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Home / 6 eCommerce Features That Will Boost Online Sales

July 07, 2020

6 eCommerce Features That Will Boost Online Sales

Sharon Manderson

eCommerce Insights

6 Minute Read

Every online retailer wants to implement eCommerce enhancements and features that quickly increase sales and conversions. Below are 6 changes you can make to your store that will boost customer engagement and sales. Apply any or all of these usability and customer experience improvements, then watch your online conversions increase. Fast.

Incorporate Verified Product Reviews

Consumers are influenced by other people’s decisions and past experiences. Shoppers rarely buy anything without checking online reviews written by verified customers. Almost 95% of shoppers read online product reviews before making a purchase. Here is the best news. With product reviews, not only do people buy more, but they spend more. How can you go wrong?

According to BrightLocal, 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations – the single most trustworthy and credible source of advertising there is.

The BrightLocal survey also found that 73% of customers trust a business more after reading positive customer reviews. In order to build your brand, increase online sales, and remain competitive, online reviews from verified satisfied customers are essential.

Recent research from Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center, conducted in conjunction with PowerReviews, shows how influential online reviews can be.

Displaying Reviews Can Increase Conversions by 270%

Reviews Have a Huge Conversion Impact on Higher-Priced Products

When reviews were displayed for a lower-priced product, the conversion rate increased 190%. However, for a higher-priced product, the conversion rate increased 380%.

Higher Priced Products See Higher Impact Conversion

There is no doubt that product reviews are one of a retailer’s best revenue drivers. Many consumers have lost trust in traditional advertising and do not rely solely on a merchant’s word or product descriptions when making purchase decisions. And don’t worry about the possibility of receiving some negative reviews. It may seem counterintuitive, but negative reviews actually give your site credibility because it seems more authentic.

A Few Great Product Review Platforms for Your eCommerce Site

Many leading eCommerce platforms come bundled with review apps or offer add-on extensions for reviews. There are also service platforms that allow you to collect, display, and measure online reviews, photos, and ratings. Features include sending requests for reviews via email, customizing review questions, and providing review incentives to past shoppers.

Add Live Chat

Everyone expects prompt customer service with a human touch. Live chat is a great service tool customers expect to find on eCommerce websites. Chatbots are automated responses and can be somewhat sophisticated, but the current technology does not come close to replacing human interaction. When it comes to providing service and support to online shoppers, live chat is hard to beat. Note,

Customers expect a reasonable response from a chat operator.
Do not keep customers waiting too long.
Answer questions quickly.

Meeting increasing customer demands for online service is important. With live chat, service representatives and sales staff can provide quick answers to questions, guide consumers to the products they are looking for, and help customers at any stage in the funnel.

According to Acquire, live chat has a 92% satisfaction rate and is preferred to more traditional customer service channels, including phone or email. And Kissmetrics says more than 44% of online consumers say getting human answers to their questions quickly is one of the most essential features a website can offer.

Holding on the Phone Is Not Preferred

Think about the last time you were shopping online and had a question. Did you search for the phone number, call customer service, deal with prompts, and sit with the phone to your ear waiting for a representative? Or, if available, did you take advantage of live chat because it was fast and easy? If you are like most people, you prefer real-time, digital channels of communication. Live chat is exactly that.

Live Chat is Better than Holding On the Phone

Some Live Chat Tools for Your eCommerce Store

Below are some live chat tools you can use on your eCommerce site to provide quick answers and personalized customer service.

Simplify Payment with Digital Wallets

If you have not already implemented digital wallets on your eCommerce website, now is the time. If you want to increase sales on your eCommerce website and keep customers coming back for more, make checkout and payment as easy as possible. The best eCommerce stores are designed with payment ease and convenience in mind. According to BigCommerce, “digital wallets increase conversions by as much as 3 times.” Other retailers have reported an even higher increase.

Increase Conversions with Digital Wallets

Digital wallets are an electronic way to securely store payment information so customers can conveniently and quickly make purchases online without the hassle of pulling out their credit card and keying in a lot of data. Digital wallets increase sales and customer loyalty.

Millennials, one of the largest eCommerce demographics who, by 2025, are expected to be the highest-earning generation in history, love the convenience of digital wallets. These easy payment methods are fast and accurate. According to Business Today, 8 out of 10 millennials report that someday they will do all shopping online, primarily on a mobile phone.

