Simply IT develops E-commerce websites for our clients in Zanzibar, Tanzania, East Africa and Europe. We have identified ten factors that make a successful and profitable e-commerce website.
Today’s consumers have many options for online shopping. In order to generate sales through your e-commerce website, you’ll need to provide an excellent user experience and convince visitors that your products and your site are worthy of their business.
Designing for e-commerce websites always presents challenges and complexities not often found with other types of sites.
In this article, we’ll look at the ten specific factors that are generally present in well-designed e-commerce websites. This knowledgebase article should help you to plan your own website and ensure you’re able to create a site that will meet your goals.
1. Simple
The focus of an e-commerce site should be on the products for sale. A design that’s extravagant for no legitimate reason will usually do more harm than good. It will draw attention to the design of the site and away from the products.
If you study effective and successful e-commerce websites you’ll notice that many of these sites feature a very clean design and layout. This style works well for e-commerce because it keeps the emphasis on the products instead of the design.
Simplicity in design and layout also helps to improve the user experience. Simple sites are easy to navigate and shoppers can find what they’re looking for with minimal distractions on frustrations.
A good example of a simple website in Zanzibar is Inaya Zanzibar
Many shoppers are influenced in their purchasing decisions by the brand. The need to establish a strong brand is important for both online and offline selling.
In the cases of stores that sell online as well as in physical locations, the website is only one part of an overall branding strategy. The website should work well with other branding efforts of the company so that customers feel comfortable on the website.
As a startup, branding should be a long-term goal. You won’t have the benefit of a long history and trust that’s been developed with customers. You can start by creating a strong brand image that’s used consistently on your website, your social media profiles, and other marketing materials.
In our previous example Inaya Zanzibar is a familiar brand to many people. When you visit their site, you’ll see the recognizable Inaya logo in the site header.
Selling online is different than selling in a physical store because the buyer cannot touch the product or see it in person before making a buying decision (unless they’ve seen it somewhere else).
Providing quality photos that accurately portray the product can help overcome this challenge and can make the buying decision easier for visitors.
Ideally, product pages should include several high-res photos for each product. Shoppers may want to see different sides or angles of the product. The more they can see, the better they’ll feel about buying a product they haven’t been able to see in person.
The quality of photos and images is often critical because visitors will judge your company and your products based on these visuals. High-quality images will give the impression of a high-quality product.
The other thing customers often want to see is the product in use. Photos or videos that depict the product being worn, the size of the product, or used or the effects of the product is key too.
East African Motorcycles in Zanzibar uses both high-quality product photos on its site as well as lots of photos of parts of the bikes they sell and rent. They also have lots of photos of clients using the bikes on tour or rental. Viewers can see photos of the bikes from the driver’s viewpoint front, rear, and in use.
Visitors who haven’t purchased from you in the past are likely to be skeptical. Any type of testimonial, review or social proof you can provide will go a long way towards convincing visitors that you’re legitimate.
Social proof can involve:
Genuine user reviews and ratings – Today’s shoppers want to be able to read product reviews from other customers. With a platform like Shopify or BigCommerce you can easily add review functionality to your site.
Testimonials and quotes from customers – Showcasing customer testimonials on your website can also help to build trust with visitors. Including a photo of the person providing the testimonial will help to make it feel more genuine and authentic.
Media coverage or recommendations on other websites – Show visitors where you have been featured. You can gain the trust of visitors by leveraging the exposure you’ve gotten elsewhere.
Social proof popups – A growing number of sites are using small notification popups for social proof. Visitors see that other people are buying your products and it helps to build trust.
Good & Proper (built with Shopify) provides user reviews on product details pages.
The first requirement for selling a product online is that the shopper has to be able to find exactly what he or she is looking for. Effective navigation is important to any website, but it’s especially critical for e-commerce sites. Lost visitors will result in missed sales, so every effort should be made to have a site with clear, logical navigation.
E-commerce sites often face considerable challenges with navigation due to the number of products presented on the site. Large sites, like department stores, have to be especially careful with navigation because finding what you want will usually become increasingly difficult with more options. Many e-commerce sites use mega menus so visitors are able to find exactly what they want in a quick and efficient manner.
One factor to consider is how the average visitor will attempt to find a particular product. What makes sense to the web designer or even to the company owing the site may not be the same path that the average visitor would take to find a product. Sufficient user testing is extremely helpful for identifying potential navigational issues.
Sometimes it is worth have a number of different methods to reach the products on offer. So good navigation can also be aided with features like a good sitewide search along with filtering and sorting options. The filtering and sorting may be applicable for browsing categories of products in addition to the site search results.
Other features like related products, lists of top selling products, and breadcrumbs can help with navigation, in addition to having an effective menu.
User experience on e-commerce sites is critical to success. If the checkout process involves too many steps or is confusing, shoppers will wind up abandoning their cart with items left unpurchased.
Ideally, the checkout should involve a minimal amount of steps and should be as easy as possible for shoppers. Don’t force visitors to create an account in order to checkout. And if they do have to create an account, be sure it involves no extra steps aside from creating a password.
Another option for some e-commerce websites is to provide quotations rather than to commit to booking. This gives the opportunity to engage with customers by phone, email, WhatsApp or SMS. This ‘human’ interaction also makes the customer feel valued and special. This is good for large purchases like bookings for travel trips, rentals, hotels and other large purchases.
Lots of user testing and generating feedback can help to create an effective checkout process.
An example of a complicated checkout process is found on East African Motorcycles e-commerce website. They handle sales of bikes, booking tours and even rental bookings. This could be confusing and complicated – but they have included quotes bookings and rentals in a very simple user experience.
Mobile e-commerce accounts for about 45% of all e-commerce in the US (source). An effective e-commerce site today MUST be mobile optimized to allow visitors to purchase from their smartphone or tablet.
Several of the details we’ve already covered (including simplicity, ease of navigation, and an easy checkout) are also critical for the mobile user’s experience.
Make sure your site functions well on mobile devices. Again, this is easy if you’re using a web-design company that understands the importance of using mobile, tablet and laptop testing to create a good quality user experience.
Inaya Zanzibar is a good example of a good responsive e-commerce website.
Everything about an e-commerce website should be done with the user in mind. The success of the site and business depends on visitors being able to find the products that interest them, get the details they need to make a buying decision, and easily complete the purchase. Aim to make the entire process as easy as possible for visitors.
The most effect e-commerce websites do more than just display products. You can connect with visitors and draw people in to your brand by including some personality in your site. This can be done through the visuals on the site as well as the copywriting.
Think about your target audience and what they relate to. They should feel a connection to your brand when they visit your site.
But good SEO often goes hand-in-hand with good sustainable website maintenance and branding.
If the most effective e-commerce websites connect with visitors and draw people in to the brand then having a developing team that fully understands the product is vital. It helps if that website developer is local and able to maintain the website as well as help it be promoted to the correct target audience.
Sustainable SEO will guarantee the website will increase in visibility and be profitable.
Pops has been an IT professional for over four decades, with a global work experience that spans multiple countries. Beginning as a Programmer and Analyst at a renowned corporation in the UK, he climbed the ladder to eventually become the Director of Global Information & Communications Technology. Along the way, he also led a Digital Marketing Consultancy in Europe for ten years. Presently residing in Zanzibar, Tanzania, Pops pursues his hobbies of watching rugby and football and Stand Up Paddle Boarding.
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