One of the key tricks to having a successful online shop is to start thinking like a normal shop. When we start to look at the traditional methods used in modern retailing, the same principle can be applied to your online shop in order to offer customers what they want.

Remember the times before online shops and Ecommerce, we all shopped in the normal way from actually walking in to high street retailers or ordering from catalogue based companies, well now Ecommerce has changed the way customers can buy, but the principle on how you make your Ecommerce succeed means you should go back to the routes of traditional retailing.

Shop Window Display = Home Page

Your online shops home page is your shops window, and going back to traditional retailing it was all about visual attraction, displays which showed current offers, enticed customers to walk in and browse further.

So start thinking about your Ecommerce shop window and how important it is to set the first impression, home pages need to be clean & fresh (you wouldn’t have dirty windows in a normal shop) with simple to see product, offers and other important information to make your customer want to come in and browse your online shop.

You wouldn’t fill your shop window with 100’s of products, so the same principle applies online, highlight your features products, outline the service you offer and shout about the offers that await your sites visitors who enter your shop.

Shops Staff = Contact Us, Info Pages & Support

For years, many retailers have built their reputation on the expertise and helpfulness of the staff, customers want to feel loved and important, and that face to face level of customer service has been for many years paramount to peoples buying decisions, and with your online shop you need to adopt the same attitude.

One of the largest objections online customers face is a level of trust, you need to make sure that your ecommerce store offers a fail safe product and sales support system that lets people know you are there to help. Don’t just rely upon a simple “contact us”, if a customer is in your shop (online) then you need to get the message across that they are in safe hands.

Offer a number of ways to be able to contact you, offer assurances that you will deliver on promises like getting back to them, or how simple you online store is to use.

In a high street shop, if you need help or advise you go to the person behind the counter, this is easy, as its the chap behind the counter! but online you need to make the process as transparent as possible. If you offer a number of different contact options, then back up the process with why you offer this, is it to make dealing with their enquiry quicker, or so they can speak to the right person without waiting days for a response.

Stacked Shelves = Products Catalogue Pages

Go to any high street shop and would you ever expect to see a pile of products all jumbled up across the store, no the products are grouped into their categories, they are displayed neatly in rows and columns, specials are displayed in the more prominent position of the store, and its clear to see what products are on offer with clear ticketing price displays.

So don;t make your customers guess with your online store, keep click through’s to a minimum with well thought out category structures that display the most useful range of products at any one time. Try to avoid complex and lengthy routes to specific or specialist ranges, to get this strcuture right, think about how a customer may feel if they walked into a high street shop looking for a kettle and had to:

Please go into that room with the door that says “Electrical Products” once inside that room, look for a door which say “Small Appliances” and go into that room, once in that room look for a door which says “Kettles” and go in to that room! by this point I think you would agree any customer would just give up, so the same principle applys online, make the journey as simple as possible

Product Display = Product Display

In exactly the same way you would expect to see a product display in a high street shop, the same principle and method should be used online. I’m sure you have experienced the standing and staring at a product you like the look at but have no idea the price, or does it come in silver, theres no salesman around so you just don’t bother.

Online retailing offers a much more easier way to display and provide considerably more product detail then a high street shop, and any Ecommerce store should utilise this to its maximum. If you have your online customer this far in the process its now you need to give them what they want.

Provide a uniformed look across all products, make sure all images are the same size, the price is always clearly indicated and double check theres no possible confusion to, does the product include VAT or not, can I get this shopped next day, what colours does it come in. The major benefit online shops have is the ability to capitalise on the product page by providing extremely useful and detail information, much more then a high street retailer could do, so take advantage of this.

When someone is staring at your product online, your page is your salesmans, provide compelling product descriptions, chances are the customer has just come from 2 or 3 other online stores looking for a certain product, so don’t just hand them the same manufacturers description as every one else, provide a good descriptive paragraph that becomes your sale pitch to the customer.

Taking the product home = Courier Delivery

Ok this is one of the major differences between online store and high street stores, but to get this right you still need to follow the principle behind how high street retailers provide this.

Its often said, people like to buy in a physical shop, as they want to take the product home there and then, so its about convenience, getting over this, Ecommerce companies need to think and look hard about how to make the whole online process of the customer getting the goods, as convenient and as less painful for the consumer, if you ship goods to other addresses then home, then make this clear on your site as much as possible, this will give consumers the confidence that they will not have to have someone sit at home waiting for the parcel.

If you only ship to home addresses then you need to work a little harder in making this convenient, although most people like the 24 hour delivery method, consider the customer who wants it on a specific day, make this easy a process as possible for the customer. Consider if a customer walked into a high street shop and was told they can buy this but can only take it away at some point tomorrow or in the next 48 hours then they would be put off and probably not buy, so with online its making sure the process from buying the product to the customer actually getting the product as painless as possible.

Ecommerce sales in the UK are reported to continue to rise, so if you want to make sure you have your slice of this increase in sales then start thinking like a high street retailer and offer the best ecommerce experience you can.