Digital wallets are very secure. An eWallet (digital wallet) transaction is different from a credit or debit card transaction. With a digital wallet, credit card numbers are not used. Instead, random tokens (15- to 16-digit numbers that look like credit card numbers) are generated. Unlike your credit card number, if these tokens are stolen, they are totally useless.

Examples of digital wallets are PayPal, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, and Apple Pay. If you have Amazon Pay on your store, users who have an Amazon account can purchase using the payment methods already saved with their Amazon account without all the data entry that comes with traditional online credit card payments.

Incorporate 3D Viewers and Product Visualization Tools

Customers want to feel completely confident in their purchase decisions, especially when buying higher-priced items and personalized or customizable products. Enhanced visual technologies give your customers the reassurance they need. Seeing and interacting is believing.

Professional product photography is essential, but compelling product configurators, augmented reality, and 3D visual experiences will sell and guide your customers’ decisions unlike any other.

If a customer is not visiting a brick-and-mortar retail location where they can touch and feel products, interactive 3D technologies provide them with an in-depth view of products from every angle and viewpoint. With these newer, advanced technologies, customers can build, customize, and view products to their specifications and see exactly what the finished product will look like before buying.

Threekit, a Smart Solutions partner, offers unrivaled solutions for product visualization.

3D configuration allows users to easily build, view, and spin, products customized to their specifications.
Augmented reality allows customers to virtually place and view configured products in their own personal spaces.
Product personalization gives customers the ability to upload images, personalize products, and change color and styling in real-time.

Include at Least 6 to 8 Images Per Product

A picture is worth a thousand words. Visuals drive conversion, especially when it comes to online commerce. The best product experiences sell. Customers will not buy if they do not have a good enough sense of the product.

Provide your customers with the confidence they need by including at least 6 to 8 images per product. Photograph your product from different angles. And, if your product comes in multiple colors, be sure to provide a photo of the item in each color. Lifestyle photos create an emotional connection and are equally important to show how your customers interact with your products. So be sure to include them as well.

Providing multiple images per product has been proven to double online conversions and will minimize the number of product returns.

If capturing 6 to 8 or more images of a single product seems daunting, check out Threekit’s Virtual Photographer. It allows merchants to get photorealistic image quality while also capturing a LOT of images. Their tool eliminates the need for complicated, time-consuming photo shoots. It can be used to generate thousands of photorealistic images from a single design file, on-demand.

“Shoppers once resisted buying products like apparel online because they couldn’t touch, feel and try on the products, and while they are much more receptive to this dynamic, the risk of returns still looms large. Additional product imagery and video content helps shoppers get a better sense of the product and reduce their perceived risk, so they can feel more
confident in their purchase.” Andrew Lipsman, eMarketer principal analyst.

Incorporate Product Videos

If you want a quick, easy, and relatively inexpensive way to boost the sales performance of your eCommerce store, product videos are definitely one way to do that. Product videos highlight your product’s features and show them in action. You can build in a narrative that tells a complete story about your product’s features and benefits and your brand or mission. Think of it as a viewable sales demonstration.

Customers prefer watching videos over reading product descriptions. Website visitors are 64% to 85% more likely to buy a product on an online retail site after watching a video.

Product videos will increase sales and grow your online business, but video is still one of the most underutilized eCommerce strategies. Do not hold back because you think video is difficult or costly. BigCommerce has a great post on best practices to create standout product videos. You do not have to be a professional or an expert in videography to create videos that sell.

Conclusion

You will benefit from a 5%, 10%, or 20% increase in eCommerce sales – or more – by making some quick and affordable updates to your site, including new features and user experience improvements. Adding these 6 new features or enhancements will make a huge positive impact. The ROI on any one or more of these improvements has been proven time and time again by various sources and eCommerce strategists, including our own certified team.

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About Smart Solutions

At Smart Solutions, we don’t just sell eCommerce websites. We sell more sales, increased conversions, and strategies that get clients to a higher level of profitability. Websites built by our team increase overall revenue for your business and provide an easy way for customers to connect with you online.

We are reliable, dependable eCommerce experts who will help you execute, and grow. We are a privately held boutique agency, founded in 2004 and exclusively focused on eCommerce. Smart Solutions – the last eCommerce agency you will ever need to hire.