The purpose of an online store seems simple and self-explanatory. As long as it allows your users to buy what they’re looking for on a secure and safe platform, what else is there?
To answer that, you might need to consider the wider issue of the user experience, as well as how many things that ultimately incorporates. Arguably, as soon as they’re engaged with your marketing, your audiences are in the midst of the customer experience – and that might continue through buying your product or service, and how they enjoy that down the line. Therefore, you need to make the store as robust as possible to retain consistency.
Safety and Security
As mentioned, though, most importantly, their personal details are protected. This is true of any situation where customers are inputting details about themselves – you have to comply with data laws and ensure you’re doing everything that you can to keep that information suitably confidential. However, when your website is also an online store where payment information is going to be entered and used regularly, you might find that you’re in a position where extra precautions are necessary. Customers should be able to use this space in confidence, and that confidence being broken might have a serious impact on whether or not they decide to come back (and could even be damaging to your brand as a whole).
Enjoyment
It’s a strange way to think about the way that someone might use an online store, but questions of enjoyment are also questions of ease and convenience.
Enjoyment itself might come from the moment-to-moment experience of using your website – how the page headings react to being hovered over or activated and any animations that are present. The visuals have a lot to do with this enjoyability, and working with a Shopify development agency can help you align your own vision of the website with an effective look that satisfies audiences.
Communication
The amount of information that you convey about the purchase is also going to affect whether or not they come back (or perhaps even whether they conclude this sale at all). Any given customer might want to know when their purchase might arrive, within what kind of timeframe, and whether they can expect tracking on that delivery – are they provided with a reference number in case something goes wrong? Even just having a confirmation email after the transaction is completed can finish off the process with a sense of finality – something that they can refer back to if they’re ever in doubt if their purchase went through.
However, there should also be some way for them to get back in touch with you afterwards. Your online store might have a section dedicated to feedback, but it could also have a more general form of communication, such as a webchat that can be used when people are having difficulty navigating the platform.
Alternatives
As you might be aware, your online store is far from the only one in the ecosystem. This means that you’ll have to keep in mind the constant comparisons that your own site will be subject to throughout the experience.
Sometimes, these issues of comparison are simply not going to be equal. For example, a brand that has had much more time to establish itself and has much more money, as a result, is inevitably going to have a store with more technical polish.
Still, using your competitors as a baseline can help you gear the development of your own store. Perhaps you become inspired by ideas that are well-received and make an active effort to veer away from famously controversial decisions.
