Online shopping is booming. With over 80% of US consumers buying online, and the industry set to hit trillion dollars by 2023, it's never been easier to start selling your products.
When creating a website to sell your products, keep widely accepted design principles in mind. This will help visitors quickly understand your site and easily navigate the pages.
Create a Product Page
A product page is the part of your website dedicated to selling a specific product or service. This is unlike other pages on your site that are largely informational in nature. As a result, your product page design has to be carefully considered to ensure it converts visitors into buyers.
A good product page layout is intuitive and easy for your customers to understand. Avoid using cluttered or jarring designs that can be confusing for them. Instead, use a standard layout that is familiar to most customers. Shopify, for example, has free themes with intuitive product page layouts that you can use to enhance the look of your store.
Product Descriptions: According to Nielsen Norman Group, the most effective product descriptions are short, concise, and objective. These kinds of product descriptions are highly scannable and improve usability by 124%.
Authenticity: People are more likely to buy from brands that are honest about their products and aren’t trying to oversell them. Including reviews from real users in your product description can be a great way to show that you are genuine.
Customer Reassurance: When people are buying a new product, they often have many questions about the product and its benefits. This is why it’s so important to add a line of customer reassurance that will answer their questions and reassure them to purchase the product.
Strategic Keywords: You can easily increase your product’s searchability by adding relevant keywords to the copy on your product page. This is a simple but effective strategy that can help you get more traffic to your product page and increase your conversions.
Tactical Images: Another way to amplify your unique selling proposition is by creating tactical images of your product. This can be done by taking photos of your product in different scenarios to create a mental image that will influence your customers’ decision-making process.
On this waterproof speaker product page from Sonos, you can see a strategic use of images to tell a story about the product. The images use augmented reality to show the speaker in multiple places, which is a powerful way to communicate your unique selling proposition.
Add a Shopping Cart
Adding a shopping cart to your website can increase your sales and improve customer experience. It also helps keep track of inventory and reduce the risk of running out of stock.
Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced online seller, adding a shopping cart to your website is simple. You just need to follow a few steps.
First, you’ll need to choose a platform that is compatible with your website. Then, you’ll need to decide on the features that you want in your online store.
A dedicated eCommerce platform offers a variety of options, including an integrated content management system (CMS) and an e-commerce engine. Choosing the right one will save you time and effort in the long run, as well as ensure that your business can scale to meet the needs of your customers.
Many eCommerce platforms offer free trials to help you test out the functionality before making a decision. This allows you to see how the software works and decide if it’s a good fit for your business.
Another important aspect of an e-commerce platform is its flexibility and ability to adapt with your business. This is important for small businesses because changing platforms can be expensive, time-consuming, and disruptive.
Some eCommerce platforms have shopping cart plugins that you can use to add a shopping cart to your website, but you might need to be a developer to make these types of changes. If you’re a small business owner, the best solution is to use a dedicated shopping cart platform that was built with eCommerce in mind.
Once you’ve chosen a platform, you’ll need to set up the shopping cart. This is done by copying the code provided by the shopping cart plugin into your website.
You can change the position, color, and text of the shopping cart button on your website. You can choose between two button positioning modes – floating or inline.
When you’re done, click on Save.
If you’re looking for a simple, yet powerful e-commerce solution, SamCart is the perfect choice. It comes with a drag and drop cart builder that allows you to create unique pages for each product that you sell. You can also add a wide array of tools to boost sales, including 1-click upsells and order bumps.
Add a Payment Form
When you add a payment form to your site, it will allow customers to purchase your products without having to go to a separate page. This can increase conversions, and it can also reduce the number of support calls you receive.
A payment form is an easy way to collect one-time or recurring payments, and can be useful for all types of businesses. It can also help you collect important customer information, such as email addresses and phone numbers.
You can add a payment form to any type of page on your website, but it is especially useful for product pages. It will show up right below the product, giving your readers a quick and easy way to buy it.
If your site is built using WordPress, you can add a payment form to any blog post or page by adding the WP Simple Pay block. This will embed a payment form into the content of that page, and it can be customized to your site's design.
Once you have added the block, you can edit it in the post / page editor and choose the payment form you want to use. You can even add a button to the form to allow customers to make a payment without leaving your site.
Another option is to embed the payment form in a sidebar, where it will be shown throughout your website. This is especially helpful if your website has lots of pages, and it will keep your readers informed about your product without having to take another step.
The best option is to use a secure payment processing service, which will protect your customers' credit card information from hackers. Many secure payment services will include a logo or seal that lets users know the company is processing their information.
You can also add tooltips to the form, which are little hints that let a user know what a certain field or section is for without having to leave your site. This can greatly improve completion rates and can significantly decrease the number of support calls you receive.
Add a Shipping Method
Adding shipping methods to your website is an important part of running your business. It can help increase conversions and decrease shopping cart abandonment. Choosing the right shipping method can also reduce costs. You should also choose a shipping method that fits your products well and is reliable.
The first step is to create a shipping zone for the region you want to sell in. Creating zones allows you to set rules and rates for different countries in a single location. You can also use zones to restrict specific regions from receiving certain types of shipping options (free shipping for example).
A zone defines the rules and rates that apply to customers in a particular geographic area. You can use one or more zones per product.
You can set a flat rate for all customers in that region or a percentage based rate for different products. You can also offer free shipping for minimum order amounts or allow deliveries to pick-up points.
In addition, you can set shipping classes to group similar types of products together and offer the same rates for them. Shirts, for example, may warrant a lower shipping rate than something heavier or larger in size.
To add a shipping class, navigate to the Shipping Classes link under Settings and click Add Shipping Class. Then, create a name and URL slug for the class and a description.
Once you’ve added a shipping class, you can add methods for it to your store using the Method Type drop-down menu. These methods are displayed in the Shipping section of your Shopify website.
For each method, you’ll need to specify the name, description, and other required information. You can then save your changes by clicking Save Shipping Method.
You can add as many methods as you need to your store. You can also disable or enable a method at any time by using the Edit method button.
Adding a shipping method to your website is easy, but it’s also important to remember that there are some risks involved. Depending on the method you choose, it could cost your business a lot of money.