Having an eCommerce website is great because it acts as a foundation for your business. But, how can you make it work seamlessly and push your customers to stay longer on your website? It’s simple — through various eCommerce website features.
eCommerce website features can help you run your business smoothly without any hassle or challenges. Having good features on your business website can significantly improve your online business presence and maximize your chances of attracting and converting the right customers for your business.
We have curated an eCommerce website features list that can help encourage your customers to click on your website and ultimately buy your products.
Why is it Important to Have eCommerce Website Features?
Let us put it this way — A website that loads quickly and is user-friendly is more appealing to customers because it doesn’t waste their time and effort navigating your website and reaching their desired destination.
Building an eCommerce website can help you in monetizing your business effectively. Therefore, it is important to look for different ways to improve your website to keep your customers on your site for a longer time.
Remember, the longer the users are scrolling your website, the better. Because there are higher chances that they find your business appealing and it is easy for them to order products from your site.
Top 19 eCommerce Website Features
1. User-friendly Design
Do you know the first thing that customers focus on when they scroll through an eCommerce website? It’s the website design.
No matter how good your products are, if your website isn’t seamless and user-friendly, your customers will leave your website in no seconds. The worst that can happen is that they may switch to competitors who have similar products with a user-friendly design.
Today, it is important to prioritize customer experience because it will either make or break your business. It should be easy for customers to navigate through your product categories and the other section of your website.
2. Quality Product Videos
One way to build credibility and authenticity for your business is to add quality and product-related videos and images. Today, most businesses highlight videos and images on their different product pages.
It increases the chances of your conversions as it gives a dynamic look of your product to the customers. Sometimes, photos and videos do justice to your products in a way that a product description cannot.
Therefore, make sure you hire a good photographer or video editor for quality product videos and images.
3. Site Search
Do you know why users leave a business website in a matter of seconds? Because they cannot find the products easily. Therefore, it is important to have a site search feature on the website as it is helpful for different types of customers.
One, it can help those customers who know what they are exactly looking for. This way they will reach the product destination sooner without navigating the entire website. Second, it can help other customers who are clueless about what they want, so they can be guided to their desired product destination.
Keep certain factors in mind while designing the site search feature on your eCommerce website: use a standard design, ensure visibility, and make it simple & user-friendly.
4. Reviews and Rating Landing Page
Reviews and rating landing pages are among the top eCommerce website features because it helps in building the trust and loyalty of your audience. In simple words, reviews and ratings are the social proof for your products and overall business.
Positive reviews are a great way to change the perception of the customers towards your business and persuade them to buy your products. Furthermore, it helps in building credibility and improving the online image of your business.
Reviews and ratings are the foundational features of your website that you cannot miss.
5. Return Policy
One reason why customers keep coming back to certain brands is because of their return policy. A good and generous return policy is a great way to increase customers’ confidence in your business.
Make sure you have a crisp and clear return policy listed on your product page. For the safer side, you can also show it beside the cart button to increase the effectiveness and authenticity of this particular feature.
6. Footer Section
The footer section is one of the most underrated features of an eCommerce website. But in reality, it is important like any other feature and should be leveraged properly.
As a business owner, you can choose to put all the links to the top products, services, or information in the footer section. This way your customers won't have to navigate the entire website to search for a particular product, service, or information.
Along with it, you can even add links to your social media profiles like Facebook and Instagram to direct the customers' traffic to your profiles and persuade them to engage on the same.
In simple words, the footer section of a website includes all the important links to products or information that businesses want their customers and search crawlers to discover easily. If used properly, it can increase the visibility of your website and attract more customers to it.
7. FAQs
"Are FAQs important for an eCommerce website?
Yes. FAQs are an excellent way to answer all the possible queries of your customers in one go. It helps in improving the customer experience effectively by addressing their problems or questions about your products, services, or other important information.
It not only benefits customers but even helps you improve your search engine rankings. Because this important part of your website includes good content and all the important information that search engines need to decide the ranking place of your website. Therefore, don't take this section lightly. Instead, take some time to develop quality content for the same desired results.
8. Online Store FAQs
FAQs shouldn't just be limited to your products or services. But it should also cover important questions about your online store.
You can create two subheadings under the main heading FAQs i.e, "For Products" and "For Store". In store-related FAQs, answer the most common queries related to your business. You can cover questions like payment methods, return policy, quality checks, shipping, security, and more.
While it helps you answer all the questions of the customers and win their trust. It also helps in taking the load off the customer support team as they don't have to sit on their phone and answer all the general questions. Having a store FAQ can let me focus on more complex questions and give an effective solution for the customers.
9. Order Tracking
Many eCommerce websites don't have the feature of order tracking because they believe it's not important. However, it plays a crucial role in building the credibility of your business. The order tracking feature lets your customers know when their orders will arrive at their doorstep. This eliminates the feeling of them being clueless.
Make it easy and smooth for them by adding this feature to your website. In the order section, you can simply have a feature named "Track Order." So, customers can check the present order status on your website itself.
10. Coupon Codes
One thing that all customers love is discounts or coupon codes. No matter which store they are purchasing products from, they will always end up looking for coupon codes.
