此文是廣州品牌策劃公司關于設計公司如果推廣和營銷企業的分享，廣州品牌策劃公司旨在想讓更多的設計公司提高設計業務能力！

注：配圖為UCI設計公司作品

廣州品牌策劃公司轉發原文直譯：

所以，你已經決定創建（或再造)你的電子商務網站！這需要做大量的工作，但無論你是一個老牌零售商還是一個有抱負的數字企業家，你都來對了地方。

在這篇文章中，我們將帶你走過設計和建立一個電子商務網站的過程。就本文的目的而言，我假設你已經知道你要在網上賣什么，并且已經建立了你的供應鏈，但是如果你還不知道，請隨時查看這篇博文，尋求如何做到這一點的建議。

我想確保您已經為成功做好了準備，所以我們將在這里深入了解細節。內容很多，所以你可能想把這篇文章收藏起來，然后在建立你的電子商務網站時再回來看。

我們開始吧！

注意，本帖更新于2019年5月。

創建電子商務網站

有很多不同的步驟來創建一個高質量的電子商務網站，將推動你的業務銷售。為了使瀏覽這篇文章更容易，這里有一個我們將要涵蓋的內容的快速概述。這樣，如果你想跳到過程中的一個特定步驟，你所要做的就是點擊適當的步驟，你就可以從那里開始閱讀。

選擇正確的電子商務平臺

設置您的電子商務網站

選擇可以銷售的模板

創建有效的產品頁面

向您的站點添加功能

優化您的電子商務網站

這篇文章超過7000字，所以希望這將使導航更容易一點。現在讓我們進入本質！

選擇正確的電子商務平臺

要想在電子商務領域取得真正的成功，你需要選擇正確的電子商務平臺。好吧，如果你真的擅長編碼，而且有大把的時間，我想你可以創建自己的電子商務解決方案，但這可能不是你想要的。

所以，在你創建你的電子商務網站之前，你需要選擇一個電子商務平臺。

好消息是，現在有很多電子商務平臺。壞消息是，大量的選項會讓你很難確定哪個平臺適合你的需求。如果你已經開始考慮你的選擇，你可能已經親眼看到有多少不同的功能可供選擇。

即使在像這樣的博客文章中，比較和徹底評估每一個電子商務選項也是勢不可擋的，坦率地說沒有太大幫助。因此，在本文中，我將重點介紹5個最受歡迎的電子商務平臺：Shopify、3dcart、Magento、Volusion和大卡特爾.

然而，因為我很清楚這些"五大"并不是唯一的選擇，我們將看看這些電子商務平臺在對你這個潛在客戶來說很重要的5個方面如何：定價、易用性、模板、插件和客戶支持。這樣，即使我們沒有討論的平臺吸引了你的眼球，你也會有一個很好的框架來評估它們。

1.電子商務平臺：定價

如果你像我一樣，在選擇電子商務平臺時，你首先想到的是，"這要花我多少錢？"畢竟，許多電子商務企業需要一段時間才能開始產生有意義的利潤，在沒有收入保證的情況下在電子商務平臺上花費大量資金可能有點可怕。

記住這一點，讓我們來看看這些平臺的相對價格：

Ecommerce Platforms by Price Ecommerce Platform Cheapest Middle Most Expensive

Big Cartel	$0/mo	$19.99/mo	$29.99/mo
Volusion	$15/mo	$35/mo	$135/mo
Shopify	$29/mo	$79/mo	$299/mo
3dcart	$29/mo	$79/mo	$229/mo
Magento	$0/mo	$2,000/mo	$3,417+/mo

正如你所看到的，大卡特爾無疑是我們名單上最便宜的選擇，尤其是對那些剛剛起步的人來說。甚至他們最貴的選項和購物化最便宜的選項價格一樣。

雖然很難對免費說"不",但定價并不是唯一要考慮的因素（否則，這篇文章就完了)。如果你打算投入大量時間和精力創建一個盈利的電子商務商店，選擇一個能滿足你長期需求的平臺可能比選擇一個最便宜的平臺更重要。

例如，如果你計劃擁有一個大的在線庫存，Shopify是一個很好的考慮平臺。它的擴展性非常好，可以輕松處理大量流量的需求。如果你的商店起飛了，你會很感激你決定從9美元/月的平臺開始，而不是免費的。

