The online business of shoes is expanding very quickly. This, in turn, has created both powerful competition and new opportunities for success.
As life becomes even more fast-paced, consumers are moving to online shopping even more. However, just starting an online business isn’t the answer to guaranteed success.
Today, Shoe retailers need to offer a richer and fully functional online shopping experience than shopping in-store has had to offer.
This calls for a strategic plan that chooses features meant to capture customers, earn their trust, and efficiently close a sale.
That’s why an e-commerce website is the single most important asset for an online shoe business.
A business’s website acts as a storefront and as such should be appealing, easy to browse, and highly conversion-centric.
Because customers won’t be able to touch or try the shoe on, your website needs to be able to offer unmatched detail about the products.
It should also have impressive images and a great overall shopping experience. In this blog, we will cover 15 features that an online shoe business must have on its website to succeed.
#1. A Detailed Product Descriptions & High-Quality Images
Complete product explanations are highly important for selling shoes online. Since customers cannot inspect the shoes in person, each description must cover every relevant detail as if the examination was done in person.
This involves a level of detail such as the materials used (leather type, synthetic composition, etc.). The heel height (measurements), sizing (including width, and any recommended fit guides), and maintenance tips.
Provide explanations rather than just showering your customers with facts. Take this for instance: instead of simply stating, “leather upper”, you could say, “Premium full grain leather upper that contours to your foot providing outstanding comfort softening and unmatched durability.”
Customers will be more willing to purchase if you provide them with these details. Equally important, is the high-quality images.
For shoes, it is vital to have several images showing them from different angles: front, side, back, close-ups of the textures and details, as well as lifestyle images of the shoes being worn.
Zoom capability is also essential, enabling potential buyers to inspect components up close.
And lastly, your images should be ready to be used on the internet. Images that have not been compressed are resource-heavy and will drastically slow your website speed resulting in a bad experience for your visitors along with increased bounce rates.
#2. Product Customization
A while back, people had to rely on brands and icons for identity. However, things have changed and now customization options exist.
This allows customers to select the color, materials, monograms, and much more depending on what style they like.
Due to the competition within the shoe market, providing customization options can differentiate brands immensely.
From simple stitching to choice of laces to even lead to selection of ornaments. This form of embedding branding into the shoe greatly increases the chance of an individual feeling a surge of ownership and pride.
This in return causes them to flaunt their shoes within the society. From a usability point of view, all implementations should ensure maximum ease and comfort to the user.
Visuals depicting all customization options alongside an easy-to-use interface will make the process easier.
3D configurators can be used to depict the shoe from all angles before showcasing them for sale.
If resources permit, these too can be taken a notch higher by enabling users to try them on virtually.
#3. Cross-Selling and Upselling
Cross-selling and upselling are recommended when improving on average order value and enhancing the overall customer experience.
Cross-selling is offering additional products that relate to the customer’s primary interest such as structures related to the shoes they intend to buy.
For instance, if the customer is viewing a running shoe, you can offer him running socks, insoles, or even some sports apparel that can go with it.
In comparison, upselling involves offering a more expensive pair of shoes along with an alternative version of them.
This could be shoes with advanced cushioning, superior designs, newer technologies, or stylish shoes with other brands.
The manner in and extent to which these tips are given is important. They should appear in bold letters on all product pages, the cart page, and even the page after the customer has completed the purchase.
They should not be too aggressive though. It should be relevant information that can help the customer.
These suggestions are particularly useful when it comes to using merchandise that goes with the customers’ browsing history and previously purchased items.
#4. Promotions and Special Offers
New customers can be captured with promotions and special offers while existing ones can be retained through loyalty.
Promo codes, coupon discounts, and sales events are some common methods that can help to create a sense of urgency for purchases.
Some effective examples of promotions for shoe stores are seasonal sales (end of summer back to school sales, holiday sales), first-time buyers discounts, BOGO deals on accessories, and exclusive email subscriber offers.
Another idea would be to have loyalty and reward programs for regular customers, which provide discounts, exclusive perks, and early access to new items and sales.
Always remember to have them featured prominently on your website, email newsletters, and social media.
#5. Social Media Integration
Shoe E-Commerce stores can use Instagram Facebook and Pinterest as key marketing channels.
Customers can easily share their favorite products with their social media friends and followers if social media is integrated into the website.
Product pages should have buttons for social sharing. Request customers to post branded pictures of them wearing your shoes to increase user-generated content.
This is a very powerful type of social proof. To boost brand excitement, run contests and giveaways on social media.
You can also partner with influencers to broaden your range of audience and build credibility.
Utilize your social media by posting high-quality pictures and videos of your shoes for optimal customer engagement.
#6. Secure and Varied Payment Options
Having several secure payment options helps establish trust so that every customer has a seamless checkout experience.
To guarantee security for their financial information, customers should have flexible options at their disposal.
Your E-commerce store should include payment gateways, such as PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe, and Credit Cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express).
Further, address customer concerns by clearly displaying security badges and SSL certificates on the website.
SSL certificates and security badges provide proof of data protection and add a level of security to the company’s website.
A secure website will reduce cart abandonment and help build customer trust.
#7. Integrated Shipping Solutions
Working with reputable carriers is critical to achieving effective delivery and positive customer satisfaction.
Provide multiple levels of service such as standard, express, and international shipping to accommodate different budgets and preferences.
Shipping rates, order tracking, and other relevant information should be available in real-time. Customers want to know the cost of shipping and the expected delivery time.
Offering free shipping is also a highly valuable strategy you can employ. Be specific about your shipping policies on your site.
