It can be hard to trust online customers’ portals sometimes. The wrong impression is created on the customer when they visit the website and find out that it does not look authentic enough, has too many ad pop-ups, or does not display the correct information regarding the products they are selling.
How to Address Some of the Online Customers’ Problems?
Sales are hugely influenced by how easy the customers find it to navigate the online portals. The easier the exit can be navigated, the more customers will often visit and shop from these online portals. However, sometimes customers can face certain problems. The management at these online portals should fix these online customers’ problems asap if they do not want to lose customers to rival businesses.
Problems with the Portals that Make them Face Online Customers’ Issues
- Outdated Design
First impressions are very important in an online shopping business. Therefore, companies must make sure that the design of their website is customer-friendly and interest-generating. Bad images and malfunctioning links can affect the customer experience immensely.
Update your site and give it a modern and unique makeover. You can keep it simple or even go overboard with the design. Make it user-friendly. However, make sure it directs the customers to the right products they are looking for. Fix any faulty link to rectify online shopping customers’ issues. A good design can make or break your sales.
- A Poor On-Site Search Engine
The customer/s visiting your website may want to manually look up a product on the search engine instead of scrolling through hundreds of them. Make sure you fix all your search engine problems. But how can these search engine problems ruin the customer’s experience when they are shopping? Here’s how-
- No suggestions of any data-based product
One of the key features of a good site search solution is that they can track the online behaviour of the customer/s and adapt accordingly. Otherwise, the customer will see irrelevant and random products in their suggestions on the website. These product suggestions will be based solely on the keywords and not any popularity, rating, or discounts.
- Search Autocomplete Fails to be Typo-Tolerant
For online shopping websites, typo tolerance is much more important now as more and more customers tend to shop from their phones, and typos are inevitable when doing so. Sometimes the customer/s may not know the brand name or the product name properly as well. In such cases, you have to make sure your online shopping portal is typo-tolerant. It also yields the desired results and shows the right products or developments that the customer was looking for.
A good autocomplete feature can prevent potential typos and direct the customer/s to the right products as well, no matter how wrong the spelling the customer typed in is.
On the other hand, the portals may face more problems in online selling if the autocomplete is slow. Slow autocomplete means increased exit rate and increased conversion rate. Customers may go to another website.
- Poor Choosing Support
One of the challenges of Online shopping is the misconception that the large assortment of products will attract more customers. In reality, a large selection may confuse the customers browsing your website looking for a particular product.
Therefore, please analyze the mind and the path of purchase of your customers. Young people know what they want, and they are unlikely to browse through a catalogue of products. Therefore display and list products you know they will love and help them pick the right one by narrowing down the unnecessary displays.
- No Displays of Categories or Prices or Photos during Sales
Avoid making this grave mistake when you sell products online, especially when discounts or other on-site sales are going on. Make sure your on-site search tool can distinguish the items. Additionally, it can rank them in better positions and highlight the fact that there are special offers or discounts available, for example, with photos, flashing/highlighted links, or other eye-catching banners.
- Mistakes in Singular and Plural Words
This is quite similar to the typo mistakes and is one of the challenges of eCommerce. Something as minute and trivial as this will affect the search results. The customer may not find the product/s they are looking for. This will make them avail a different portal.
- Complicated Site Navigations
Could you keep it simple? Make sure that customers can access the products they want in a few simple clicks. Complex site navigations create problems in online selling and frustrate/overwhelm your customers with irrelevant details.
You can use heat map tools to get an idea of what your customers want. Then reduce the number of clicks it takes to find the products they want. Remove the clutter.
- Product Information Not Adequate
The products you are selling on your online customers’ portals must have the right and precise product details on display. Inadequate product details may not address the customers’ queries and may reduce the trust of the customer/s towards your portal.
- Model v/s Reality
Many online portals these days often have false pictures of products they sell. These products, sometimes mainly clothing products, are displayed on a model that may be a size 2. This gives an unrealistic and false image of what the same product may look like, for instance, on a size 11. Therefore, websites should include pictures of various models wearing the same product across different size ranges, so each customer has an idea of what they are purchasing and what it could look like on them.
- No Personalization
If you are not providing a personalized online shopping experience, you may lose customers. Personalization helps you show products the customer/s may be interested in rather than just the available range. Personalize by using data from the past behaviour of the customer/s. Offer them similar or relevant products to the ones they purchased previously.
Additionally, you can avail the on-site search solution that tracks the customer’s behaviour. Therefore, it ranks the search results as per their assumed needs.
- Poor Sales Copy
How is your product going to benefit the customer? Shoppers want to know more about the product they wish to purchase. They want to understand how and why it is better than the same products from other brands and how and if it will effectively meet their needs.
While writing the sales copy, think like a consumer. Make a sales copy that addresses all the benefits. Create lists or bullets, even add images. Make sure the customer/s knows about the exact benefits of the product.
- Fake Reviews
Last but not least, do not write fake reviews to elevate the importance of your products. Of course, they do not look genuine and will only create a bad impression on the customer/s. This will erode the trust in your brand.
Allow your customers to review and rate your products. If the reviews are bad, check what is wrong with them instead of covering it up.
Allow customers to leave feedback and ratings on your products. If the reviews are negative, rather than covering it up, investigate what is wrong with them.
These are some of the challenges of eCommerce businesses. If you want your online shopping portal to flourish like Desertcart Company, strictly avoid making these grave mistakes. Always peddle honesty and transparency to your customers.
