Simple and Safe Ecommerce Solutions for Your Shoppers
With identity theft on the rise today, more and more people are leery of shopping online. They are afraid they’ll purchase form a bogus site and a thief will get hold of the private, financial information, run wild with their accounts and charge items left and right, stealing them blind.
Well, you can help and be your customer’s hero. Make shopping safer with simple ecommerce solutions like these:
1) Place your complete contact information on every page of your website. Don’t opt for using a P.O. Box either. Let people know you have a real address, phone number (toll-free, preferably, with 24-hour live operators or chat service), email and fax hook ups. And test these. Does your fax number work? What does your phone voicemail sound like? Be in your customer’s shoes and try out your operations for a good fit.
2) Make your offers so that they are easy to understand. For example, if you publish a banner that says, “Free dog food storage container with every dog food purchase!” make sure the icon for this along with accompanying product info and price of free appears with every food purchase in a shopper’s cart, so they see it easily.
3) Monitor, track and list on a calendar all your shipping and handling costs, especially as fuel prices increase. You don’t want to forget to include any increases; otherwise you’ll lose money with each purchase. For instance, heavier items like pet strollers carry heftier shipping and handling charges than lighter weight empty dog treat jars made of plastic, let’s say. So adjustments made during delivery rate hikes need to be posted regularly or else you’ll lose money on the backend, paying your drivers out of the product price because your webmaster forgot to revise your shopping cart data.
4) Make sure you have a secure connection for checking out with “https” in the browser. If your entire store is in a folder with this secure browser, it may confuse shoppers, too, so just in case, add a symbol and statement saying that your store is “safe.” See other online stores for examples.
5) Have your check out process give out receipts and take shoppers to a “Thank you!” page after their order completion so that they know it went through. Issue tracking links with your confirmation, too, if you can, so that people can monitor the shipping of their merchandise.
6) Set up a FAQs page with question / answers that shoppers tend to ask, for easy reference and quick customer service help 24/7. These could include instructions for any downloads and software, plus how to install and / or use your products to their full advantage. Some companies set up forums where buyers can communicate and share trade tips.
7) Do offer customer service and strive to respond to all inquiries within 24 business hours. And make good on any money-back guarantees promptly as well.
Shop at plenty of other sites to see what features you like and which ones you dislike for your own store.
9) In a follow up communication, seek feedback to see how your shopper liked their purchase and buying experience. Use the positive info they provide in marketing and promotional materials, the negative in developmental areas or departments for future improvements.
10) See upsells, cross-selling and referrals after the purchase experience. Don’t just forget about your customer. They already trust you now, so keep your business healthy with regularly buying! Don’t spam or be a nuisance, though. But do follow up regularly with new products, new promotions, new specials.
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