How to create an online store: 4 website must-haves to stop people leaving your shop empty-handed
Building an online store can feel easy, with platforms like Wix and Squarespace offering pre-made templates to get started.
A ton of the formatting and functionality has been done for you, so you don’t need to worry about designing a product page or painstakingly typing out product descriptions again and again for the same product but in different sizes or colours.
But if you do run an online store or have a shop on your website, do any of these sound familiar?
You’ve been working hard on building up good engagement on your social platforms, but it isn’t translating into sales
You’ve got good website traffic but you’re getting loads of abandoned carts
Your industry is getting increasingly competitive, with more and more online stores popping up that look a lot like yours
Your competitors seem louder and busier than you and you’re scared you’re going to get left behind
You’ve only just created your e-commerce brand and want to make an impact, but don’t know where to start
There might be some holes we need to plug. If there are people slipping through the net, let’s find the gaps that are letting potential customers disappear without a by-your-leave.
Something that stands in the way of your customer engaging is called a barrier to entry.
They are not your friend. We want to minimise the barrier to entry as much as possible. So when it comes to your online shop, barriers to entry may be stopping people putting something in their basket, getting all the way through the checkout process, or even getting to your shop in the first place.
Just a small few tweaks to your website shop can improve your conversion rates. They don’t require a mega overhaul of your website or brand.
Hopefully by the end of reading this blog, you can take away some actionable steps – so that you can block out a couple of half-hour slots in your diary to implement and improve how well your shop is performing.
How to create an online store: converting website-window-shoppers into paying customers.
#1 You’ve got good website traffic but you’re getting loads of abandoned carts.
If someone has to go through 6 or 7 pages to get to their end goal or click multiple pages to find what they’re looking for, they are likely to go off-piste or get bored halfway there. Or maybe the customer finds there are too many products out of stock...
The longer it takes and the more hassle it is to buy something through your website, the more likely your customer is going to abandon their cart. It’s just too frustrating.
Your customer wants swift and effortless. So if the whole process takes way longer than a customer expected, you need to shorten the number of clicks necessary. This means you reduce the opportunities for a customer to go off-piste AND you’ll have a better chance of getting them to the end of the payment process and closing the sale.
So, what can you do to make buying from your website as pleasant and swift as possible?
Cut out a step in the process.
This might mean cutting an additional unnecessary address page (if they’re buying a digital product), or removing an irritating pop up that gets in the way and interrupts their flow. Or streamlining the search function: to ensure the customer can navigate to different products easily and to prevent them from going back to the main shop page every time they want to find a similar or alternative product.
Making the journey from A to B (‘A’ being arriving at your shop and ‘B’ being your payment confirmation page) easier for the customer means more:
sales
connections between you and the customer
relatability
credibility
trustworthiness
Improving all of these aspects = a shorter journey from A to B for each and every customer.
**Top tip** Try asking a friend or family member to find two specific items in your shop and take them to checkout (up until the point where they actually need to put in card details). See where they hesitate and how they get around. We’re not reinventing the wheel - just think about how people will be navigating through your shop, to give them the easiest experience possible.
To make some effective changes, you don’t need to start from scratch. But cutting out a few unnecessary steps will be effective in boosting conversions relative to before you made any changes.
#2 Your future customers are getting turned off because they can’t really imagine, see or feel what it’s like to use your products.
It doesn’t sound like much. But people want these things to make their life easier, open up opportunities, save them time or hassle.
If someone browsing your shop sees your products purely as inanimate objects, any glimmer or hope of an emotional connection is lost.
How do you resolve this? Show images of people using your products. This also gives people context as to what size your products are in relation to someone using them.
Whether they are your photos or photos from past customers (as long as you have written permission from them), seeing other humans in these images gives buyers a reference point - if they can identify with the users (or the home your products are beautifully positioned in) they are more likely to engage.