作為一個簡短的旁注，如果Magento的價格標簽讓你心臟病發作，請記住Magento是一個眾包電子商務平臺。如果你擅長編碼（或者認識一些擅長編碼的人),你可以很容易地用很少的錢建立一個強大的電子商務商店。

然而，如果你不是特別精通技術，你就需要雇傭一個開發者（通過Magento或者直接雇傭),這會很快變得昂貴。

盡管我生性節儉，我還是建議根據你的需求（和預期需求)來選擇你的電子商務平臺，而不是平臺的價格。從長遠來看，選擇正確的平臺將比節省幾美元（甚至幾百美元)更有價值。

2.電子商務平臺：易用性

如果你是電子商務新手，易用性可能是最重要的。特性很棒，但是如果你沒有使用它們的知識和專業技能，世界上所有的特性和可定制性都沒有多大意義。

幸運的是，我們在這篇文章中討論的所有5個電子商務平臺都很容易使用，它們都帶有一個設置向導，將帶你完成設置你的商店的過程。然而，創建你的第一個商店并不是唯一要考慮的易用性因素。

一旦你的商店建立起來，有很多東西需要優化。一個電子商務平臺如何管理你的庫存，以及它提供的設計功能選項，都會影響到一個平臺的長期易用性。

購物化

購物化讓設置變得異常簡單。它有一個非常簡單的儀表板，可以添加產品，定制你的網站設計等等。如果你碰巧從另一個平臺轉到購物，購物也有一個靈活的導入選項。

在你的商店建立后，Shopify還可以很容易地添加額外的產品，包括標題、描述、價格和其他幾個方便的字段。不管你具體想做什么，Shopify到處都有方便的提示，在我看來，它是這個列表中最用戶友好的平臺。

體積

像購物化一樣，Volusion可以讓您輕松建立自己的商店。盡管體積的商店創建過程沒有購物化的儀表盤那么吸引人，但它并不難操作，所以你可以快速啟動并運行。

之后添加產品也是一件簡單的事情，但是如果你想在初始設置過程之后改變你的站點的外觀，事情會變得更加復雜。在這一點上，你基本上需要知道如何編碼來改變任何東西，這不是很好，因為你的第一個設計很少是完美的。

大卡特爾

早期，大卡特爾的易用性與大多數其他平臺不相上下。和大卡特爾一起開店輕而易舉。

然而，大卡特爾是專門為藝術家和制造商設計的，他們想要一種簡單的方式在網上銷售一些物品，所以它的長期選擇非常有限。你只有幾個模板可供選擇，幾乎沒有商店定制選項。要脫離大卡特爾的核心設置選項，你需要一些嚴肅的編碼。

3dcart

使用3dcart建立商店不像使用購物化或體積建立商店那么簡單，但這主要是因為3dcart提供了大量可以用來定制商店的功能。

如果所有這些功能聽起來有點嚇人，不要擔心，3dcart有大量的教程可以用來充分利用該平臺，還有一個干凈的向導，它提供的設置過程與購物化一樣簡單。

與它的一些競爭對手不同，3dcart沒有拖放式可視化編輯器，但它至少有一個有限的可視化編輯器，即使你的半鑄鋼鋼性鑄鐵(Cast Semi-Steel)或超文本標記語言功夫很弱，也可以用來編輯你的網站。這對剛接觸電子商務的人來說非常好，因為你可以定制你的商店，而不必雇傭開發人員。

Magento

正如我之前提到的，Magento是一個開源的電子商務平臺，這意味著它是一個由開發者為開發者設計的電子商務平臺。因此，它的特點和可定制性很高，而易用性很低。不要期望在沒有開發者的情況下Magento能走得很遠。

3.電子商務平臺：模板

你的電子商務商店的新訪客在0.2秒內形成對你的品牌的看法。是什么產生了這種觀點？這不是你的產品、價格或拷貝，而是你的網站設計。

人們本能地不信任設計糟糕的網站，所以如果你的商店不好看，可能很難帶來銷售。不幸的是，不是每個人都是天生的藝術家，雇傭一個設計師來彌補你的創作缺陷會很昂貴。

這就是模板派上用場的地方。

這個列表中的所有電子商務平臺都至少提供了一些設計模板，你可以用它們來給你的商店一個精致、專業的外觀，但是有幾個平臺在這個領域非常突出：Shopify和Magento .

