According to a recent study by Walker Research, 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience. When a business goes the extra mile for their customers, those customers are more likely to return the favor with future purchases and referrals.
Thinking about a New Year resolution to improve your customer experience? We put together a list of our top-10 low-maintenance ways to make your store shine bright in 2020.
We’re constantly releasing cool new updates to improve your Ecwid experience. If you’ve just set up your store, most of these features will be automatically enabled for your store — including many of the tools mentioned in this post. If you’ve been with us for a while, (longer than six months) you can find all your available updates in the "What’s New?" section of your Control Panel and activate them manually. It’s easy — simply swipe the button to "Enabled". We have left the timing of activation up to you to ensure that there aren’t unexpected changes to your business processes or the look of your store.
Enable Next-Gen Storefront and One-page Checkout
In 2018, we presented merchants with our Next-Generation Storefront — a drastically revamped shopping experience that included a new product catalog; new product, cart, and checkout pages; and a new modern design that offered one-click customization options for product pages, optimized specifically for smartphones and tablets.
Enabling Next-Generation Storefront will also give your customers a simplified checkout flow, reducing friction and making it even easier for shoppers to complete purchases in your Ecwid store. Transparent one-page checkout displays cart contents with all product and order info, while a new form at the top of the checkout page collects customer emails to help you build your email list.
Customers see their next steps on the checkout page
And it doesn’t stop there. Enabling this new storefront also unlocks other new features like Multilingual Store and Product Filters as well as helping your store meet accessibility guidelines by making your content reachable and visible to screen readers and keyboard users.
Apart from the latest features and designs, Next-Generation storefront will be a requirement for stores subject to GDPR (data protection law) and Strong Customer Authentication (regulation for online payments) in order to remain compliant while doing business in participating countries. So whether you’re in it for the features or by government mandate, this is one update you shouldn’t hesitate to enable.
If you set up your Ecwid store before 2018 and think you might still be using the old storefront, you can enable the Next-Generation Storefront in the "What’s New?" section of your Control Panel.
Read more about the advantages of Next-Generation Storefront and One-Page Checkout.
Display Your Store in Multiple Languages
If you sell globally or in a multilingual country, you can set up your storefront to display your content in up to 51 languages based on the user’s browser language.
When you add languages to your store, your store labels and email notifications are automatically translated into your selected languages. You can also add translations of your product and category titles and descriptions in your Catalog settings to create a complete storefront that speaks your customer’s language.
If you signed up before April 2019, enable the Multilingual Store feature in the "What’s New?" section of your Control Panel.
Read how to set up multilingual storefront and convert international customers.
Integrate Your Store with Facebook to Reach More Customers
The roughly 2.45 billion active Facebook users around the world spend an average of 38 minutes on their Facebook apps every day. And more and more, a portion of that time is being used to discover new products and services. So make social selling part of your 2020 strategy with Ecwid’s premium Facebook Shop integration.
In just a few clicks, and you can add products from your Ecwid store to the Shop section on your Facebook Page. Worried about managing multiple sales channels? Don’t be. With Ecwid’s Facebook Shop integration, changes to your product catalog will be automatically synced across your website and Facebook.
Our integration even makes it easier to run effective advertising campaigns, allowing you to quickly create Facebook ads that showcase your products.
A Facebook product page for Sweet Memories Gift Shop
Set up your Facebook shop in the Sell on Facebook page of your Control Panel.
If you set up your Ecwid store before 2018, you’ll wanna check out the "What’s New?" section of your Control Panel first to enable the latest Facebook Shop integration.
Need help taking your store to Facebook? Visit the Ecwid Help Center.
Recover Abandoned Carts with Automated Emails
Over 69% of online shopping carts are abandoned, but that doesn’t mean they have to stay that way. Remind customers about the products they left in their carts with automatic emails.
Cart recovery emails are specialized emails that remind shoppers who’ve added an item to their cart to return to your store to complete their purchase. And the best part? You don’t even have to send them yourself. With Ecwid, abandoned cart recovery emails are sent automatically if you turn on automatic cart recovery in the Abandoned Carts page of your Control Panel. Feel free to edit the template of your email to fit your brand.
Abandoned cart recovery is one of the easiest ways to increase sales among interested shoppers. And with Ecwid, all you have to do is turn it on.
If you’re already using automated abandoned cart recovery emails and you enabled them before 2019, you can switch to our newest abandoned cart email template for an optimized layout and call-to-action buttons next to each product. Here’s how it looks:
The latest version of Ecwid’s abandoned cart email template
To enable the new abandoned cart email template:
- Go to your Control Panel → My sales → Abandoned carts.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Edit template".
- Click on "Revert to default" under the HTML template block.
- Customize the email subject line and content and save your changes.
Learn more about recovering abandoned carts with automated emails.
Customize Instant Site for Your Brand
Ecwid Instant Site is a life-saving one-page website, packed with easy design tools to help you create and launch a website fast without the stress of coding.
