Almost every business requires an online presence today in order to survive the tough competition. While this means social media marketing campaigns and strategies, we cannot ignore how important having a website is. Almost every business has its own website today with innovative features and services. And, having an e-commerce website offers several benefits such as lower costs, an efficient buying process, speed and flexibility and most importantly, scalability. So, it is clear why companies get a lot of their business done through websites. What’s interesting is that despite their rich advertising campaigns, affordable prices, discounts and even great products, the majority of online stores fail to achieve the desired results.
Such online businesses or stores fail to recognize various issues related to the website, which can cause significant losses. These issues are majorly related to the website interface, flow and design, which majorly drives the business. An ideal website must have a clean and easy flow, appealing design and easy operability.
In this article, we will check out some common issues associated with an ecommerce website’s design so that they can be timely resolved.
- Bugs & error
What’s worse than a 404 error, or even a broken link? the bugs! Bugs and minute errors can easily make their way to a website. Bugs are some of the major reasons why a website may get abandoned and lose business. Some of the most common types of bugs and errors may include, failure to use promised discounts and free shipments, errors while attempting to order, errors while submitting a form and so on. Bugs and errors like these often make a purchase impossible and make customers lose interest in the website. Therefore, taking care of such issues is imperative for a business willing to make profits.
- Poor image quality
Believe it or not, image quality speaks a lot about a business. Since in an online store, customers can’t physically view or touch the product, they greatly depend on the images available for the product. And, when such images are of low quality or resolution, it makes it difficult for the customer to understand the quality of the product. This is also one of the reasons why online stores lose business.
They can minimize this risk by offering good quality images of the products for the customers, instead of neglecting them. Some effective ways to do this are by uploading images of the product from various angles, investing in professional videos and images, uploading 3-D images and so on. Further, the zoom feature must work accurately. A lot of online stores tend to overlook this as well. So, high-quality images and the ability to zoom properly can help customers make informed decisions.
- Product description
While product images help understand the quality of a product, product description helps understand the features of the product. It is a great way to know if the product is ideal for you or not. In fact, a lot of customers pay more attention to the description than the images. The general description for all the products is insufficient. Every product must have a unique description of its features, functionality and characteristics. We come across so many stores online almost every day with insufficient data on a product. This not only leaves a bad impression but is viewed as unlikeable since the customers cannot make a decision.
- Compulsion for registration
People turn to online stores for convenience. Users are not always interested in doing activities which are not necessarily required. And, a difficult registration process is more than enough to annoy them and make them leave the website. Thus, a guest checkout feature is highly recommended for online stores as this offers convenience for the customers. Further, people also like to register easily with the help of their social media accounts. Thus, when it comes to registration, the steps involved should be minimum.
- Inaccessible website
An inaccessible e-commerce website means a good number of your potential customers won’t be able to use it. Therefore, it is important to make your website accessibility-compliant so that people with disabilities can also access your website easily. Now you can hire web accessibility consultants to overcome this issue in the most efficient way. They will help you craft a website as per accessibility website standards.
- Inadequate support system
Not all customers are happy with their experience with the product, despite a good product description and images. So, when such customers want to reach out, they shouldn’t have to repeat the same steps in order to get their work done. Users often stumble upon a buggy support page, which is unhelpful and time-consuming. Therefore, to improve performance, online stores must ensure a satisfactory experience with support.
- Low speed
The loading time of a website highly depends on the speed of the internet. While this is a widely known fact, it is only partially correct. The time a website takes to load or reload also greatly depends on the speed optimization of the website. Users usually browse several products at the same time to compare them so that they don’t have to wait for each page to load. Thus, speed optimization is quite necessary and online store owners must keep in mind the 3-second rule, to satisfy the customers to the fullest.
Conclusion
Getting rid of bugs and errors on a website is doable. One must invest in software solutions meant to offer convenience and strategies to simplify the process.
