Ecommerce Tips for 2011

Now that we are already into 2011, the sales figures for the 2010 Christmas Season are already doing their rounds. The daily online sales in 2010 exceeded $1 billion, which is double the amount made in 2009! So, with so much money floating around, why are all the small ecommerce websites feel like they aren’t getting any action?

If you are getting a steady stream of targeted traffic, but they just aren’t converting, then the problem could be in your website and how you are presenting your products. Here are a few changes you could make to your product page to help convert those visitors!

1. When people visit your ecommerce site, they expect to see your products and services immediately. It shouldn’t take them more than a click from your home page to get there. Including extensive amounts of content is great for attracting the search engines, buy you’ll lose your customers if they have to read paragraph after paragraph of sales copy. So, get to the point immediately!


2. Take a look at your website’s stats and check out how many visitors have actually gone through your website. Very few will have! Yet, you put in so much effort in making your home page look so great! If your product page is mediocre and doesn’t capture your visitor’s interest, then they will just move on. Include a few attractive images of your product.


3. Smaller font sizes are preferable for product descriptions and pricing details. It shouldn’t be so small that your visitors have to squint to read. Keep your product photos in full view. Big text is annoying and looks very unprofessional.


4. Never make your products price stand out. By making your products price stand out, you will be making the price the major focus of the page instead of the product. Don’t hide the price, but don’t divert your customers’ attention to it as well. Make sure it is the same size and colors as that of the other text on your page.


5. Many shopping carts have an in-built mechanism for establishing a sort of link between products (“Related Items” or “customers who bought this also bought”). When displaying these on your product page, make sure the text and images are smaller than the main items your customers are viewing. These links are designed to entice people into spending more.


6. There are always bound to be plenty of people who stumble across your site and wonder how on earth they got there. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t sell to them as well!

These are just a few tips for 2011! Use them and see how your site gets more conversions than ever!