Even small annoyances can mean death in terms of getting attention and converting customers on the Internet. This is particularly important for e-commerce since Internet customers tend to be so timid about making purchase. There’s no one there to encourage them along, after all. It’s a good idea to check to see if there’s anything on your site that might be annoying your customers without your knowledge. Fixing these minor annoyances could have a big positive effect on your bottom line.

Long Load Times

This might seem like a small thing in general, but with the vast number of choices customers have on the Internet, it really isn’t. If your page takes 15 seconds or longer to load, customers are going to be rolling their eyes and moving on. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to fix this problem. For example, if your site is taking too long to load it may be because you have too many videos embedded. Instead of embedding some of the videos, you can merely link to them. The same goes with excessive large pictures or animations. There’s always going to be a bit of a balancing act between getting a customer’s attention with interesting visuals and making sure the page doesn’t take forever to come up.

Lack of Customer Reviews

If your site has no option for posting natural customer reviews, including negative or neutral reviews, new customers might be suspicious about your site. A large number of fake sites use fake customer reviews to try and coerce people into purchases and many modern consumers are well aware of this. Many actually look for a couple of negative reviews on a site to confirm that the site isn’t shady in any way. Customers will make their own decisions and allowing them to be better informed about how customers on a whole regard your site and products will let them do that more directly. If you don’t do this then customers are more likely to look at other sites that have more natural looking reviews.

Misinformation

Another thing that could be annoying your customers is if the information on your site isn’t completely accurate. Consumers want to make good decisions about making purchases, and if they check the information about your products against other sites and find inaccuracies they will be annoyed. They may look at your site negatively from that point on. You want to post the price of your products clearly, and all technical specifications as well. You’ll want to do this in a way that clearly communicates it to the customer. If they have to do a lot of hunting around for information such as this, it could also be a major turn off. After all, they will likely be comparing your products and prices to those on other sites. If the information isn’t listed in an easy to access manner than they will likely look on.

Hidden Shopping Cart

The option to purchase any of the products listed on your site should be posted obviously right at the top of your page. Many e-commerce sites actually put this in the top right with an easy to find icon of a shopping cart or something similar. If customers have to scroll down in order to find a button like that, chances are good they just won’t instead.

So when you decide to create your own website for free or otherwise with Internet tools, it’s a good idea to keep your customers in mind when imagining how to make the process as smooth for them as possible.