購物化提供了幾十個美觀實用的主題（又名模板)供你選擇。有些是免費的，有些要140-180美元。

同樣，Magento在Magento市場上提供了幾十個付費和免費主題：

你還可以在第三方網站上找到很多Magento和購物化主題，比如主題森林或模板怪獸，這樣你就有數百個主題可供選擇。

從歷史上來看，3dcart沒有太多的主題，那些看起來很過時的主題。然而現在，3dcart提供的免費和付費主題幾乎和購物化或Magento一樣多。主題可能不像購物化或Magento上的那樣精美，但由于在3dcart上定制設計非常容易，所以這個問題很容易解決。

3dcart、Magento和購物化的所有主題都設計精美，在說服潛在客戶購買方面做得很好。此外，由于所有這些模板觸手可及，這些電子商務平臺可以輕松賦予您的商店獨特的外觀和感覺，使其在競爭中脫穎而出。

相比之下，大卡特爾和體積并沒有提供太多的模板。他們只提供幾個主題，而且這些主題都非常簡單。再加上在這些平臺上定制你的設計有多困難，你可能需要付錢給設計師和開發者來得到你想要的設計。

4.電子商務平臺：插件

選擇電子商務平臺時要考慮的另一個因素是它們提供的插件選項。雖然如果每個電子商務平臺都提供你可能需要的所有可能的應用程序和插件會很好，但不同的企業需要不同的插件，所以大多數平臺不會將每個插件都作為標準包的一部分。

好消息是，即使您不是開發人員，插件也能讓您定制商店的功能。

有些插件會給你一些選項，比如"免費送貨"欄或優惠券彈出窗口，幫助改善你的用戶體驗（以及他們購買的幾率)。其他人在你的商店后端給你額外的選擇，比如檢查你的頁面是否為搜索引擎優化。

說到插件，Magento絕對是最棒的Magento市場提供了上千種擴展，你可以在你的電子商務網站上做任何你能想到的事情。

相比之下，Shopify提供的插件（稱為"應用程序")要少得多，但他們擁有的插件非常方便，可以定制，所以你通常可以找到一種方法讓你的網站做你想做的事情——即使你沒有成千上萬的插件選項。

3dcart也有一些插件，但它們沒有購物化那么多，也更難找到。

大卡特爾和體積在這個部門再次出現短缺Volusion只提供一個應用程序，大卡特爾實際上不提供任何應用程序（從技術上講，他們有你可以啟用的"插件",但它更像是打開特定的功能，如谷歌分析跟蹤)。同樣，如果你手頭有開發自己的定制插件的專業知識，這些平臺可能會很棒，但如果沒有開發人員，定制你的商店可能會很困難。

5.電子商務平臺：客戶支持

最后，許多有抱負的電子商務企業主未能考慮的一件事是他們選擇的平臺附帶的客戶服務選項。讓我們現實一點，如果你正在創建自己的商店，教程和指南只能讓你到此為止——有時，你可能需要與人交談。

在這里、Shopify、Magento和3dcart是明顯的贏家。這兩個電子商務平臺都提供全天候電話、聊天和電子郵件支持。

相比之下，Volusion提供全天候的電子郵件和聊天支持，但可能并不總是提供電話支持。但是，如果你像我一樣喜歡打字而不是說話，這可能不是問題。

不幸的是，大卡特爾在客戶服務部門的可達性方面排名最后。只要晚上沒有什么不好的事情發生，并且你愿意等待他們通過電子郵件回復，一切都應該沒問題…但是如果你在正常工作時間之外遇到了嚴重的問題，你就只能靠自己了。

當然，所有這些電子商務平臺都有一個知識庫，可以涵蓋你可能遇到的大多數問題Shopify和Magento尤其如此，它們擁有最大的用戶群，因此擁有最多的論壇活動和用戶生成的內容。

老實說，對于大多數問題，使用平臺現有的知識庫是最容易的，但對于那些無法在網上找到解決方案的時候，良好的客戶服務可以成為救命稻草。

總結所有這些信息，沒有適合每個電子商務網站的"正確"平臺。許多零售商幾乎可以在這些平臺上做得很好Shopify、Magento、Volusion甚至Wix、woo commerce……只要你挑到最符合自己需求的平臺，都沒關系。

