How to Manage Your Ecommerce Site

The website design template that you choose is key, as this will dictate the look and feel of your ecommerce site, as well as how easy it is to maintain and update. Make a simple website, with plain HTML, and maintain a consistent aesthetic on all of your pages.

We recommend using an easy-to-read font and avoiding using huge pictures on every page, as this may slow down load times and distract from clear points of focus. Visitors should be drawn to calls to action and products – so keep things clutter free if you can!

Menus are the perfect way to stay organized and group what you’re selling. Keep them consistent and make them easy to navigate with links to Home, Categories, and Product Pages, ensuring they are all easy to find. This is key for user experience, but it’ll also help with those all important conversions and sales.

Adding a search bar is a simple yet effective way to make browsing easy for the customer. If users land on your homepage with a specific piece of content, category or product in mind, they might prefer to type it in, rather than rely on click navigation. If you’re unsure, you can add a search feature and track user activity to determine whether your search bar is being utilized – you might be surprised how much it is!

Remember that online shopping doesn’t have the same in-store experience. Shoppers can’t see your product or try it on in person, so they’re very reliant on product imagery and descriptions. This is your chance to really highlight the USPs of your product, so invest in clear product images with multiple views. Get creative with shoots and visuals – have some fun!

And when it comes to descriptions, keep these short and snappy but make sure they highlight the key attributes of the products. A lot of websites now use bullet points to make content more digestible too.

Another way to showcase your product is via video, which gives customers a real feel for what it might look like on and at all angles. Video and imagery helps users quickly understand the product value, which is why more and more ecommerce sites are using this as a means to sell.

Website maintenance includes testing your website’s site speed regularly and when you add new content, which could affect load speeds. This will help prevent customers abandoning your site out of frustration, ultimately resulting in lost sales. We recommend monitoring them monthly and keeping an eye on them when new listings are added.

One of the best ways to increase online sales is to simplify your checkout process. Keeping the checkout process simple is key for ensuring customers don’t abandon their purchase. Many customers will give up at this stage if the checkout is long-winded – so ask for key details such as billing and shipping address and keep everything else to a minimum.

As we just mentioned, you’ll want customers to be able to check out as easily as possible, and something that can help with that is offering a guest checkout. Rather than making customers create a profile, which may put them off, you can offer a quick guest alternative with more subtle sign up features that don’t put pressure on them.

A surefire way to ensure sales? Offering multiple payment options. Remember, not everyone uses Visa or Mastercard nowadays, so make sure you offer multiple card options as well as alternatives such as PayPal and Apple Pay. Everyone shops differently after all!

Offering coupons and discounts will help engage both existing and new customers, offering them more incentive to buy. It also helps grow a repeat customer base, since discounts and rewards can drive curiosity to keep returning to the website.

Another effective incentive is to offer free shipping and/or next day delivery, as expensive or slow delivery can drive customers away at the point of checkout. If customers know they can get free delivery, they’ll be more likely to return to you over your competitors too. Win, win!

Email marketing is key for growth and an important method for managing your ecommerce site. It allows you to reach a wider audience over time, build trust, and can even reduce the number of people who abandon their carts.

When someone leaves your ecommerce site without carrying out their purchase, you can send them an automated email reminding them to return to their cart. You can even send them a discount to encourage them to complete their purchase.

Creating a content marketing strategy can also increase traffic and sales. To do this, it’s a good idea to start creating blog posts and guides which you can push across different channels. It’ll help build a brand identity and make you more recognizable too! Create a monthly plan for what you’ll focus on and talk about, but also be reactive.

Social media is a powerful tool to reach new people and create a brand identity. All channels have different benefits, but visual ones such as Instagram and TikTok have become increasingly popular for people searching for new products and brands.

Take your time to curate content for these channels and plan a social media schedule to guarantee success. Remember tracking your engagement is key too, so you can see what works and what doesn’t.

Security, delivery, and returns policies are things customers care about, so it’s important to make them easy to find on site. You could display them on your bottom navigation so they’re always surfaced and visible. Check out how your competitors do it!

Not all purchases from your ecommerce website will be a success, but don’t panic. Customers coming with queries and issues is only natural – the key is to be prepared and make sure it’s easy for them to get help.

It’s important to have a customer support service that is easy to access; popular services include phone, email, and live chat. Ensure staff are trained to deal with a multitude of queries and requests efficiently, maintaining good customer service.

To bring credibility to your brand and encourage shoppers to trust you as the go-to destination, it’s important to showcase testimonials and reviews on your ecommerce site. After a customer shops with you, ask them to review their purchase via email. Don’t be afraid of a few negative reviews either, it’s all part of the process! It’s about the long game here.

To know if your store is getting the highest amount of conversions possible, we recommend running regular tests so you can understand what’s working – these are known as A/B tests. This will help you to measure which pages and products are performing and make tweaks that could boost your sales. Easy wins!

Setting up your ecommerce site might seem daunting but if you follow these simple steps, you’ll be well on your way to creating a successful and lucrative venture – whilst having some fun. So get creative and enjoy your new venture!

For industry specific tips, be sure to give our guide on how to set up an online retail business a read.