Differentiating Your E-commerce Site To Attract Customers

As consumers in today's day and age, we understand that shopping online is much more

convenient and efficient than driving across town trying to find what you need. According to an eMarketer estimate, about 148 million consumers in the U.S. over the age of 14 will make at least one online purchase in 2011.

This statistic will continue increasing each year as online stores become more and more prevalent. Today, stores that do not have an associated e-commerce website are lagging behind the competition.

Many companies have noticed this rising trend and have created an e-commerce site to attract these online shoppers. Unfortunately, creating the site is just the first step. You will most likely not see an immediate increase in profits after building your online store unless you find a way to differentiate your website from the millions of others. Yes, having all the right internet marketing techniques may drive more consumers to your webpage, but it won't seal the deal unless your visitors convert into customers. You need something that will immediately catch your customers' eyes and keep them on your site wanting to know more. This intriguing something can come in many forms. I can't tell you what it is for your site - but I can point you in the right direction toward differentiating your store and increasing your revenues!

Getting Started

If you don't already have an e-commerce website for your store, the first step is finding the platform that works for you. From personal experience, I would highly recommend using the BigCommerce platform. By the end of the day you will have a fully functional e-commerce website and you can begin selling online. But, you still need to differentiate your store from every other store on the internet.

Differentiating Your E-Commerce Site

Add rotating images on the front page to spark interest. Change the coloring and layout of the BigCommerce template to match your store's logo. Add a map to show your location. Anything you can think of that will make your store stand out amongst the competition will help you to differentiate. You're probably thinking - how can I add these modifications when I don't have the technical knowledge to do it myself or the money for a full custom designed website While most BigCommerce designers will only do expensive full designs, there are BigCommerce programming and design partners that do hourly web design and development as well at an extremely affordable rate.

When differentiating your store, remember that it still needs to be easily accessible for your customer. The last thing you want is a frustrated customer because she is unable to find the checkout page. To keep your e-commerce website customer-friendly remember the following tips

Keep the search bar in a visible location so that customers can easily search for the product they want.

Do not clutter the page! While images are appealing to the customer, keep the number limited or add a separate page dedicated to an image gallery. Customers will be immediately turned off by a cluttered e-commerce site.

Don't choose background colors that make the content hard to read. Keep it simple.

Keep the website easy to navigate.

These are just a few suggestions. The best thing to do is have a friend try going through your website and purchasing a product to make sure that everything is running smoothly.

Melissa Rea understands the importance of online selling in today's society and loved working with BigCommerce and Scripti Labs for her e-commerce needs.

by: Robertson Cooper

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