The worst thing you can do to yourself is having a website where
your own visitors struggle with navigating around your site just
to purchase an item or a service from you. This usually happens
when you don't have the appropriate information or tools to
allow your visitors to buy something online with ease. As a
website owner, you are responsible for anticipating any type of
difficulties your visitors will encounter when they are on your
site. A good place to start would be by visiting other sites and
see how they set up their buying procedures; find ones that you
really like and transform it into yours. Visitors want to be in
and out when they purchase something and if it takes too long or
your instructions are not clear in what needs to be done to
complete a simple process, you've lost those visitors.
To create an optimum site that revolves around the 'buying
process', take heed of these series of questions and concerns to
make sure that you've covered all the bases possible to have a
top notch 'check out' feature on your website.
How long will it take to ship your products or a service to be
implemented? Do you offer a rush delivery?
What are your shipping or service fees as well as tax or
surcharge costs? All sites should always have these numbers
listed since no one likes to be surprised with additional fees
or costs. Make these numbers available immediately and don't
give this information at the very end of the check out process
since they may get discouraged and cancel out the order.
Detailed description of the product or service in question
should be provided. Let your visitors know what is entailed and
what it includes. Make it very clear on exactly what your
visitors will be receiving from you.
Do you offer dimensions or sizes to describe the products? Many
people are easily fooled by pictures they see on the web and
since you can't physically see or touch what you're about to
buy, it helps when you give an accurate dimensions of what the
product is.
Many websites have jumped on the bandwagon of giving their
visitors the option of clicking on a button to see a larger
description of a picture. An example of this would be "Click to
Enlarge Picture". This feature is greatly used and appreciated
by visitors since it assures them that the product in question
will be worth the purchase. This is a huge factor for visitors
in their buying process.
The more features you have on your 'check out' process; always
provide simple details in how to move forward in the buying
process. Don't assume the visitors will know or figure it out.
They don't want to figure it out and work hard to buy something.
Just provide simple, accessible instructions for anything even
remotely challenging.
How do I know I'm going to be satisfied with this product when
it arrives at my door? Offer a guarantee and include
testimonials liberally and write in layman terms that make
visitors comfortable about your products or services.
What if you're not satisfied with the product? How do you return
it without difficulties? Make sure you have a refund/return
policy and that you want your visitors to return products
easily. Don't make it complicated or restrictive for your
visitors since they won't return to buy anything else from you
in the future.
Where did I make the mistake? It keeps telling me that I omitted
important information and won't let me proceed to the next frame
in the ordering process. Been there once too many times and
guess what I did? I gave up ordering. When visitors fill out
forms or are required to input information, sometimes it gets
overlooked or omitted by mistake. You should try to anticipate
as many of these simple mistakes as possible and design your
site to minimize the occurrence. In all honesty, visitors will
make mistakes even if the site is designed specifically to meet
the needs of the visitors, so do the best you can to keep those
mistakes at a minimum. You can have a feature where it tells the
visitor exactly where the information is lacking so they don't
have to go through the entire form to look for what they forgot
to type in.
Keep it short and quick. I'm finding that many website owners
are now offering two types of check out options. One is the
regular check out and the other is a 'Speedy Checkout'. This is
a nice feature to have if you're just either a one time customer
buying on a whim, or even repeat customer where your information
is stored within their database making it easy and quick for you
to place orders within that website at any given time. A good
rule of thumb—make the buying process only a two-frame process
if possible and the third would be the final page with the
payment method and a receipt of the order. If you make your
visitors fill out 5 pages before they order something, they're
going to be annoyed rather quickly and give up.
Payment method options should be attractive and allow the
visitors the choice in how they want to pay. Provide as many
credit card options as well as the use of a debit card; also to
pay by check where the funds are electronically withdrawn from
that visitor's checking account. If you only let credit card
holders the opportunity to buy from your site, you're truly
missing out on another group of consumers that rather pay
through methods where they actually have the funds. Why deny non
credit card holders the privilege of buying from you? If you do,
they will seek out your competitors that offer that feature for
them.
About the author:
http://www.emarketinganswers.com is dedicated to providing free
emarketing resources and online promotion tools. Joelene Orlando
is a Web enthusiast and a staff writer/consultant for
eMarketingAnswers.com with a broad knowledge of topics covering
Internet marketing and communication strategies for small
business owners. You are free to reprint this article in your
web site, newsletter, e-zine or ebook. However, please keep the
author's section at the bottom of the article as is.
