Six Secrets to Make an eCommerce Platform More Powerful

Congratulations for your new online store. As you now have an eCommerce website with a finely tuned check out process, you may want to know how to make your eCommerce platform more powerful. More importantly, how to make your customers trust your eCommerce store.

Well, it really depends on your hard work and the resources available. There are a plethora of tips online that can be used to generate buzz in the community about your products and services and it is possible to boost your website sales with customer service strategies.

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Electronic Commerce: Make Your eCommerce Platform More Powerful

Fulfilment Structure Should Never Be An Afterthought

For most eCommerce merchants, fulfillment is an afterthought. This is a huge mistake.  A well-structured fulfillment process is important. In a nutshell, if you invest time and money into optimizing the fulfillment process, it will generate more profit. Some of the key fulfillment metrics that all eCommerce merchants should track include:

• Error rates on product shipped.
• Error rates on orders pulled.
• Total time for orders from the time of receipt to shipment.
• The cost of shipping and the rate charged.
• The total time taken to fill an average order.

The following flowchart shows the fulfillment workflow:

Ask your employees for input about where they think the challenging areas are and how to improve them. Measure the overall quality and performance of the fulfillment process to make your business run more smoothly and to provide better customer service.

Concentrate on Filtered Navigation

Filtered or faceted navigation is a combative point for every eCommerce platform. The most convenient, modern approach to filtered navigation is through using AJAX. However, you need to ensure that there is an HTML crawl path to all of the filtered products. Also make sure that you are not hiding any good organic landing pages within the AJAX navigation.

The following are a few rules for a search engine friendly filtered navigation:

• Do not hide an organic landing page from the crawlers.
• Let the crawlers crawl endlessly through filters.
• Robots.txt should be handled carefully while using it as a solution.

Integrate a Sitemap

Site maps help search engines to index your site’s page and augment search engine ranking of your site.  Indexing is a process through which search engines such as Google, process and categorize the pages of your website. Getting your page indexed ensures that your site will show up in the results of internet searches.

To put it simply, a sitemap is a list of your pages in a single page layout. It contains particular information about the different pages that make up your website. With a sitemap, the shopper can click on a product to find the right pages relevant to the topic. This allows them quick and easy navigation of your site. The site map is also beneficial for the search engines. They permit search engines such as Google to check how many pages are on your site.

Get Rid of Distracting Clutter

The majority of online shoppers have a short attention span. Surveys indicate that most Web surfers will not read beyond 200 words of text. The simpler and more streamlined your site looks and functions, the better it works for your shoppers. Web pages stuffed with animation, graphics and links makes the shopper immediately leave and move on to your competitor.

Simplify the Shopping Cart

It is important to consider the crucial elements of your eCommerce site and ensure that they are clear and visible. The “Add to shopping cart” button should be easy to navigate and most importantly, should be displayed prominently on your site.

Shopping Comparison Sites Can Work Wonders

According to research, approximately 68% of online shopping starts at a shopping comparison site. Shopping comparison sites offer an exceedingly cost-effective marketing mechanism as they are the best choice for every eCommerce vendor who has a limited budget.

With shopping comparison sites, you can enjoy prompt access to a larger volume of potential clients. In addition to this, your customers will be presented with your products whenever they are in a position to buy. Most importantly, comparison sites allow exposure and reinforcement of your brand identity.

Various comparison sites ask consumers for a post-sale survey to measure areas like customer service, product quality or ease of shopping. These reviews are displayed to potential customers and help boost the company’s credibility and provide you with an edge over your competitors.

Using the strategies above will ensure a strong eCommerce platform.

eCommerce Photo via Shutterstock

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