設置您的電子商務網站

一旦你選擇了一個平臺，設置就相當容易了。帳戶創建過程相當簡單，通常會要求您提供姓名、企業名稱、企業地址和賬單信息等信息。

創建帳戶后，您將進入平臺的店面構建器，通常如下所示：

大卡特爾的店面建筑商。

店面建造者是您執行大部分商店管理任務（添加/管理產品頁面、銷售、庫存、支付處理、運輸等)的地方，所以花幾分鐘時間熟悉一下這個界面是個好主意。

了解如何使用店面經理的最簡單方法是通過視覺，因此這里有一些關于如何使用一些更受歡迎的店面建筑商的視頻教程鏈接：

3dcart

大卡特爾

大商業

Magento

購物化

體積

Weebly

威克斯

網絡商務

順便說一下，如果你喜歡書面教程，請隨時搜索我們的博客，了解如何使用你選擇的電子商務平臺建立和管理商店的詳細說明。我們幾乎每個主要平臺都有文章，你應該能找到你需要的幫助。如果沒有，請在評論中告訴我，我很樂意幫助你！

選擇可以銷售的模板

雖然大多數電子商務平臺都不遺余力地讓學習建立和管理你的商店的基本技巧變得容易，但創建一個真正為你的客戶服務的電子商務網站取決于你。

由于雇傭一名設計師來為你的網站創造完美的外觀和感覺（以及一名開發人員來實現這種設計)是昂貴的，大多數電子商務企業選擇使用下一個最好的東西：預先設計的模板或主題。

正如我們之前所討論的，大多數電子商務平臺都有一些免費和付費的模板，零售商可以使用它們來定制電子商務網站的外觀、感覺和功能。您可以在以下幾個地方尋找模板：

大商業

購物化

Magento

模板怪物

主題森林

體積

威克斯

有了這些選擇，你很容易去尋找一個符合你口味的設計。

不幸的是，你有多喜歡一個模板并不能很好的預測你的受眾會如何反應。要想知道你的用戶想從你的網站中得到什么，最好的方法是測試你的網站的不同元素（稍后會有更多的介紹),但是因為你才剛剛開始，在你選擇和定制你的模板時，請記住以下幾點：

橫幅越小=銷售越多

一般來說，大橫幅鼓勵網站訪問者關注你企業的品牌元素（徽標等)。較小的橫幅鼓勵訪問者關注你的產品。

我們測試了各種網站，發現較小的橫幅對您的企業來說意味著更多的銷售。你很想選擇一個主題來突出你的標志，但是記住，你的網站是為了創造一個用戶友好的體驗，而不僅僅是為了推廣你的品牌。

例如，樣式主題保持標題橫幅內容簡短，并將重點放在產品上：

點擊此處查看商店演示。

然而，雖然小橫幅往往表現更好，但請記住，小橫幅不會給你很多空間來談論你獨特的價值主張或呼吁采取行動。但是，通過在頁面上插入圖片并在圖片上覆蓋文字，你仍然可以在頁面上處理這些問題。

確保搜索體驗非常棒

根據我們的經驗，在電子商務網站上搜索東西的人比使用導航按鈕的訪問者更有可能購買2-4倍的東西，因此融入頁面的搜索欄是對潛力的浪費。根據我們的經驗，將搜索欄移動到頁面頂部可以增加15-40%的內部搜索。

例如，卡維爾主題在使搜索欄易于訪問方面做得很好：

點擊此處查看商店演示。

當然，一些模板使得搜索欄在桌面上很容易找到，然后在手機上隱藏在菜單中，所以在選擇主題時要留意這一點卡維爾在這方面也做得很好：

不幸的是，卡維爾的搜索結果頁面還有待改進。網格格式搜索結果限制了在用戶點擊進入產品顯示頁面(PDP)之前可以顯示的信息。相比之下，列表格式允許用戶至少看到產品描述的一部分，以確定哪個是正確的產品，增加了他們購買的可能性。

尋找"快速查看"按鈕

搜索和/或分類頁面上的"快速查看"按鈕可以打開簡化的產品頁面，這是提升商店體驗的絕佳方式。如果你出售低價物品（或者很少定制的物品),"快速購物"窗口可以大大增加購物車的容量。

你可以在各種各樣的主題中找到這個特性，比如運動員（如下)。或者，如果您喜歡沒有此功能的模板，并且不介意付費添加它，您可以使用各種擴展在您的商店中獲得此功能：

點擊此處查看演示商店。

在我們的網站測試中，我們發現刪除"快速查看"窗口

ecreased cart additions by 17% and conversion rates by 6%. Placing more prominence on the quick shop option increases cart additions by +8% and conversion rates by +3%.