If you want to keep your customers at your website till the end or persuade them to keep coming back to your store, having good discount deals is important.
If there is one big offer, make sure you highlight it on the homepage of your website to attract as many eyeballs as possible. In case you have other offers, they can click on the "View more" tab to access additional discount deals you have introduced for your customers.
11. Product Availability Feature
Often customers fail to order their favorite products from an online store because similar products aren't available in their preferred location. But businesses usually fail to tell the customers about the same.
Therefore, it is advisable to have a product availability filter that gives customers an idea about the products that are available with a particular location or preferred payment. This helps customers in making the right decisions quickly and choose products that are available in their preferred location on your website.
The clearer you are about your offerings, the better. It increases the chances to convert your potential audience into your customers.
12. Multilingual Support
When your store caters to a particular region, it is important to address your audience in the top languages they speak in their region.
Multilingual support is an effective feature to get your audience to trust you. Because customers feel more loyal to businesses who offer support in their native language. Moreover, it helps in building a personal connection with your audience.
One easier way to do this is by using Google Translate. It can help in translating the original language into the one you want. Remember, when you start catering to their needs differently, you will win their trust in no time and start attracting an audience beyond your geographical area.
13. Social Media Integration
Having a social media presence is as important as having an eCommerce website. You need to build a loyal social media community and increase your brand awareness. While organic and paid content strategy is an excellent way to attract your potential audience. The other way to do the same is by integrating your social media into your website.
It is a great way to direct new website visitors to your social media profile. Furthermore, you can increase your brand authenticity by encouraging your customers to share reviews of your products on social media.
Along with it, make sure you create a killer content strategy to leverage social media for your eCommerce sales. Try different content formats like Reels, videos, carousels, images, and more to know which format and content type is working for your business and generating more sales and revenue.
14. Integrate Loyalty Program
Acquiring new customers is great to increase your brand awareness. But it can be costly over a period of time. More than customer acquisition, it is important to focus on retaining old customers. After all, they are the ones who know your product inside and out and are more likely to purchase from you again; whereas new customers are uncertain because they may be one-time buyers.
Putting more focus on customer retention can increase your brand loyalty and improve your reputation in front of your customers. Loyalty programs are a great way to show appreciation and love to your loyal customers. Because they are the ones who bring repeat sales and contribute to the major part of your revenue.
You can leverage different types of loyalty programs like a Tiered loyalty program, cashback loyalty program, referral program, and more. Loyalty programs increase customer retention rates, helping businesses generate good revenue and boost their growth in their industry.
15. Mobile-friendly Features
The majority of customers today have access to their mobile phones and prefer to do online shopping on the same because of ease and convenience. It doesn’t require any effort or challenges.
Therefore, make sure when you create an eCommerce website features list, all the features are mobile-friendly and can be used seamlessly by the customers.
In the end, it is important to improve customer experience through a user-friendly design so that they keep coming back to your website and end up purchasing their favorite products from your online store.
16. Leverage Email Opt-In
There will be times when your potential audience will leave your website without making any purchases, and it can increase your bounce rate. If you can’t get them to finish a purchase on your website, get them to subscribe to your email by leveraging the email opt-in feature. Through emails, you can reach your target audience with any new products, exclusive deals, and promotions.
Many businesses still leverage email marketing because it is known to have a good open rate and encourages your target market to become your customers. You can add an opt-in form in the header or footer section of your website; however, it is simple and easy to understand. Or people may ditch filling out the opt-in form and leave your website.
17. Multiple Payment Options
Are you considering adding only one payment option on your website? If yes, you need to drop the idea right now.
As per Axtrics, your website can witness an increase in sales by 71% if you have multiple payment options. It’s because when customers do not get their preferred mode of payment, they are more likely to abandon the cart and switch to competitors who have multiple payment methods for their customers.
Having more than one payment option can encourage them to quickly complete the transaction and buy the product without any hassle.
Pro Tip: Choose a payment method that is available in all countries.
18. Excellent Customer Support
Bad customer support can ruin any business’ image in just a few seconds. To provide a good customer experience, businesses also need to leverage good customer support 24*7.
For this, you can add a chatbot for your customers that can address their needs or queries 24*7. It will help them in deciding if they want to purchase from your business or not.
19. Detailed Product Descriptions
Customers should feel that their money is worth it by investing in your products. Therefore, you need to write detailed product descriptions, so that the customers don’t feel hesitant before purchasing your product.
Product descriptions become important especially when you are running a small business, as it is difficult for users to trust small businesses as compared to established ones. The more information you provide about your product, the better. It convinces them that your product is of high quality and they won’t regret buying it.
A Quick Wrap Up
These 19 eCommerce website features can help you grow your business effectively by attracting new customers and retaining old ones. You can even use eCommerce platforms like Windo to create your online store seamlessly and that too in a few clicks. Along with it, keep listening to customer feedback continuously and implement the changes accordingly. Listening to customers will make them feel respected because it shows that you care about them and their opinions.
Do A/B testing along with focusing on customer feedback to know what is working for your website. It will help drive more sales, deliver higher customer satisfaction, and increase customer loyalty.