This is part two in a two-part series. Read part one here.
In the first part of this blog series, we gave you tips for getting your spring cleaning rolling, but in part two, we’ll discuss some more specific items to watch for while you’re pouring over your site with a fine-toothed comb.
Although it doesn’t always pay to keep up with the online Joneses, keeping your retail fulfillment services and eCommerce order management programs up-to-date will ensure that you have happy customers all year long.
Don’t overlook these important aspects of your eCommerce shop while you’re working through your digital spring cleaning:
Product descriptions and pricing. You should be updating your product descriptions and pricing on a regular basis, but there’s no better time to start than after all the holiday chaos is over. Once you’ve purged products that aren’t selling, check the remainder and update them with well-written, appealing descriptions and new prices for the coming month, season or year.
Photography and art. Product photography is getting increasingly sophisticated, as are web graphics and art. If your customers aren’t responding in the ways you expected, it might be because they can’t see the products you’re selling well enough — considering adding 360 degree visuals.
Menu structure. Now is the time to do heavy remodeling, like changing up your menu system. If products are too hard to find your customers won’t dig, they’ll simply move along. Check your menus to see how deeply they nest before you get to a product and consider moving some things around to simplify your site’s navigational structure.
Search results. Upgrading your search tool to be intelligent enough to find items despite misspellings is a great way to increase your customer satisfaction. Even if you aren’t ready to go high tech, you should at least make your search page suggest common items when searches yield no fruit — after all, a “no result” page with nothing else on it doesn’t really give your customers any options for engagement.
Continuity. Today’s web shopper often goes seamlessly from desktop to tablet or mobile phone and they expect you’ll be able to keep up with them. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, this is the year to make it so because the number of people making purchases on their mobile devices is growing every day.
A thorough spring cleaning is vital to every kind of eCommerce business. Not only does it help you see what parts of your site are lacking and need to be updated, but you also get a great opportunity to integrate new features and time-saving shortcuts on both the front and back ends of your system.
