Would you display empty product boxes, giving customers the impression that you held the stock only to discover when they decided to purchase, that you would need to order it in?Hopefully when you started building your online shop, you asked yourself how you are going to generate traffic.Given all the above, would you sit there, day after day, hoping and praying that someone will just visit your store, let alone actually purchase product?Would you have large window displays in March, showing a Christmas Promo which ended on the 15 December the previous year?Would you plan to have screaming music or the sound of a barking dog, play automatically as soon as the shop door was opened?Successful design of a website does not involve magic, it takes a strategic and well thought out plan.The strategies that you were going to put in place to ensure that people regularly visit your website and then proceed to the next step to purchase your products or services.Would you design the layout of your store like a maze so that you customers would constantly get lost or confused?
You would also make sure that you have a considered marketing plan in place to communicate with your customers, in the way that they want.Would you have a sign on the front door, asking customers not to ask any questions to the sales staff, but all enquires must be placed in the 'Enquiry Box', where they will be responded to within 5 working days?However in the last several months, I have found a number of Australian online stores employing one or a number of the above ill-advised strategies.My advice is to design your website in much the same way as you would a retail store, and every detail should aid in building confidence, trust and the support of current and future customers.
Would you design the layout of your store, so customers would have to complete their personal contact details before being allowed in?Too often online shopping entrepreneurs are influenced by website designers who want to increase their 'sale' by introducing as many 'bells and whistles' as possible, thereby disregarding the most important consideration - the customer experience and converting site visits to sales.Of course, I hope that none of you reading this would do any of the above.Let's consider for a moment, instead of launching an online store, that you opted to open a traditional bricks and mortar store.
