Most retail websites are not perfect. There is always room to improve for better results. Even when choosing a turnkey online store solution, many mistakes are often made. To avoid the most common retail website design mistakes, read the following article and make the necessary adjustments.
It is not just the turnkey solutions, which are also called leased online stores that need improvement. Custom website design with open-source applications is just as much at risk to have these common mistakes. In either case, it is important to avoid them.
Choosing the wrong technology.
Not all online store, shopping cart, and e-commerce solutions are the same. These applications are often vastly different in features, scale ability, and customization. Retailers must carefully review solutions and their needs to determine what will be the best fit. Some things to consider would be budgets, integration requirements, features, and administration.
Poorly created site navigation.
Website navigation for e-commerce must be clear, simple, and very user-friendly. In other words, visitors should be able to find what they are looking for quickly and effortlessly. Poorly created site navigation often is the cause for high bounce rates, drop-offs, and lower conversion rates. Navigation should be created with customer service in mind and search engine marketing.
Low quality photographs.
Product photographs are a critical aspect of online commerce. Consumers are not able to touch and feel the products. They experience the products online through images, descriptions, reviews, and now also videos. Using low quality product photographs is common and something to avoid. Only use professional taken product photographs. For best results, use 2-3 photos per SKU.
Lengthy checkout process.
This is something that can be avoided by simply choosing the proper technology. Often though a website designer can make adjustments and shorten the checkout. Nevertheless, for best results the right application has to be chosen. Lengthy and confusing checkout processes cause shopping cart abandonment to rise much higher.
Lack of call to action elements.
To convert site visitors into shoppers and customers, website design has to incorporate call to action for incentives. These are highly important and often websites lack them. Therefore, these websites lack online sales and have lower conversion rates. Home pages and store pages, as well as other key pages should have all the proper call to action.
Companies that want to increase online sales can always work with professional agencies. These agencies through services such as Conversion Optimization or Marketing Services assist clients with e-commerce websites.
