Having a good online store in place, with  24/7 access, simple shopping features and easy payment options, can make your profits soar. However, not all ecommerce sites are designed keeping shoppers in mind. Are you sure that your shopping cart solutions provider is the right choice for designing your store?

There are a number of shopping cart service providers who promise to the best services. Don’t get carried away by just what they say. Research and find out yourself what is best for you. This post will highlight some of the mistakes in ecommerce web design.

A Badly Designed Shopping Cart

A cart that is disorganized, has limited products, and lacks transparency will not be liked by your customers. You have to hire a programmer who’s professional to get the best results. Getting it designed by an amateur will not give you the desired outcome.

Focus on navigation. The easier it is to find your products on your site, the better it is for customers. You wouldn’t want to enter a clamped up store with products arranged in a way that makes it difficult for you to find them. Expect the same from your customers.

Organize your site and keep drop-down menus to the minimum. Highlight your links (a different color for links once visited is a good idea). Allow opening pages in a new tab/window. This way, customers won’t have to keep going back to the previous page, nor right-click to open in new tab/window.

Dearth of Product Details

This is a frequently committed mistake that designers overlook. Your online store might have several products to display, but may lack in product details. In such a case, users will not feel confident to buy from you.

When you visit a departmental store to buy products, don’t you look for information on the labels? The same rule holds true for your cartproducts. If the products you are selling lack specifications or details, buyers will move to some other site.

Perplexing Checkout Procedure

This is the greatest blunder a designer can commit. Why do shoppers shop online? It is to experience simple and hassle-free shopping. If your buyers find it difficult to provide their credit card details or the steps required to complete a purchase too lengthy, they will simply leave your site.

An ideal checkout process should enable users to verify the order, provide the billing and shipping details, and hit order. Anything more is a waste, and a barrier to a successful checkout process.

No one likes waiting in a long queue to make payments. A long check-out process is equally frustrating!

Limited Payment Options

There are some sites that offer shoppers with limited payment options, i.e. either PayPal or Visa/MasterCard. What if a buyer doesn’t have a PayPal account or wants to pay directly using his bank account? Offering limited options thus, will force a shopper to quit your site.

Provide customers with all the necessary options to make their purchase easy, simple and fast. Offer credit, debit, and cash-on-delivery or cheque-on-delivery options. A first-time online shopper will be apprehensive to pay online. A cash-on-delivery will help you get orders from such customers.

Poor and Insignificant Images

When customers are purchasing online, they do not get the opportunity to touch and feel the products. As a result, they expect to see bright and large images to understand product attributes. If your images are small and of poor resolution, it creates a negative impression.

A product image should ideally include views of the front, sides and back, including detailed views of some of its specific features.

No Company Information

There are some sites that conceal their contact details. When shoppers are divulging their credit card information, they expect to see the name and contact details of the company they are purchasing from. If these details are missing, consumers will not trust your site.

Additionally, make sure to include specific details on shipping and delivery. And answer the phone or email of a desperate and interested client, when you receive one. A bad customer-service amounts to an unreliable team of professionals. Hence, company.

Do you have some more points to share? Feel free to comment.