While cart additions from a “quick view” window are not as high-intent as those from a product page, the volume of cart additions resulting from this option creates enough conversions to outperform the alternative.

Of course, if you really want to make the most of your category and search results pages (and you should), look for a theme that pairs “quick shop” buttons with great filtering options like the ones found in the Magetique theme.

View demo store here.

The ability to filter down options and find the perfect product is particularly important if you’re selling for high-price, highly-customizable items (think auto parts, technology, instruments, etc).

Avoid “Ghost” Buttons

One thing to watch out for in a Magento theme is ghost buttons (transparent buttons with a thin border) in the home page banner. Our tests have shown that swapping a ghost button for a brightly colored button can increase clicks on the button up to 50% (that’s a lot, considering it’s the main button people see when they arrive on your page).

For example, be very careful with a theme like?Retina:

View demo store here.

Can you see how hard the buttons are to read?

To be fair, if you’re careful about your design choices, you can get away with “ghost” buttons. For example, in this rendition of the Fona template, the designer created a lot of visual contrast between the text and the image in this particular screenshot, which helps the “ghost” buttons stand out:

View demo store here.

However, while you can work around “ghost” buttons in your final design, picking a theme that features “ghost” buttons means you’ll always have work around that with the imagery you choose to use. Otherwise, you can end up losing a lot of potential sales.

Keeping these elements in mind can help you choose a template that is more likely to drive sales from day one, but you’ll still want to test things to get the most out of your ecommerce website. But, for now, let’s focus on getting your product pages set up right.

Creating Effective Product Pages

It’s fairly easy to add products and product pages to your store in most ecommerce platforms. However, if you really want your products to sell, you need approach your product pages the right way.

The easiest way to show you how to set things up right is to show you an example, so let’s take a look at how to effectively set up product pages in Shopify. Like most ecommerce platforms, when you add a product or create a product page, Shopify gives you a variety of fields to complete.

Most of these fields are fairly straightforward product organization or shipping fields. You should be able to complete these fields using the information in your product catalog.

However, getting your title, description and images right can have a huge impact on the success or failure of your store. Outside of work, I create and collect costumes, so I’m going to use a pair of pauldrons (medieval shoulder armor) to discuss how to effectively complete these fields on your product pages.

Title & Description

Your title and description field contain text that tells your potential customers what your product is, how it’s made, what it does and other important information.

In addition to telling your customers about your product, your title and description are what Google will look at for determining which organic searches your product can show up for.

It’s important to note that these organic search result placements are different than paid search text ads or Google Shopping ads.

If your product page ranks organically for a particular search, you can get clicks to your page for free. However, there’s no guarantee that your product page will rank organically—even if your product is a perfect match for someone’s search.

You can improve the likelihood that your product page will show up for a relevant search by optimizing your title and description (this is called “search engine optimization” or “SEO”), but even the most optimized page can still struggle to rank—especially there is a lot of competition for your target keyword(s).

To tweak how your title, meta description and URL will appear on Google, expand the “Search engine listing preview” at the bottom of the “Add products” page:

With Google Shopping ads and text ads, you have to pay for every click. However, if you’re willing to spend enough, you can guarantee that your product page shows up for relevant searches.

There’s a lot of debate out there about what constitutes a “good” product title and description. But, most experts agree, your product page content should cater to your customers.

So, if you’re selling an expensive product to an audience that cares all about the specific details and features of that product, your description should cover all of those features in detail. On the other hand, if you’re selling a cheap, run-of-the-mill item, you might want to keep your description short and sweet to avoid overwhelming potential customers.

Images

In online shopping, image quality matters…a lot! Since people can’t actually examine your product in person, they are forced to rely on your images to make a decision.

So, if you don’t have great images, you probably won’t have great sales, either.

Image Optimization

Ideally, it’s best to have high-quality, clear images taken from a variety of angles. In addition, if your product has special features that you want to highlight (detailed embroidery, hand-carved trim, etc), it’s a good idea to include specific photographs of those features on your page.

Another great way to get more out of your images is to feature them in actual use. This helps people envision what owning or using the product will be like.

For example, most people who are interested in buying medieval armor want to look like (or have their significant other look like) a studly, manly knight, so including pictures like this might help convince people to buy:

Images used with permission (Source).

As you photograph your products, make sure that your lighting and color schemes match the feelings you want people to associate with your product. Hi-tech products look best in clean or high-contrast environments, while eco-friendly products work better with more natural hues, tones and backgrounds.

