It's easy to click away from a site at a moment's notice, which means online retailers need to ensure their ecommerce software is not just efficient but pleasing to the consumer. This includes everything from site navigation and page layout to product descriptions and customer service. Fine-tuning an online retail store to give shoppers a personal experience can positively impact sales and customer loyalty.

A Harris Interactive study conducted in 2013 found that offering decent customer service options could be enough to prevent 56 percent of surveyed consumers from moving away from a particular brand or company. Live chats with customer service representatives, for example, can prove useful. However, Practical Ecommerce recommended retailers be wary of overdoing it with tools like pop-up chat windows. Having the window pop up on multiple pages can annoy customers to the point of clicking away from your site before they make a purchase.

Retail analytics can help you gain a clearer picture of what your customers want to see in your ecommerce store. At the same time, it's important to gage how shoppers are reacting to newly implemented strategies. Gathering feedback from people who subscribe to your email newsletter, for instance, could make it easier to know what is and isn't working.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Wednesday, April 16th, 2014 at 11:30 am .