this should be the equivalent to pushing open the door of a shop. Your main page should be the same as a nicely laid out store. You must have a customer friendly webpage in order to keep your potential customer. How can you achieve this?
There is a basic checklist of things to do for your website before putting it out to the world. First, check all of your links and make sure that they work. There’s nothing more frustrating to a consumer than clicking on a link and having it fail; in fact, this alone can make your customer leave. This is especially important in the case of the checkout because you can lose up to a full half of your customers at the check out simply because the link isn’t working correctly! You can lose the rest of your customers by having links to products, pictures, and information fail. Once you’ve ascertained that your links are working correctly, check the rest of the layout of your page. Make sure that there are plenty of pictures (a picture says a thousand words!), that you have clear descriptions of your products (not only will this make your customer feel more trust for you, but it will also help you with search engine optimization which will make your website more popular) and that you have a clear place to contact you or your support staff in case of a problem. Another point to consider is to have information on things like registering an account, shipping information, and all relevant information about ‘hidden fees’ (shipping for example) in an easy to access place and easily read. This will inspire trust in your consumers.