Built For Sales
E-Commerce Series

5 Steps For A Successful E-Commerce Website – Part 3

In this blog series we’ve put together 5 important steps that are crucial for expanding your site to include e-commerce. Each blog post will cover 1 crucial step.

Built For Sales

The first two blog posts of the series looked out the impact site composition and quality content can have on your e-commerce store. Throughout this post we will be exploring elements that will have a direct impact on your sales. Successful e-commerce websites create trust and use social proof to increase conversions. They also understand how to leverage their average order value.

The Trust Factor

If your website doesn’t look trustworthy, your audience won’t convert. While the overall quality of the website contributes to it’s trust factor, these 3 crucial trust indicators are a must have for all e-commerce websites:

Contact information: If your site doesn’t have it already, a contact page with an email and phone number is essential. An about page is also a great addition to increase trust.

Returns/Shipping Policy/T&Cs: Without these your chances at converting customers are going to be limited. While these documents need to be specific for your store, there are several free templates online to help you get started. Make them easily accessible for your customers by placing them in visible

Certification Badges: When using trusted payment methods like PayPal and Stripe, don’t hesitate to show these badges at the checkout. This will give your customer confidence throughout the checkout process and reduce cart abandonment.

Social Proof

You’ll notice that many e-commerce websites use testimonials and star reviews from previous customers on their home page and product pages. There is good reason for it too, people are more likely to do something when they know others have tried it and had a positive experience. According to Oberlo, product pages with positive customer reviews convert more than 3.5 times than those without. Beyond website testimonials, other forms of social proof that may be worth considering include; social proof from experts in your field, influencer endorsed social proof, highlighting best selling products on your site, cross-selling products, off site reviews and curated social media content.

Average Order Value

Average order value (AOV) is one of the key metrics you should be concerned with when you are selling your online. It’s simple to calculate, just divide the total revenue with the number of orders completed over a given time period. Boosting your AOV increases your revenue without needing to increase the amount of customers (which also increases your marketing efficiency). There are several ways to do this including up-selling, cross-selling, bundle deals, loyalty programs, creating urgency with time sensitive deals and product discounts. The easiest way we find however, is outlined below:

Offer A Free Shipping Threshold

After calculating your AOV, add 30% and set this as your free shipping threshold – all orders greater than this number now qualify for free shipping. You can even notify customers at checkout how far they are away from receiving free shipping!

What’s Next?

Read the full blog series here:

E-Commerce Showcase Websites (industry standard examples built by Blue Tongue Digital)