If photography isn’t your thing, many products come with high-quality photos from the manufacturer. If that isn’t the case (or you think custom photos will sell better), you can also find a professional photographer through Shopify Partners.

Loading Speed Optimization

Unfortunately, images are something of a double-edged sword. While high-quality images are great at convincing people to buy, they can also slow down your website.

Most people will only tolerate a page load time of about 2 seconds, so if those beautiful photos don’t load quickly, they could end up killing off potential sales instead of aiding them!

As a general rule of thumb, each image should be less than 70 kb.

Now, most high-quality photos are a lot bigger than 70 kb, so you’ll probably need to resize them for your product page. The easiest way to do this is to use photo-editing software like GIMP (free, but clunky) or Adobe Photoshop (easy, but costs money).

To resize your photos in Photoshop, open your image in Photoshop and click File > Export > Save for Web:

From there, you can play around with a variety of settings until you find the right balance between file size and image quality (color-coded to match where they show up in the image below):

Quality.?Lower numbers = lower image quality and lower file size. File format.?In terms of file size, JPEG < GIF < PNG. But, the same rule applies to image quality. Optimization.?Checking the box tells Photoshop to optimize your image for web use (decreases image size). Color.?Fewer colors =?lower image quality and lower file size. Image size.?Allows you to choose the actual number of pixels in your image. Fewer pixels = smaller image and lower file size. Keep in mind that if you save an image at smaller size than it will be shown on your page, your image may be stretched to fit your page, resulting in heavy pixelation and/or image distortion.

You can see the file size in the bottom left-hand corner of the window. This number—along with a preview of your final image—will update as you make changes to your export settings.

Yes, I’m saving my “Save for Web” screen shot in the “Save for Web” window. I just couldn’t resist adding an “Inception” moment here…

Photoshop’s “Save for Web” tool (other photo editing programs have similar tools) make it fairly easy to balance image quality and file size. That way, you can make sure that your pictures really sell your products without compromising on load speed.

Adding Features to Your Site

As you can probably imagine, an electronics store probably wants different features on their website than a custom T-shirt business does. As a result, most ecommerce platforms offer a variety of plug-ins you can use to add special features to your website.

Some ecommerce platforms—like Magento and Shopify—offer almost endless customization options, while others only offer a few standard plug-ins.

Here are some good places to look for plug-ins for your store:

3dcart BigCommerce Codecanyon Magento Shopify Volusion Weebly Wix WooCommerce

Here again, you’ll want to be thoughtful about which plug-ins and features you add to your ecommerce website. Sometimes features help drive sales and sometimes, they drive sales away.

Plug-ins are another great testing opportunity, but to give you some direction while you’re setting up your ecommerce website, let’s take a look at a few different types of plug-ins to consider:

Reviews Plug-ins

One of the best ways to convince people to trust your products and your store is with reviews. A plug-in like Yotpo?(available on multiple ecommerce platforms) is a great way to?collect and display this sort of invaluable user-generated content (UGC).

A good reviews plug-in like Yotpo will:

Send well-timed emails to customers asking for reviews Give you a way to display reviews on your ecommerce webiste Give you full moderation control Help push traffic from Facebook and Twitter Display your product ratings on Google Shopping

Since even just one good product review can lead to a 10% increase in sales, ensuring that your website can collect and feature reviews on your products is a near-must for almost any ecommerce website.

Shopping Cart Plug-ins

The better your shopping cart experience is, the more sales you will get. With cart abandonment rates floating around 80%, anything you can do to make your shopping cart experience easier and more intuitive is a step in the right direction.

Using a simple plug-in like?Persistent Cart?to keep your customers’ shopping cart items, well, in their shopping cart is an easy way to improve your cart experience. Similarly, you can use plug-ins like?WishList Plus?to give people a way to save items they aren’t quite ready to buy.

If you can get people to create an account to save their wish list to, you can use a plug-in like?Mageware’s?Abandoned Cart Email Extension?to send cart abandonment emails encouraging people to come back and make a purchase. Cart abandonment emails have increased sales by 8-12% in some studies, so these types of plug-ins can be worth their weight in gold.

Product Info Plug-ins

Sites that empower customers sell more than sites that don’t. It’s a simple but undeniable fact. Using a plug-in like the Wiser?Product Recommendations app?or Product Compare?allows you to give customers the information they need to pick the best product for their needs.