If you want a website that will flatter your brand without selling your left arm to hire a developer, then Instant Site is for you. And best of all, it comes free with your Ecwid account. Here are some of the awesome features waiting for you in Instant Site:
- 30 ready-made design themes
- A variety of cover and product catalog layout options
- Updated Testimonials section to add up to four testimonials
To update your Instant Site, go to the "Website" tab in your Ecwid Control Panel and click "Edit."
Find the best theme for your store in the Themes section
Add Gift Cards to Your Store
As one of our newest features, gift cards is one tool you’ll definitely want to consider for 2020.
There’s a reason gift cards were one of our most requested tools among Ecwid merchants.
- Gift cards are the single most requested wishlist item
- Gift cards reduce returns by enabling recipients to get exactly what they want
- And about $1 billion in gift cards go unredeemed every year, delivering sales at no cost to merchants
Interested? Go to Control panel → Catalog → Gift Cards to set up gift cards for your store.
You can edit the product details of a gift card the same way you would for a physical product
Learn more about setting up gift cards and using them in your store.
Add Messenger Live Chat to Your Site
Adding Facebook Messenger live chat to your site is the easiest way to meet shoppers’ demand for fast and convenient customer care. Facebook Messenger is simple to use, and with 1.3 billion users each month, it’s already the most popular live chat app on the market.
Curious if customers care about live chat? Here’s a couple stats from a recent survey:
- 56% of respondents said they would rather message than call customer service
- And 44% of respondents said that having the ability to talk to a seller in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important services and online store can offer.
You can help customers make a purchase decision during a live chat conversation
Read how to connect and use Facebook Messenger live chat in your store.
Make Your Store More Trustworthy
With new data protection laws like GDPR and CCPA, data privacy will continue to be a hot topic in 2020. With 53% of global internet users concerned about their online privacy and another 71% of US consumers worrying about how brands collect and use their personal data, it’s critical to demonstrate that your store can be trusted with customers’ personal information.
If you’re using Ecwid, we make that a little easier by offering bank-level security with PCI DSS Level 1 certification, so that merchants and customers alike can feel safe about their data.
To help customers feel more secure shopping in your store, here are a few quick tips:
- Add a checkbox with "Terms and Conditions" at checkout.
- Enable the GDPR cookie consent banner. If you plan to do business in the EU, you’ll want to ask your store visitors for permission to use cookies.
- Install the TrustedSite app. Once you pass the app’s security tests, your website will receive the TrustedSite trustmark, which let’s customers know that your business is legitimate and reliable.
Add More Testimonials and Reviews
Reviews aren’t just nice to have: according to a survey by Statista, as of 2019, online shoppers expect an average of 112 reviews before they’ll trust a product they found online.
Here are a few ways to add more reviews to your Ecwid site:
- Add a Testimonials section to your Instant Site. To get started, go to your Control Panel → Website, and click on "Edit Instant Site design and content." Then choose "Customer Testimonials" to add up to four testimonials to your website.
- Install the HelpfulCrowd app to allow customers to rate your products and leave reviews on product pages. Curate and share your favorite reviews in your testimonials section on your website, on social media, in digital ads, and more.
- Install the Trustami app to collect your product ratings from more than 20 platforms (including eBay, Etsy, Facebook, Amazon, and Google Shopping). Manage, publish, and promote, all in one place.
Customer reviews on a Kissed By A Bee product page
Add the Pinterest Tag to Your Store to Advertise on Pinterest
An impressive 66% of Pinterest users have bought a product after seeing a brand’s pin, which is reason enough to make Pinterest priority for many businesses. But Pinterest also has the unique ability to create social media content that lives on long after the useful life of its rivals. Where most social media content may "live" for a couple of hours, Pinterest pins can win repins and engagement for months after an initial posting.
And as of 2019, Pinterest is helping businesses get even more love on their platform with Shopping Ads from their self-serve interface.
Add the Pinterest Tag to your Ecwid store to get the most out of your ads. The Pinterest Tag is a tiny analytic tool that allows you to target your store visitors, find lookalike audiences, and track return on ad spend from your new campaigns. And with Ecwid, set-up is as easy as a couple clicks.
Learn more about adding Pinterest Tag, using Pinterest Tag for advertising, and creating great Promoted Pins.
Basic Pinterest ad format with a single featured image. Video and carousel ads are also available (Image: Pinterest)
Never Miss an Update
Missed any of these features? Here’s a few tips to make sure you’re always up-to-date on the latest and greatest:
- Make a habit of checking the "What’s New?" section of your Control Panel for new features and updates. You can read short descriptions of new features and enable them on the spot.
- Subscribe to the Ecwid E-commerce blog newsletter to stay in the know and get tips for better online selling delivered right to your inbox.
- And add Ecwid Help Center to your bookmarks so you’re always ready when you need help managing your store.
So, is your store ready for the 2020 makeover? What changes are you planning to do? Feel free to share and discuss your ideas in the comments!
December 27, 2019 at 06:20AM
via https://www.aiupnow.com
Anastasia Prokofieva, Khareem Sudlow
