You’ve spent a lot of time and energy building your business. Having a website seems the next logical step. Properly done, an ecommerce site can do just that. Done incorrectly, it will turn into a waste of time. On the internet, you are competing globally for customers. The point is to attract and retain them. Here are five things that will frustrate purchasers and immediately turn them away.
The Site Takes Too Long to Load
People have short attention spans and patience is not the virtue to expect in the digital universe. This greatly applies to ecommerce. Users expect websites to load within 2 to 3 seconds. After 3-5 seconds, chances are they have already turned grumpy. Keep in mind that the more you dump media into your website, the slower it will load. This is where CDN comes in handy. CDN (Content Delivery Network) serves a cached copy of that content from the nearest PoP (Points of Presence), minimizing the physical distance data travels.
The Homepage is not Enticing
First impressions in the digital world can make or break a sale and a homepage is most often the first page your website visitor would land in. This page should be visually apppealing and communicate information in a clear and concise manner - Remember the mantra 'LESS IS MORE POWERFUL' and you don't have to overload information. Yahoo's clumsy overloaded homepage failed against Google's simple white space with a search bar.
Make sure the content is crisp and easy to read. Avoid long blocks of text and stay away from hard-to-read fonts. Pay attention to font size. Smaller fonts allow for more information, but can be hard on the eyes. Make sure images used align with the brand image and match the message being conveyed. Don’t clutter the page with tons of advertising.
The website should be easy to navigate. If finding products or searching for information is hard, they will leave. Navigation bars should be segregate the categories and sub-categories from the lens of the buyer. Consider using a navigation bar at the top of the page for general categories and a side menu bar to further narrow down product groupings. If working with a large product base, an effective local search engine would be of great help to visitors.
The Site Uses Excessive Pop-ups
Nobody wants to deal with the hassle of constantly closing out pop-ups. They are distractive and annoying, like a television show with more commercials than content. That’s not to say they don’t have their place, but if you are going to add pop-ups, use them sparsely. Before loading up on pop-ups, consider whether a banner on the side or bottom could be used without affecting the flow of the webpage. These options provide less interference to visitors while still conveying a message.
The Site Requires Users to Install Plug-ins
Potential customers should not have to download anything to have access to any content on your site. Avoid Flash files and go for a more modern HTML5 video player. If you are using videos, add a summary for those who don’t wish to watch. Stay away from auto-play. If customers want to watch a video, they will push play.
Site is 'Down'
You can’t bring in customers if you don’t have a site up and running. While websites do need their updates, visitors will be put off by consistently seeing an ‘under-maintenance’ message. Please bear in mind that content updates are different from plaform or CMS updates. This brings us to the next question. Is your CMS updated? Wordpress, for example, and the associated plugins or themes have to be updated consistently in order to avoid malware attacks.
With malware attacks on the rise, it is highly recommended that you ensure your platform and CMS remains updated. If you don't have a team overseeing it, you should consider moving from an open source CMS such as Wordpress to a managed CMS or cloud CMS. When the site is up and running, click through it on a third-party computer to make sure there are no broken links.
Jessica Kane is a professional blogger who has worked in eCommerce for the last five years. She currently writes for Rakuten Super Logistics and recommends them for all your order fulfillment needs now available at many fulfillment centers