Include how long customers should expect to wait for their orders, the associated shipping costs, and any limits that pertain to your policies.
Address international shipping considerations by clearly outlining any costs, duties, and taxes that apply.
#8.Storage And Speed Of The Website
Keyword phrases act as the website’s direct link to many users. These users are then routed towards the website.
When these users are not able to visit the website or if it crashes then it leads to user frustration.
Instead of loading immediately, the user has to wait for it to load which adds to the problem. Websites can be optimized to load faster by compressing images, reducing all HTTP requests, and enabling browser caching.
The hosting provider should guarantee faster response times alongside sufficient storage for webpages, adequate bandwidth to handle user traffic, and an extensive product catalog.
Users expect interactions on the website to be quick and responsive. Therefore, a well-optimized website is key to a positive experience and higher sales conversions.
For customers from abroad, deploying a Content Delivery Network can be effective in further boosting website performance and overall speed.
#9. Third-Party Integrations
The efficiency of operations and the effectiveness of marketing play a crucial role in an e-commerce business.
For that specific reason, having third-party integrations of different services could significantly help.
Tailor the experience of your clients by integrating systems that help manage relations with your clients.
The service providers of email marketing could help with the automation of campaigns and help in nurturing prospects.
Customer activity and website performance analysis is provided by Google Analytics and tools of such nature.
Your business could improve significantly by integrating with these platforms, as well as many other third-party services relevant to your industry.
Another service that could be beneficial to the business is integrating systems for managing inventories to ensure accurate stock levels are displayed on your website.
#10. Ready-To-Use Templates
Visually appealing design and a user-friendly website are two essential aspects. Therefore website templates need to come pre-set in the mobile app builder and Olitt website builder offers exactly that.
This design integration helps the business alleviate further processes.
They speed up the development process because the approach being taken is from the design perspective of the task at hand.
In some cases, the flexibility of the provided templates is crucial. Templates that speed up the design process while implementing the brand identity need to be flexible enough.
Getting all design aspects, including responsive design, is also a key consideration for the templates.
Templates need to be versatile enough to incorporate several layouts and features to boost effective marketing for the products.
#11. Digital Products (Where required)
If you sell footwear or services related to them like shoe caring guides, style e-books, or even courses, there are things you have to check.
First, your e-commerce platform should support selling digital downloads on your e-store.
Make sure to include directions on how to find and retrieve the products. Different versions can also be given to them in digital formats like PDF, and ePub which can be accessed from different platforms.
Ensuring secure delivery of sensitive digital files prevents unauthorized use or distribution of the content.
#12. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
For your online shoe-selling venture to be successful, it is highly important to implement SEO on your website.
Each of the product pages on your website needs to have descriptions that are well crafted and precise to that particular product as those are indexed pages.
Ensure that all the shoe meta descriptions have key phrases that people use to look for shoes on the internet.
To further enhance SEO, add alt text to images to make them more informative and beneficial.
A crucial element for your SEO is having a responsive website since this impacts your rank the most and Olitt website builder offers it all.
Acquire relevant backlinks from other fashion retail websites to your site.
#13 Mobile Friendly Design
Now that people prefer shopping online using their mobile phones, shoe stores must have a well-responsive website.
Many customers use their tablets and smartphones to purchase shoes. Therefore, your website should be optimized for mobile so that users can access it seamlessly.
Ollit website builder gives you a mobile-friendly website which makes it the best option for your shoe e-commerce store.
Having a mobile-friendly design increases usability for users visiting the site from mobile devices, but it also improves the site’s SEO.
Consider incorporating Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to enhance mobile experience. Review your website on several phones to boost user experience.
Read also: How To Use Olitt: Ultimate Step by Step Guide
#14 Ratings and Reviews
One of the best marketing strategies today is customer reviews. They help in building more trust and credibility that can persuade prospective customers to make the purchase.
Incorporate a product rating and review system on your website. Respond to all reviews posted, no matter how negative they are.
Overwhelming negative reviews can be indirectly corrected by careful management. This demonstrates excellent customer service skills and gives a negative scenario a positive spin.
Take steps to make it easier for satisfied customers to leave reviews by providing some incentives.
Consider displaying these reviews on the homepage as well as the product pages.
Reviews have to be genuine. Do not alter them in any way as doing so will ruin your brand.
Read also: 7 Best Frameworks for E-commerce Websites
#15. Reports and Analytics
Knowing the customer involves metrics like site performance and behavior tracking.
Google Analytics and others monitor sales, traffic, bounce, conversion rates, and much more.
This will help determine what is being done correctly, and where mistakes are being made by looking at the data patterns.
This information can also be analyzed for marketing decisions, product development, and site improvements what are the consumable goods that sell the most?
What are the marketing campaigns that brought the most visitors to the site? Analytics tracking should be done constantly since it is extremely critical and plans should be made to take advantage of the insights received from the analytics.
A/B tests can be planned through different website elements like rearranging the product page, repositioning call-to-action buttons, etc, and measuring which brings a better response.
Read also: How To Write Product Descriptions That Sell Clothes Online
Conclusion
Several factors need to be taken into account besides marketing different types of products in an online shoe store. It also involves carefully managing the customer and user experience, product listing, as well as the sales funnel. In this article, we outline how all the visitors to your online store become loyal customers, which in turn boosts sales. All other factors that ensure the success of your business, including product description, product image, payment options, as well as shipping services are equally important. The money spent here is not a cost, but an investment for the future of your online shoe store. Why hesitate to make those changes and watch your online business grow?