Your website needs to sell
Another area usually overlooked by web designers is how your website is going to sell your products. Sure, they will have all the ecommerce facilities in place, the shopping cart, and places for product descriptions. But how does your website actually get your customer from finding your website, through to putting their credit card details in and clicking confirm?
This is the most critical part of your website design. You wouldn’t let a customer wander into your showroom and then just cross your fingers and hope they buy something. You would give them assistance, you would answer their questions, and you would remove all doubt from their minds until they simply had to buy your product. This is exactly what your website needs to be doing for you since you can’t be there in person.
Firstly, you need a website that is easy to use and hassle free. There needs to be no barriers between the customer entering your website and leaving having bought one of your products. Everything in the interface must be correctly positioned so customers cannot get lost. You must have an easy to follow system for the customer to get through the shopping cart process and enter their details.
Secondly, your product descriptions must be finely honed pieces of marketing material. They must lead your customers through the full buying process. They must eliminate all the customers’ doubts and answer all their questions, just like you would on the showroom floor. And in the end, you must leave them with no other alternative except to simply purchase the product as they know it will fulfil all their needs. Remember, you need to sell the benefits here, not the features like everyone else.
