3 Online Store Features Customers Want

How well do you know your customers? Owners of online stores should put a lot of effort into figuring them out.

3 Online Store Features Customers Want

Seeing things from your customers’ point of view will give you the valuable knowledge you can use to improve your business.

It’s not for nothing that the whole sales and marketing world are using customer-centricity as the number one buzzword.

Online Store Features Customers Want

Your customers want something from you. It’s not just the things they come to buy from your store. They want your store to be a certain way and contain certain online store features.

Some of their desires are conscious, and some are not. Either way, your job is to understand and meet your customers’ needs.

So let’s have a look at what your customers want from your store.

Understanding

Your online store has limits. It cannot offer the kind of understanding people need after a hard day at work. That kind of understanding is what friends and loved ones are for.

However, your customers will still expect your store to understand them. They want the store to get them, to get what they need. As a store owner, you might think of it as personalization.

Before AI and Big Data, it was next to impossible to predict the things a customer will like. Even if predictions were made, they surely weren’t as accurate as they are now.

Using these technologies, you can achieve a level of personalization that will make your customers feel like they’re shopping in a store that knows them.

This Magento search plugin, for example, uses AI and machine learning to decide which products to display in search results.

The aim is, of course, to show the search results that are relevant to the person searching. The same technology can be used to offer personalized recommendations.

Trustworthiness

Can your customers trust you? You probably think they can. But how should they know? It’s not like they know you personally.

Unless they have shopped with you before, you have to prove to them that your website is a trustworthy place.

The Internet is not the safest place in the world. There are too many people running scams, selling shoddy products, or just looking to steal credit card numbers.

So how do you prove you’re not one of them? There are more than one ways to demonstrate that your store can be trusted.

Let’s start with the simplest one — include contact information. A phone number will do. Display it prominently, even on your landing pages. People will be more likely to think your business is real if it has a phone number.

You can verify your payment options with the major credit card providers, and use logos to display it. You can do the same with anti-virus companies.

Letting your users know that you’re accredited with the Better Business Bureau is another sure way to build trust.

Next, you can move on to testimonials and user reviews. User reviews are a major sign of trustworthiness, and they are read by the majority of adult shoppers in the United States.

Testimonials, if they are coupled with pictures, can have a great impact on how your website is perceived.

Honesty

There’s one specific way online retailers like to be dishonest that can really make the customers’ blood boil. Some retailers like to wait until the last possible moment to mention to full costs of shipping.

A customer will spend precious time looking for products. Somewhere during the checkout process, they are informed that their bill will be significantly larger due to shipping costs.

The result is that hidden shipping costs count as the number one reason why people abandon shopping carts.

This one is really easy to fix. Optimize your ecommece store to make your shipping fees visible as soon as possible.

Create a separate page that explains the fee structure, and then link to it on the homepage. Don’t hide it somewhere in the footer. Display the link prominently.

Bonus Tip: Add a Wish List

It can’t be all about values. You have to give customers a little part of your website that will their own. People will come to your website just to browse it.

Digital window shopping is a thing. Online shoppers like to research items before buying them. People also like to plan their purchases ahead – especially the people who are careful with how they spend their money.

The best way to accommodate them is to allow them to create a wish list in your store. It might take some work to make it possible, but your customers will appreciate it.

And it will give them a reason for repeat visits. So you’ll get more chances to sell them things. It’s a win-win situation. But then again, everything you do to make your customers happy is.

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