If you own an ecommerce site and the holiday season is nearing, you should prepare it for this shopping season. While most people tend to overlook basic aspects of an ecommerce site such as navigation and security, these are crucial to ensure more sales.

Large shopping consumer segment

Statistics reveal that there has been a shift in the demographics of online shoppers. A couple of years ago, the majority of online shoppers used to be 20 something people with plenty of disposable income. However, today that is changing. An increasing number of elderly people have begun to shop online and it is obvious that they have most of the disposable income in the family. A lot of the buying decisions of the family are also made by this age group. Hence, it is important to tweak the navigation and user experience of your ecommerce site keeping this consumer group in mind.

Security

Security is paramount in the online shopping world. In fact it is probably one of the very first things any consumer will want to check on your site. Aspects like  SSL certification, having a secure server and other relevant aspects need to be in place. Only when your customers are satisfied about the security on your site, will they be willing to give out sensitive credit card data!

Easy browsing

It is crucial that you have a search box on your site. Though it sounds very obvious, a search box is lacking in many of the ecommerce sites. Customers will most likely turn to the search box to easily hunt for products they want. Hence, it is vital that your search functionality on the site is updated and efficient.

Product listings

When you display product information on your ecommerce site, make sure not to restrict yourself only to the standard description and product thumbnail image. In addition to these aspects, you should also have videos on product usability and advantages. Not many ecommerce stores have this and yet it is the forerunner of sales. It could set you apart from the rest of the stores, thereby fetching you more credibility and revenues!

Disclosure of shipping costs

Many ecommerce stores fail to disclose the shipping costs associated with an item. Most of the time cart abandonment occurs because the shipping rates are too high. This can be frustrating for the ecommerce store owner. Hence, always ensure to disclose the shipping rates at the beginning.

Flexible payment modes

Another aspect you need to ensure on your ecommerce store is the mode of payment offered. Ideally, you need to have a variety of payment modes to allow convenience for your customers. Options like debit and credit cards, PayPal and other modes work well.

Browser compatibility

This is crucial because not all your customers will be using the same browser. If your ecommerce site’s pages fail to show up properly on another browser, it can reflect poorly on your brand and credibility. Imagine if a product does not display on a customer’s PC simply because of browser incompatibility! That would make you lose a sale and your reputation though the problem is so easily fixed.

Advertising

Unless you get the word out and publicize your ecommerce site, no one else would know! Hence, proper advertising and channelizing marketing approaches are crucial. Make sure to draft out designs for your banner ads as well as print ad campaigns. You would also want to chart out the budget for online advertising.

Cleanup of server

If your server is clogged with old and unused files, it can slow down performance of your ecommerce site, thereby resulting in site downtime. In the holiday season, people have plenty to shop for. If your ecommerce store has downtime issues, it could quickly result in cart abandonment and lost sales. Hence, make sure to cleanup your server files on a regular basis.

Page not found

Customers hate it when they see the standard ‘error 404 page not found’ message. It is frustrating and makes the consumer look like they are stupid. You can be a little more imaginative and make the message a little more user-friendly. Statistics show that sites that have more user-friendly page not found messages have a higher success rate with sales!

Inventory maintenance