Tricks to Make Your E-commerce Shop Stand Out
The rise of online shopping has completely changed the way we shop for goods and services.
The rise of online shopping has changed the game for consumers. But what leads them towards virtual storefronts over physical ones?
Simply put, it's all about convenience!
In recent years, businesses and consumers have seen the value of a strong online presence. Since the rise of remote work, simple and fast online shopping has become a main priority. While large platforms like Amazon dominate, smaller businesses can compete by leveraging social calls to action, quality assurance, competitive delivery timelines, unique product offerings, and seamless shopping experiences.
Introductory Message
It's crucial to grab your customers' attention in under 10 seconds by showcasing the most relevant collection or sale on your website. Think of how you’d create a window display to entice people to come inside your store. The key is to highlight products that address current and seasonal needs and trends, such as spring outfits and vacation essentials. Consider what challenges your customers are facing in their lives or what they’re planning to do in the next 2-3 months, and what products could help meet those needs. By showcasing these items on your homepage, you can immediately connect with your audience and make it easier for them to find what they're looking for.
Local Relevance
Do you remember during the pandemic when consumers made it a priority to support local businesses? As lockdowns forced businesses to adapt and prioritize employee safety, consumers rallied behind their local favourites. But why wait for a crisis to showcase your local relevance and garner community support? Now is the perfect time to highlight your connection to the community and inspire ongoing patronage.
Local also often translates to higher quality assurance and quicker deliveries, appealing to customers seeking reliability. By showcasing unique collections and product adjacencies, businesses can inspire purchases and provide a personalized shopping experience, something larger counterparts often have the challenge of doing.
Easy Browsing
Making browsing easy for customers is extremely important to keeping them engaged and satisfied. If navigating your website is a hassle, customers are likely to lose interest and look elsewhere. To ensure a smooth browsing experience, it's important to consider how customers prefer to view products. Do they want to browse by product type, usage, or size? The main categories should be intuitive and easy to find. However, having too much inventory can overwhelm customers.
Consider e-commerce boutiques like Olaeda, where customers can shop not only by jewelry type but also by collection—an often overlooked feature—and metal type, which is frequently forgotten about. This also fulfills every type of shopping need for their buyers.
Smithery also tags their products appropriately, allowing for efficient filtering and making it easier for customers to find what they need. You can shop by category AND body shape, which is the focus of their service offering and fulfills their target market with their main values.
Bigger companies such as Wayfair also do a good job of helping customers navigate their websites. However, it has its limits. Applying too many filters on their online shop can lead to receiving items that are entirely unrelated to the initial search.
Unfortunately, many e-commerce layouts fail to prioritize ease of navigation, forcing customers to sift through unnecessary information. By implementing effective filtering options, retailers can create a positive shopping experience that keeps customers coming back.
Competitor Presence
Understanding competitor presence is also essential, and analyzing their websites from the perspective of a new customer can reveal strengths and weaknesses, informing strategies for improvement. When you’re looking through these websites, ask yourself: Is this user-friendly? Can I navigate it easily on desktop and mobile? How fast is it to find the product I’m looking for? By optimizing e-commerce platforms, businesses can increase virtual foot traffic, catering to the needs of an increasingly online consumer base.
There’s no doubt that e-commerce, brick-and-mortar stores, and pop-up spaces each play important roles in catering to consumers. With more and more businesses taking their products online, it's crucial to bridge the gap between physical spaces and online spaces through effective e-commerce strategies.
Now, we have some exciting news from VM ID! We're thrilled to introduce our latest offering: professionally-curated E-Commerce Visual Merchandising Packages designed to empower e-commerce owners to turn browsers into buyers.
Package #1: VM ID E-COMMERCE AUDIT
Perfect for any e-commerce entrepreneurs. You'll receive a detailed diagnosis of key opportunities for improvement, including a virtual walk-through assessment, a follow-up consultation call, and even 10% discount on your next booked service!
Package #2: VM ID WEB PREP
Maximize the impact of your web design with our Web Design Product Prep Service! This all-in-one package includes a total overview of your website and expert advice on how to ensure your e-commerce website is optimized to ease your customer’s shopping experience Includes product categorization, coordinating add-on/recommended products to increase sales and photo styling labour.
For more information about the launch of our E-Commerce Packages, be sure to subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter!