The Key Points in Building a Better eCommerce Site

At first, eCommerce appears to be an easy solution to become a web-preneur, even if you don’t actually have your own products to sell. It’s possible to pick a specific theme or niche and develop an online store that specializes in select products.

It all sounds so easy, at first. There are those who do well, turning an idea into profit almost immediately. Then there is everyone else who fails—at first—and it’s usually due to missing at least one very important key point.

The Trust Factor

You are asking visitors to hand over credit card information and trust that they will receive the products they paid for. Unless you are already a well-known brand (such as Amazon or eBay) then you really have to earn the trust of website visitors throughout every interaction… from the initial search to the final transaction.

What can you do to build trust with your audience?

• Allow—and encourage—customers to review products they’ve purchased.
• Never pay for fake reviews. (It’s always obvious when a review is fake.)
• Provide quality customer service, and respond professionally to any negative reviews that happen on or off your website.
• Go through the required steps and make sure your SSL certificate is kept up to date, giving peace of mind to potential customers that their personal information will be secure.
• Implement a professional payment gateway with more options for accepting online payment… not just Paypal.

The Unique Factor

You’re not the only online store on the web, and you’re not the only eCommerce site specializing in your niche. Translation= your audience has plenty of options.

So what will make customers choose you over competitors?

• Work with a professional graphic designer to develop an eCommerce website that is not another generic template. Before you do this, however, you should also…
• Work with a professional graphic designer to develop a visual brand (logo, color scheme, etc.) that defines and expresses a message unique to your business while also sparking the right emotion from the right people (AKA your core audience).
• Work with a copywriter who specializes in delivering your message in a way that your core market will associate with and remember. This is more important than hiring an “SEO content writer”… especially because over-optimization could actually be ruining the trust factor.
• Understand the difference between truly original and ‘must-pass-copyscape-original’. If you’re looking at relevant websites for inspiration, you’re doing it wrong.
• Only after you’ve defined a unique message and image for your brand will you really stand out from the crowd. Then it all boils down to the…

The Deciding Factor

This is where a visitor decides to buy one of your products… and to buy it from you!

There’s a few things you have to remember.

• The beauty of shopping online is that you can easily shop around and compare prices, look for the best deals / coupons / special offers, all from the comfort and convenience of your own home or office.
• So if you’re marking up products significantly higher than a competitor, you will lose sales to the better price.
• Never underestimate the power of an individual product description. Putting in the effort to describe a product in a way that focuses on humor, benefits, emotions, or all of the above is well worth it. Just look at Groupon, Moosejaw, or a Trader Joe’s catalog for examples of product descriptions that stand out and are a joy to read.

Finally, the secret behind every successful business is hard work and effort. There is no such thing as a lazy dollar, so choose to make the right investments for a bigger return.