Have you heard the news? We are getting some brand new offices! Therefore I have been spending a fair amount of time this week hunting around on ecommerce sites.
Shopping is great, shopping online not so great and shopping for office desks only just passes as fun. However on my travels I visited lots and lots of ecommerce websites and some of them really bugged me. So here are my top 4 tips for a successful store…
1) Be familiar
Most people shop online from the same stores and become familiar with the processes. People do not like having to “work out” a new store. The key for the designer is to make sure that everything conforms and works in a familiar and usual way. Shopping baskets in odd places or a strange navigation system can be very off-putting and unfortunately visitors just will not stay on a poorly designed site.
2) Make it easy for clients to buy
Do not put lots of hurdles in the way like extra fields on forms and convoluted sign up processes. The “buy now” button must be clear and in a place where the visitor does not have to scroll. The M&S website used to frustrate me as it would always ask for a quantity before I could add an item to my basket – why not just assume 1 and let me decide if I want more? (Why would I really want more than 1 pair of size 6 shoes in the same colour and style anyway?)
3) Easy to find details
Some information is essential for many visitors: delivery prices, returns, time scales, ordering procedures as well as the compulsory legal terms and info. In addition a phone number and physical address will help to ease any concerns that a first time shopper may have.
4) Photos and descriptions
In the real world we may study an item before buying, we may even visit the item for a number of days/weeks before we make a decision to purchase. We are very tactile beings. The online experience will never be quite the same but using great photos, accurate descriptions and product reviews all go some way to filling the void.
If only all on-line shops followed these simple rules, we would all find shopping online so much easier!
