9 Must Have Website Features To Drive More Sales Online
By Anthony Indraus April 26, 2019
Driving More Sales Online; it is imperative for every business nowadays to maintain an online presence, we are all reliant on our phones and gadgets to find the latest and greatest, and whenever you hear of a business the first thing we do is checking them out online!
Businesses now understand that having a website is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Without a website you cripple your business growth and scale potential, it’s like opening up a new shop and refusing to install a door for clients to come in through.
Whether you are an online store or selling offline services and products, we have created a list of 9 website features that every business needs to implement, especially if they run a product based or e-commerce website to help you drive more sales online. Some of them might seem like common sense but the absence of any of them can be costing you potential revenue.
Live Chat and Chat Bots
It may seem like the new kid on the block when it comes to web technologies, but the truth is, they have been around for quite a while, it is only recently they gained the attention of the masses, and a lot of the major companies started implementing them.
Live Chat, offer your customers a way to engage with your business, opening a new line of communication, and in turn building trust. Their functionality is not only limited to offering assistance and giving generic answers based on pre-determined keyphrases. They can get quite intricate with the assistance of machine learning and artificial intelligence, helping your website visitors find what they are looking for and upselling, it’s like hiring a sales person that is working for you 24/7.
We have written a full blog post about Live Chat and its benefits we would highly recommend reading it to learn more.
Frequently Bought Together
A clear way to upsell and cross-sell your products and service, pioneered by Amazon the Frequently Bought Together feature working as a recommendation engine.
The purpose of Frequently Bought Together is to increase the average cart value or order value on your website, by understanding the user’s purchasing habits and recommending complementary products and services based on analysing previous purchase patterns. It might sound complicated and it is, it takes a lot of data and behavior analysis to have an effective functionality.
Whether you are using a custom built platform or utilising any of the widely used eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Even with WordPress there is an abundance of plugins that can help you implement that feature easily into your website.
Wishlist & Email Marketing
You have probably seen the Wishlist feature on major e-commerce websites, while it might not seem as helpful and sounds like it won’t directly impact sales, that’s where you would be wrong.
Building and integrating a Wishlist within your website, will allow you to get an insight inside the mind of your customer, understanding what they are into and what they want to purchase, in combination with email marketing, you can nurture them and educate them about the products they have added to their wishlist, and will also give you the power to directly market and sell to people who have expressed interest in such products.
It also operates as a bookmarking option, while 80% of online shoppers use a mobile phone or a tablet to browse your products and offerings, only 1 in 5 actually check out using their mobile device, the remainder opts to check out on a desktop computer, so offering a wishlist would allow your prospects and customers to bookmark products they are interested in so they can purchase it later.
Exit Intent Offers
Sometimes we go online and browse a store to see what’s around, maybe with no direct buying intent, we find something that is interesting to buy but then the price or the time might not be perfect, so we decide to leave. Your customers do that a lot, imagine if you can give them one last option to buy before they leave!
Say hello to exit intent offers, exit intent tracks the user movements on the website and when the user is about to exit the website it displays a popup with an irresistible offer, whether it is a discount or a lead magnet to collect their emails. Exit Intent popups have shown great results, converting 35% of potentially lost visitors, it is not a small number, helping you drive more sales online.
Scarcity and Urgency
FOMO or Fear of Missing out is what drives a lot of people to take the plunge and make the purchase or commit to something online. It relies on such a basic human instinct.
Utilising scarcity and urgency on your website will encourage your prospects and visitors to make the purchase, you can display scarcity by showing how many items or spots are left, enticing the fear of not being able to obtain the item if they don’t make the purchase right now.
While urgency can be pushed by displaying a count down timer for a promotion, once the timer hits zero it will be gone! An important thing to keep in mind is, while those features seem easy to manipulate it is important to create true urgency and scarcity, it is a double-edged sword, if your visitors find that it is always “urgent” and “scarce” they will most likely opt not to make the purchase as they will feel as if they are being pushed into the purchase, so use it carefully.
Social Proofing & Reviews
No one wants to be the first one to take the leap of faith with a new product or a new service, everyone wants some sort of guarantee and proof that others are willing to purchase it as well.
That’s the magic of Social Proofing, it can be displayed on a website in many different forms, you can use client testimonials, review, and videos, but recently there is a new addition that really encourages visitors to cross over the line. There are so many ways to do so, from displaying a purchase tracker “Someone in X Just Bough Item Y” you have probably seen it on many websites now, or displaying how many people are viewing the item at the moment of visiting the page, to displaying how many purchases were made within the last 24 hours, something that eBay currently displays on its listings.
Guarantees and Returns
It goes without saying that you need to show your visitors that there are guarantees to the products and services you are offering for legal reasons but also no one wants to make a purchase only to be left with a broken item and no one to talk to.
Always display what sort of guarantees you can provide on every single product or service page, you need to make sure your visitors are comfortable clicking the add to cart button, building trust in every step of the way, assuring them that even if something goes wrong there is a procedure in place to assist them with your return policy.
Abandoned Cart Offers
A missed opportunity! So many online stores don’t follow up with abandoned carts, in fact, the average eCommerce store loses over 75% of their sales to cart abandonment. You might have many visitors coming to your website or online store, adding a product to cart then leaving the website for one reason or another. It is your responsibility to drive more sales by reminding them of what they have left in the cart.
It will also allow you to be able to test and figure out what offers and changes you need to implement in order to increase your conversion rate in the long run, whether it is shipping cost that is causing the abandonment or simply your checkout process is not streamlined enough.
You can implement many systems and plugins that allow you to track your abandoned carts and engage with your visitors by offering limited time offers in order for them to convert.
Checkout Upsell
Referred to as the one-click upsell, this method displays a highly relevant item related to the product placed in cart just before the process payment button, for example if you are selling coffee beans online, your one-click upsell can be a travel mug, so it is something that is highly relatable and they will definitely be needing it.
Some online retailers are reporting that they are increasing their sales by 10% just by offering a one-click upsell post-purchase.
Conclusion
While some of the features mentioned in this post, might sound like common sense, it is important to keep remembering that sometimes the simple things are what converts the most, whether it is a reminder email or an exit intent pop up, as a business owner your goal is to optimise your conversion rate and drive more sales online.
If you have any more features or ideas please share them in the comments section below, we would love to hear what tricks you have utilised yourself to increase your online conversion rate.
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