5 Top Tips for a Great E-Commerce Website

Selling online? How well does your e-commerce website perform? As in the stores on our high streets, the online customer is increasingly demanding, looking for the ultimate online shopping experience before clicking through to the checkout. Here are our 5 top tips to improve the performance of your e-commerce website.
Back to basics
First things first – are your customers finding your website? Search Engine Optimisation might not feel like a particularly sexy activity when you’ve got products to sell, but it’s hugely important when you are selling online. Your customers will use the internet not only to buy from you but to research the products they are looking for first. If your website doesn’t come up in the top results on the first page of their web browser, you can pretty much forget it.
The need for speed
You may have been frustrated yourself by a slow website. We are all very busy these days, and if your website doesn’t load quickly, you can pretty much forget it. If you are selling online, it’s crucial that your website loads fast. In these days of instant gratification and short attention spans, your website needs to capitalise on all those purchase decisions that your customers make and want to action immediately. Remember that mobile optimised websites will load quicker on mobile devices and will provide a greater user experience.
Keep it simple
Think of your own online shopping experiences: forgotten usernames, reset passwords, T’s&C’s, captcha codes to *prove* you’re a human… The reality of all this online form filling is that customers are put off and won’t be afraid to go somewhere else, another website that’s made it far easier for them to part with their money. Consider introducing a ‘guest checkout’ option which allows customers to purchase without signing up.
 “23% of users will abandon their shopping cart if they have to create a new user account.”
Be up front
A startling 28% of online shoppers abandon their online shopping trolley because of unexpected postage costs. It’s not that they object to paying for shipping in itself, just that it wasn’t made clear earlier in the process. It’s worth revisiting how your postage costs are introduced – at which stage of the checkout process – and considering whether you could flag them earlier to prevent abandoned sales.
“28% of online shoppers abandon their online shopping trolley because of unexpected postage costs”
Reviews can work for you
Love them or loathe them, Amazon have got online shopping nailed. One of the things they do really well is use customer generated reviews. People are far more likely to buy a product or service online if they know other people have done so and been pleased with the result – and Amazon make it really easy to see reviews that previous customers have left. It instills trust, and makes people more likely to buy.

These simple changes can make a big difference to the performance of your e-commerce website. If you’re struggling to make the time to get round to implementing these strategies, why not get in touch with us here at WebAdept? We’ve been building and optimising e-commerce websites since 1997 and we can help you get the most out of yours!