If you offer a lot of different products, you can use these sorts of plug-ins to create an Amazon-like experience for site visitors, showing them featured products (which are often upsells), best selling products, recently viewed products, new arrivals, or those similar to what they’re currently looking at. The sky’s the limit!

Live Chat Plug-ins

Many online shoppers prefer live chat to other forms of communication and having it available on your site can increase conversions immediately. A live chat plug-in like Tidio’s Live Chat?or Tawk.to Live Chat?allows you to answer order or product questions quickly and can make a world of difference to your customers.

A good live chat plug-in should offer the following features, at a minimum:

Insight into exactly who is on your site, so you can reach out and offer help Automated messaging Mobile-support Multi-language support

Most live-chat plug-ins are quite affordable, so they are well worth considering.

Adding the right features to your ecommerce website can significantly improve the user-friendliness of your site and, as a result, increases sales. Of course, the right set of plug-ins for your business will depend on your ecommerce platform, target audience, product offering and business needs, but this list should help get you pointed in the right direction.

Optimizing Your Ecommerce Website

At this point, you know enough to get your ecommerce website launched. However, that’s just the beginning. As your customer base grows, you’ll want to start optimizing your website for maximum performance.

To do that, you’ll need to do something called “conversion rate optimization” (CRO). Simply put, the conversion rate of your ecommerce website is the?number of sales you get in a given time frame, divided by the total number of people who visited your site or landing page (multiplied by 100%).

Conversion rate = (sales / total visitors) * 100%

For example, if your site had 17,492 visitors and 2,305 sales last month, your conversion rate is 13.18%. Easy enough, right?

While calculating your conversion rate is simple enough, optimizing your conversion rate takes a lot of time, thought and work. However, the results are worth it. In our experience, CRO testing consistently increases our clients’ ecommerce conversion rates by 20-50% in a matter of months…and things just get better from there.

In other words, if you aren’t testing your ecommerce website, you could missing out on countless sales!

To help you get started, here are a few different ways to get more sales out of your website through CRO testing:

Eliminate Diversions

One problem many ecommerce websites struggle with is too many diversions. Diversions are anything that has the potential to distract your user from reaching their destination.

Contrasting buttons, images, other offers, menus, links, content, pop ups…like cloud cover on launch day, if it leads people off course, it’s a diversion.

For example, take a look at the page below. There are 5 major elements on the page competing for your attention—none of which take a potential customer to view a product—and that’s just above the fold!

What does this business really want people to do? Watch a video? Read a review? Look at the picture? Read the Q&A? Visit their cart?

As it turns out, the answer is “none of the above”.

This page is from a client of ours who—like most e-retailers—simple wanted people to come to their site, look at their products and make a purchase. But, with all the diversions on their site, people were getting lost before they even had a chance to see the client’s products.

To put the focus where it belonged—on the products—we tried eliminating all of the diversions by redesigning the site experience to focus on product call to actions. That way, when people came to the page, they immediately saw this company’s products and a simple call to action (CTA) that said “Shop Our Products”.

The new page design increased revenue (not just conversions) by 69.2%!

We’ve seen similar results with many of our ecommerce clients. For example, we often test to see how removing different elements and offers from a client’s homepage affects their conversion rates (this is called “existence testing”).

Existence testing is one of the easiest, fastest ways to discover what is distracting from conversions and what is helping conversions.

If you remove something from your page and conversion rates go down, that item is helpful to the conversion process. If you remove something and conversion rates go up…bingo! You found a distraction.

The GIF below shows you how this works. Essentially, you just remove a page element and then see which version of the page performs better. Easy enough, right?

In the case of this particular client, we tested to see how removing 8 different elements from their home page would affect their revenue. As it turned out, 6 of the 8 elements were actually decreasing their revenue!

By eliminating those elements during our test, their revenue-per-visit (RPV) increased by 59%.

Why? Well, once again, we discovered things that were diversions to the user experience (as it turns out, the diversions were other products!).

Unfortunately, you can only do existence testing?after your site is up and running. However, even without testing your store, minimizing diversions is almost always a good way to get more out of your theme.

Simply take a step back from your site and ask yourself, “What do I want people to do when they visit this page?”

If you have page elements that are distracting or diverting people from doing what you want them to on your site, you need to make a change.

Reduce Anxiety

Ever have that moment when you’re driving a car and you suddenly get hit by a huge gust of wind? What happens to your heart rate?

