Online Shopping – the Future of Shopping Is Here

Technological advancements are popping up in every corner pretty constantly. Just 5 years ago, some things like Google Glass or the new generation of gaming consoles seemed impossible. We are getting used to all these gadgets – smartphones and tablets are becoming more and more popular by the minute, and the fact is that these devices are getting better with each new release. There are many things that must be considered when opening an online store, finding a suitable hosting service, designing a website etc. Now, the one thing that I will be focusing on in this article is shopping online, since the whole culture of shopping is changing rapidly. People are able to access the net via these small devices while they are on the go and they are starting to realize more and more that online shopping really is convenient.

Why is online shopping so convenient?

The first and most obvious reason is the facts that you can do all the shopping from the comfort of your home, or while you are taking a train to work. The second reason is the number of possibilities you have. For instance, you are looking for a special kind of toy – something your kid really wants for his or her birthday. You will go to the local toy store, but you won’t find exactly what you are looking for. When you go online, you will be able to check out all the possibilities you have, on official websites and you will be able to order the right thing to be delivered to your doorstep just in time for the birthday party. As you can see, it is pretty convenient!

So, what are the problems?

People have had some bad experiences in the past. For instance, they couldn’t find a way to pay online (not everyone has PayPal) and in some cases they waited for weeks or even months for the package to arrive. That is why conventional shopping is still here. You can go to the store, check out the product and pay for it in cash. That is a practice that is best for the buyer. For this reason, e-commerce websites are striving to perfect their look and functionality all over the place. They want to make their online shop be as good an experience to the customer as their real shop. That is what every business owner should strive to do.

How to do it?

Each and every website’s key focus is design. However, when launching a site, people get carried away, because you can do all sorts of things. You can put in images, videos, sliders, animations and the list goes on and on. But, website trends dictate that people are not looking for flashy websites, where everything will be dancing around. It makes it hard to concentrate and browse through. People are looking for simple, minimalistic designs where everything is clear and well presented. The focus should not be on images, videos and other unimportant things – the focus should be on the content presented. People go to the net to read, so your text is what you want to put emphasis on.

Your home page should consist of one good looking, high definition professional photo (or an image slider) and the header should have a menu the viewer will use to navigate further. On this page, you want to explain what makes your company different (better) than all the other similar ones and you should make sure that you leave a good impression. The products page should also be well handled. You should put relevant images followed by relevant content. The more you present to the reader, the better. If you are uploading an image of a certain product, you should make sure that you present images that depict the product from all sides and in the text below, you should include the materials used in the making of the product, its price and the option to add it to the virtual chart. Each and every piece of info should be true.

When it comes to payment options, you really should strive to provide the viewer with as many as you can. That way, you will cover all geographical locations and you will enable spreading your business all across the globe.

Is that it?

No, of course not! When you finish your site it is time to let people know that it is there. For this, you will need to utilize an all around SEO (search engine optimization) campaign. This means that you should create profiles and pages and all popular social media websites. People are spending enormous amounts of time on these platforms and you should be there. On the other hand, the blogging community is also a great one and people are searching for info on all sorts of blogs. You can work on posting interesting articles on blogs which are relevant to your content, but make sure that you find one where there is a community that is interested in what you are selling. If you publish articles using your full name and you connect them with your G+ profile, where you work on building your profile where you share everything you do, this will work on improving your overall rankings on Google search queries.

So, if you do everything correctly, without any kind of spamming, you will get tons of hits. Of course, not all visits will be from people who will actually purchase something, but your website design will work on improving that, thus improving your overall conversion rate.

***

So, to wrap up, if the people who are in this industry start paying attention to details, in a few years, conventional shopping will most certainly be a thing of the past. People from all over the world will be able to get what they want from all over the world and life will become much easier. We will have more time to do more things. If you are a fresh entrepreneur, willing to improve, you should really look into this further and learn from other people’s experience, since it will help you understand the market better and consequently prosper!