The e-commerce landscape has and will always be in a constant state of evolution. With the change in technology and behaviour, online retailers have had to factor in user experience not just from a store browsing point of view but also from an order fulfillment and customer service perspective.
With this in mind, we’ve identified five key areas that could easily be letting online store down and have your customers looking elsewhere. Let’s get started.
1. Your store isn’t made for mobile
This is probably one of the most important things you should consider. When was the last time you looked at a website and were deterred from browsing it just because it wasn’t responsive. The use of m-commerce services in Australia is soaring — during December 2013, 3.4 million Aussies used an m-commerce service, up from 0.62 million during December 2010. That’s an increase of 448 percent[1]. Evidence enough that if your e-commerce store isn’t made for mobile you could be missing out on sales.
2. You have limited shopping cart features
In this day and age, we all expect the world – even from e-commerce stores. As buyers we want flexibility and options and should expect our customers to want to do the same.
Ask yourself the following questions:
Can customers seamlessly add items to the shopping cart and continue looking for other items? Can they register without losing items in the cart or just check out as a guest? Can they choose an item as a gift for someone? If the answer is “no” maybe you need to re-evaluate your existing platform.
3. Your store has a lack of integration with shipping providers
As a buyer have you ever found it incredibly frustrating not knowing where your package is? Well, expect your customers to feel the exact same way!
Again, ask yourself the following questions:
Are your customers able to see real time-shipping information? Do your orders get seamlessly processed for shipping? Are you able to create labels directly for those orders? Are you able to manage your orders across multiple physical locations? Unless you sell only software through your online store, you’ll need most, if not all, features mentioned above.
4. You have some messy 3rd party integrations/add-ons
Running an e-commerce business requires more than a stellar online store. You also need additional support functions such as accounting, CRM, marketing, and analytics just to name a few.
If your e-commerce platform doesn’t have these features built in or via integration with third party apps, you’re likely doing things manually, or worse, not doing them at all. Time for a change!
5. Your e-commerce provider has unsatisfactory service
This one likely doesn’t affect your customers directly, but it does affect the way you do business. If you are finding that you are having issues getting in touch with your e-commerce vendor for support, trouble shooting or training you might have a problem on your hands. When selecting or migrating to a new e-commerce platform, make sure they equip you with all the tools you need.
Conclusion
Your online store is the cornerstone of your retail infrastructure. It is the single most important piece of technology you’ll ever purchase for your business, and we hope that this blog post will help you ask the right questions when starting or upgrading your e-commerce store. Take Neto for a spin for FREE for the first 14 days.