Whether you’re in the driver’s seat or an office chair, anxiety is never a good thing. Unfortunately, when it comes to your site, people are already in a state of high alert. Anything that adds to their stress level (clicking on something that isn’t clickable, feeling confused or swindled) may lead to you losing a customer.

As a quick example, one of our ecommerce clients had a mobile page that forced users to scroll all the the way back up to the top of the page to make a purchase.

So, we decided to try a floating “Buy Now” button that people could use to quickly buy the item once they’d read all about it:

Yes, scrolling to the top of the page seems like a relatively small inconvenience, but eliminating this source of anxiety improved the conversion rate by 6.7%.

Even more importantly, it increased the RPV by $1.54.

Given the client’s traffic volume, this was a huge win!

As you can probably imagine, the less confusion, alarm, frustration and work your site creates for users, the more likely they are to buy.

When you get right down to it, making a purchase should be a seamless, almost brainless process. If a potential customer ever stops to think, “Wait, what?” on their buyer journey, you’ve got a real problem.

To identify potential anxiety-inducing elements on your site or page, try going through the whole purchasing process on your site (better yet, have someone else do it and describe their experience to you). Watch for situations or content that force you to think. Odds are, you’ve just discovered a way to improve your theme.

Offer Discounts

Any good retailer knows that discounts sell product, but to get the most out of your discounts, all you have to do is remember one simple truth: people don’t like math.

Sure, your customers may be bargain hunters, but if you phrase your deal the right way, many people won’t bother to do the actual math—they’ll just assume you’re selling things for cheaper than the other guys.

Take the?“Rule of 100”, for example.

This rule states that, for products with a price under $100, displaying the discount in terms of a percentage (a relative metric) is more powerful because the percentage will be a larger number than the actual dollars saved with the discount.

If a product costs $10, a $1 discount represents 10% off the price. Getting 10% off may be perceived as a larger discount than the $1 savings (since 10 is bigger than 1).

On the other hand, for products that cost over $100, showing the discount in terms of dollars off the original price (an absolute metric) is more powerful since the dollar amount will be a larger number than the percentage of actual discount.

The Power of Discounts

Now, this isn’t all just a nice theory. One of our clients sells high-end parts and accessories for outdoor, all-terrain vehicles. Most of their products have a high price point (over $100), so their customers are sensitive to sales and promotions.

However, since this client’s margins are fairly slim (typical for this industry), they can’t really afford to do the sorts of mega-sales you see stores like Hobby Lobby or Wal-Mart offer. But, they do offer the regular wholesale discount a manufacturer passes on to them on every product (around 10% on most items).

With a fairly fixed discount price like this, we knew we had to make every deal look as compelling as possible.

Originally, the client had been using a basic “percent off” model to advertise their discounts. So, if a part cost $300 and the discount was 10% ($30), the page said “You Save 10%”. If a part cost $3,000 and the discount was 10% ($300), the page still said “You Save 10%”. Unfortunately, this meant that while the actual savings could vary significantly, the perceived savings were identical.

Taking all of that into account, we decided to give the “Rule of 100” a shot.

Instead of listing the percent off for products over $100, we decided to list the actual discount. That way, potential customers could easily see exactly how much they were saving and how good of a deal they were getting.

For this test, tested the original “percentage off the original price” model…

…against a percentage discount model (since almost all products cost over $100):

After testing 40,000 visitors, the “$ off” discount increased cart visits and sales by 12% and produced $15,000 of additional sales in just two weeks!

We didn’t offer crazy deals. We didn’t cut into their profit margin. All we did was take their existing discounts and offer them in a more compelling way…and you can, too!

Of course, these are just a few testing ideas. You can test almost anything on your website and if you approach it the right way, you can use CRO testing to learn a ton about your customers and give them a site experience that makes it hard?not to buy from you.

Conclusion

And that’s it! At this point, you’re well on your way to running the ecommerce website of your dreams. Now you just need to figure out how to market it…

But don’t worry, we’ll be here to help you all along the way. Whether it’s implementing analytics, succeeding at Google Shopping, creating an effective Facebook store or anything in between, we’ve got you covered. Come back and check our blog anytime you need a tip (or just leave your question here in the comments).

By the way, if you ever want some help testing your ecommerce website, let me know here or in the comments. We’d love to help!

Did I miss anything in this article? Have any helpful ecommerce website design tips to share? Share your questions, thoughts and opinions in the comments.

Aden Andrus

Author

Over his career, Aden has developed and marketed millions of dollars of s