A good website catalogue can make the difference between 2% and 40% of your website users buying your products. The more effective your catalogue pages, the more sales you will make.
When designing your website catalogue think about these things in order to maximize the amount of sales you get:
Easy to use
If your site is well build and easy to use then people are more likely to stay on the website for longer.
Your site should be designed so that it is clear what you do and what you want from the user.
For example, a website dedicated to selling computers online should have clean look with colours like light blue, white and grey because these are traditionally associated with technology.
A garish website that is not well designed will leave the user feeling like he or she cannot trust the site. This means that you will make fewer sales than you would with a well designed, professional looking site.
The same applies to ease of use. The easier it is to buy from you the more sales you will make. So spend the time and money getting this right from the beginning.
Tip: Make sure your site has a good search function that is easy to use. This means that you need to spend time with your developer and figure out exactly how the search function will work.
Technical explanation: A search function is set up so that it searches sections of your website database in order to match what the user typed in with the results. Discuss the possibility of adding keywords to the database and allowing the search to look for results in your keywords, description, category and title.
You can also create an advanced search that allows the user to look for the keywords in a specific category. This works well if you are selling different types of goods such as computers, monitors, laptops and portable hard drives.
In such a case the user may only want to look for Toshiba in the Laptop section of the site.
Expected design
Because of Amazon.com a user expects certain things from an online store.
The search function appears somewhere at the top of the page. It does not have to be exactly where it is on Amazon.com.
The products appear as a list with smaller pictures and descriptions when you first search.
You can then click on the smaller descriptions and a large description and picture will appear. The buy now button and price also appears on this page.
Clear call to action
If you want people to buy your products then put a buy now button next to the product. Make the button big, colourful and clearly marked so that your users do not struggle to find it.
Tip: Try different things with your cal to action button, for example, change the colour the size font and where you place it on the page. This is a useful exercise to help you maximize your visitor to buyer ratio and increase your sales.
Good description
Go through each product that will be on your catalogue page and make sure that there is a good description. This should fully explain what the product does, how it works and who it is best for.
Let’s look at the example of an online grocery store. Imagine if you went on and wanted to buy toilet paper but you weren’t sure which one. Without a good description you would probably buy the cheapest kind. However if there was a toilet paper which was softer and stronger then you might consider that one instead.
Tip: In cases when you sell many similar products you may want to add the ability to compare products. This will often help buyers make decisions. This is especially true of products which are not common or ones which are expensive.
Price
Clearly showing the price is vital for online stores. However be clever about it and do what Amazon.com does. Only show the price on the page with the full description and larger picture. This allows users to get a better sense of the product before they decide whether or not to buy it.
Tip: Encourage multiple purchases. Amazon.com is a master at this because they have a section under almost all of their products which says Customers who bought this also bought that and then they showcase a similar product. However, they are particularly clever because you get a discount for buying both.
Availability
If you are selling products which need to be shipped to an address then you must show whether or not stock is available. This will prevent customers from being disappointed if something is sold out.
Doing this will also mean that you provide good customer service rather than having a client who is upset.
Tip: if a product is not available for an extended period of time than take it off of the catalogue rather than have in continually unavailable.
Customer reviews
This is another Amazon.com technique which has become expected. What are other people saying about this product? Because we tend to trust other people more than stores due to the fact that stores are trying to sell you a product, other people aren’t.
Tip: Have good and bad reviews up as this will improve believability.
