More and more businesses are turning to their online platforms as their main source of income. Big name retail outlets have closed up on the high street to operate online, while many small businesses are taking their first steps due to the pandemic.

For the latter, it’s an odyssey into the unknown, and many small business owners have found it difficult to effectively set up shop online.

There are many key features an online store needs, and if you have an e-commerce site then you should be considering them.

Many website builders like Duda have a wealth of different widgets and features that can be integrated into an e-commerce site to help drive business and keep users on their page, but what are the features you really need to make a success of your online business?

High res images

If you’re selling products, then high resolution images are a must. Consumers can often be put off by blurry or smaller images, particularly as they switch to mobile first. This is for a number of reasons.

Firstly, as a consumer can’t physically touch or lift a product, they need to be able to see as much detail as possible through online imagery.

Secondly, if an image is blurry, then it devalues the trust your store has and the quality of the product. If a brand can’t even take a picture of a product properly, how good is the service going to be when a purchase is made?

User generated reviews

User generated reviews are incredibly useful for developing trust with a potential customer, especially if you are a small business and relatively unknown brand. It highlights the experiences other customers have had, and tells others how good you are.

Of course, in order for it to be successful, you do after deliver good service and generate positive results, but it certainly is worthwhile. It’s believed around 95% of consumers read customer reviews and many major brands now include them from Adidas to Ikea.

One myth to dispel about user generated reviews is also the negative review being a sales killer. While negative reviews aren’t ideal, especially if every review of a product is negative, the odd one in a batch of largely positive reviews makes the set of reviews more genuine and less like they have been censored.

So do not fear if you do receive a negative review, it might actually prove to be a positive for a potential customer.

Wish lists

Wish lists can be developed on e-commerce sites no matter what your platform, from the likes of Wordpress, to Duda, a platform that has helped hundreds of businesses find their feet online over the last 18 months.

For both businesses and consumers, wish lists have proven incredibly effective. Around 70% of carts in e-commerce are abandoned, whereas wish lists allow users to bookmark products to return to at a later date.

It’s remarketing at its finest for businesses, and if they are registered, email follow ups can be sent to remind customers that they have products they like and potentially wish to buy.

Related items

It’s rare a consumer will have had the time to browse your entire site, so a little encouragement can go a long way. On product pages, adding a related items feature can be a solid way to increase sales, using tagging to feed in more items that are similar to what a user is looking at.

Similarly, previously viewed items can be added using widgets, which again could provide that remarketing that a consumer needs to add to cart and complete a purchase.

FAQs

While FAQs shouldn’t necessarily be front and centre on a product page, without the ability to speak to a shop assistant or expert, then FAQs can be a great way to deliver consumers all the information they need.

They are ideal for accordion widgets or tables, where you can give full specifications of the product, as well as size guides etc.

What’s more, you can provide information about the particular brand and any other useful insight into how the product is made, which may then get the sale over the line.

Information on returns and delivery times can also be provided in this section, which can be particularly effective if a product is guaranteed a quick delivery.

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