What makes online shopping attractive

This, however, does not mean that the pictures should be overly enhanced or exaggerated. Doing so may mislead online shoppers into buying something that does not serve them well. Online retail is often about selling a story, an idea that fits the needs or current whim of your audience. Obviously, online stores do not have a live store attendant though some may offer live chat , so the sale items need to have a product description that takes the place of your best sales person.

They should be described with vivid and appealing content that stimulates your browsers need to buy. Facts such as the expiration date, size dimensions, weight, manufacturers date, and practical uses must be included in a good product description. The availability of a warranty, where applicable, also has to be referred to in the description.

Last year, BrightLocal conducted its 4th annual study on consumer usage and attitudes on customer reviews. As an SMB in the competitive world of online retail, it is crucial to provide your online shoppers with customer reviews of your products.

Your audience wants to read about the experiences of other people who have used the product. Customer reviews now take the place of your friendly, neighborly recommendation and are an effective selling tactic for online businesses. Such reviews are vital when it comes to virtual shopping. If possible, include video reviews in the customer reviews, with detailed personal experiences and how-to-use tutorials. These ideas will add more of a personal touch to their overall shopping experience. One of the final but most important considerations in online shopping comes during the actual check-out process.

In an actual brick-and-mortar store, shoppers normally have to wait in line at the cashiers. During peak hours, the queue is long, and they end up spending a longer amount of time there. This is one of the main reasons that online shoppers are avoiding real shops and going online to fulfill their needs.

A clear indication of the need to improve European e-commerce. American e-commerce strategists should not use this survey as an excuse to rest on their laurels, however. Europe will improve and become more of a competitor in the future. Also, Denmark is somewhat atypical in several ways: it is a very small country with a particularly well-educated population, meaning that Danes are probably more likely than many others to shop at American sites.

People in bigger countries will demand local service; people with less foreign-language education will be less likely to shop at English-only sites. Update See also my report with design guidelines for e-commerce usability. The biggest long-term potential for increasing the conversion rate would come from motivating visitors to move from lookers to shoppers.

However, the Web is notoriously bad at changing users' goals and desires. It is much better at fulfilling existing desires than at creating new ones. Thus, the short-term focus should be on changing shoppers to buyers and on making it possible for users to complete the transaction once they have decided to buy.

Fix these two problems and you can quadruple your sales. Jakob Nielsen , Ph. If your website loads too slowly, customers won't wait around. They'll go elsewhere. Amazon, for example, has shown that every milliseconds of latency cost them 1 percent in sales, while Walmart reports conversion rates rise 2 percent for every second of reduced load time.

Remember that a good photo can be worth a thousand words and maybe a thousand dollars. For example, next to that photo of a vase, show that same vase placed on a table, filled with flowers. This makes impulse buyers particularly prone to shopping in industries that are rapidly changing, such as fashion, beauty, and technology. This type of online shopper can be very profitable if you can keep them informed, which means you need to find a way to keep them in the loop.

With a wide range of high-end tech at the core of their brand, Steelseries understands that impulsive shoppers are looking for the next opportunity to buy something cool.

This understanding of who their customers are prompted them to put clear calls-to-action at the footer of every page of their website, inviting customers to stay connected between purchases through social media or their newsletter.

This small incentive packs a powerful punch, especially when combined with the regularity of both their email and social content. Through each of these channels, Steelseries is making it easy for impulsive shoppers to see the value of engaging with them and lays the groundwork for not only their first purchase but the inevitability of additional purchases in the future.

This makes the relationship they have with your brand or the one they can develop with you incredibly powerful. Without a strong emotional connection to your brand, need-based customers are less likely to believe that you can actually help them solve their problem. Without that trust, one purchase let alone repeat ones are very unlikely. This commitment to educating themselves is what makes value-add marketing the perfect tool for turning one purchase into repeat purchases.

By investing in content like a blog, video tutorials, or webinars, you help every customer acquire the knowledge and relevant resources they need to help them get started with your products and to feel confident in your expertise. Glow Recipe took this strategy to the limit with their Glow Edit blog and Glowipedia skincare tutorial portal. By helping customers get started with a variety of forms of content, they make it easy for new and returning shoppers alike to understand the value of choosing them over someone else, building trust that pays off in dividends and repeat purchases.

Even though loyal customers might be listed last, they are far from least important. While they might make up the minority of your customer base, they generate a significant portion of your sales and are more likely to recommend your brand to other people. This is because they want to be involved with you outside of simply making purchases.

These types of shoppers are common in industries where high value is placed on feeling exclusive and unique, such as fashion, beauty, and luxury goods. They want to feel like they are a part of something, not like just another customer.