It does help to have photos of your products on their own, without any distractions, as well as close-ups. But showing your products in a real life scenario gives them context. And context helps buyers feel more connected to what it’s like to use these products.
#3 Your industry is getting increasingly competitive, with more and more online stores popping up that look a lot like yours.
You know your product is pretty great, but how do your customers know that? You’re competing with a crowd of competitors with seemingly similar products and you’re wondering how on earth you can outdo them.
How can you stand out from your business competitors?
Firstly, here’s a reminder that you don’t need to be the loudest business in that crowd. You just need a little somethin’ somethin’ that makes your business and product shine.
The key here is to find your unique-ness factor and boil it down into understand what your business’ X Factor is. You’re most likely clear on this (you set the business up after all!) but spell it out to the customers:
Make your offering clear. This way you’ll ensure the potential customers know why you are worth their time and trust – instead of an alternative business.
My advice here is to size yourself up and look at your business side-by-side with your competition. Work out what makes you different. Look for room to fill a gap with a new niche. Find the area that you could one-up your competition on (and potentially even steal their customers from).
Take a look at the ‘X Factor’ checklist – answer these questions to find your brand’s unique-ness:
What can you do better than your competitors?
What is the key factor that will make people choose you above any other business?
Do you have the most experienced coaches, the best sustainable product of its kind, proven expertise in your field or the simplest solution for a customer’s problem?
Or, are you the leader of the pack when it comes to the equipment or technology you use?
If not, are there other ways to improve your service? – what do your competitors excel in, and could you do that too?
Do you offer all round value to your customers? Things like killer customer service, aftercare or freebies (think free trials, bring a friend for free… anything that your customer will find valuable without asking for anything in return)
Having this clarity and focus from the very start can help you surpass your competitors. People don’t have very long attention spans these days, so even if you just focus on one small X Factor on your website, you can hook your potential customers early, bringing them on their first step towards becoming a paying customer.
I’ve written a whole tutorial on creating this statement here, if you don’t have one yet.
#4 You’ve been working hard on building up good engagement on your social platforms, but it isn’t translating into sales.
You’ve got customers who are excited and waiting for new collections or products. But they’ve now been on the waitlist too long and they’re losing interest.
Maybe you have multiple products to update and add on a regular basis, and it’s taking too much time. Or you’re finding it hard to keep up with your inventory. It’s overwhelming for you – especially now you’ve let some customers slip through the net.
First of all, no need to panic. You’ve already succeeded in building an engaged community on your social platforms – creating a waitlist is by no means an easy feat!
So, you’ve got people waiting to buy your products BUT you’ve spent so much time working on this side of your business, you’ve hardly left any time or headspace to deliver those products.
You need to streamline your sales process – for both you and your customers’ sake. To do this, create a system and checklist to keep your website, products and sales on track.
Focus on addressing these 4 key areas when you’re writing up your checklist/setting up a system:
Updating product descriptions
Adding engaging, relevant product titles
Creating SEO-healthy URL slugs for the products (you can read more about getting your website’s SEO sorted, here)
Uploading a good range of images
By doing this consistently, you’ll maintain the credibility and trustworthiness you have with your customers/community. You’ll also maintain that connection with your core customer base and increase your reach because of it – resulting in more sales and happy customers.
Keep yourself organised (as is possible!) and on track, to make sure no customer slips through the net.
Your potential customers are ready and waiting for your products: you’ve got their interest – now you need to deliver.
So how do you create an effective shop on your website?
You need to make sure that it is an easy and effortless process
Remove (or minimise) any barriers to entry
Let customers imagine themselves using the products and the benefits it’ll bring to their lifestyle or business
Keep up with stock changes and new products with an repeatable process, to take the overwhelm out of writing and rewriting product descriptions
Make sure you communicate why your products will provide a better experience for your customer than what the competition can offer
Fancy more sales on autopilot?
If you want to make sure your product descriptions aren’t holding you back from converting on-the-fence customers, download my checklist of 9 things to include in your product descriptions.
