What’s in a Store?
Posted in business on January 28th, 2010What’s in a store? It’s a good question. A real online store, not a scam website. How do you determine if a store is legit?
When it comes to online business, how easily trusting are you? When anyone out there can own a website, and put up a pretty front, its hard to tell which sites are legit. There has to be some classification to what sites you will be a customer at. Are you willing to buy from any site, or do you only stick to well established ones? For example, you hear advertisements all the time in America for insurance companies like Geico, State Farm, All State, and so on. Since you haven’t heard of other insurance online only companies, like the one I gave, would you willingly be a customer there?
I’m asking this because I’m putting in a lot of effort to make my store look nice and professional. I want people to trust me, which they should. But how do I effectively go about doing that? Do you think the graphics and layout of a site are a top priority, or is it more the words on the page? I tend to judge the website by its cover, I know it’s superficial, but if it looks extremely poorly coded, I don’t even stay. So I’ve been trying very hard to learn the shopping cart software to make the page format neat and clean. But there has to be more than that, what else do you look for in a site? Is there specific content you want to see before you buy from a store? Before I unveil my store, and start to pay for advertising, I want to make sure I don’t drive the customers away.
I’d really appreciate any thoughts on the matter.
January 28th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
When I decide whether or not to shop from a online store I decide that based on what I know of the store. I prefer the major stores everyone knows about because the well known ones usually don’t scam people. If I am to buy something from a small store ran from someone’s home I only do so if I know of others who have bought stuff from there and have done so smoothly.
Not everyone are as picky as me though. I think the overall look and feel is what makes people decide whether to shop from a online store or note. A professional look makes people trust it more. Perhaps some kind of policy of fast shipping, quality, free return or something like that could be good as well. That’s the kind of thing that makes people return. The little extra, you know.
January 28th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
I never thought that much about online stores :0 but what would encourage me to trust a (small online shop) site would be if you had some sort of personal contact page or some way to let your customer know that if they have problems, they have some way to fix it asap.
Otherwise, good luck with your store!
January 28th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
I thinks its best it looks professional but still reflect what you’re into. Not only are people attracted to professionalism, they attracted to real people. You always want to relate to your customer. I wish you luck! Did you think about my network, Idea?
January 29th, 2010 at 5:04 am
Although I don’t buy at online stores, I really think that testimonials are important, but since that you are just starting, testimonials are good enhancement, or probably a testimonial section will make you attract customers. Hmm, I think that to begin with, talking about the form or should I say, the look of the website, it should reflect what is being sold, of course — we don’t want to see a flower shop with hammers and pliers, something like that.
About advertisements, if an online store has tons of advertisements, it will definitely drive people away, well, it is not only applicable to online stores but also to other websites as well. Pop-up ads are a big no-no — it’s annoying and yes, bothersome.
It’s great that you’re going to put up such a store. Enjoy