How to Guide on Creating a Customer-Centric eCommerce Website

Every day, numerous new eCommerce businesses enter the market; however, only a few of them truly embrace a customer-centric approach from the outset.
We are referring to the genuine essence of customer-centricity that enables businesses to prioritize customer behavior and priorities, resulting in enhanced experiences and improved business outcomes.
This holds true for businesses of all sizes and across various sectors. Forbes reports that companies that prioritize their customers outperform their competitors by a staggering 80%.
While customer-centricity may sound appealing in theory, numerous companies struggle to translate it into practice, often falling short of its true implementation.
This is why we’ve created this quick guide that’ll help you create a customer-focused eCommerce website.
So without further ado, let’s begin with our first question.

What is Customer Orientation?

Customer orientation is a mindset that involves organizing your entire business around the demands and preferences of your customers. It encompasses aligning processes, staff training, and product development to respond to consumer behavior effectively.
This approach stands in contrast to sales orientation, which prioritizes the interests of the business, or product orientation, which focuses on creating superior products.
While other disciplines like customer experience management (CXM or CX) often intertwine with this concept, it’s important to note that CX serves as the means through which customer orientation is realized.
Being customer-oriented represents the overarching philosophy guiding the organization. And this is what should be your approach while creating your eCommerce website.

Steps to Create a Customer-Oriented eCommerce Website

When creating your eCommerce website, it is crucial to empathize with your customers and consider the questions and concerns they may have.
Your website design should proactively address these queries and provide solutions. The goal is to ensure that customers can locate their desired items swiftly while also accessing comprehensive information and effortlessly placing their orders.
Undoubtedly, achieving this level of customer-friendliness may seem challenging.
But there are ways to do this.
Let’s explore a few approaches that can assist you in crafting a more user-centric eCommerce website:

1. Understand Your Ideal Customer Profile

To build a customer-centric eCommerce website, you need to clearly understand your target audience.
You can start by defining your ideal customer profile by considering factors such as demographics, preferences, behavior patterns, and purchasing habits.
Here is an example of a customer profile:

This knowledge will help you tailor your website’s content, design, and user experience to resonate with your target customers.

2. Map the Customer Journey

The customer journey refers to the steps a customer takes, from discovering your website to making a purchase and beyond.

By mapping out this journey, you can identify key touchpoints and interactions customers have with your brand.
Understanding their motivations, customer pain points, and expectations at each stage allows you to create a website that addresses their needs effectively.

3. Understand Your Technology Needs

To provide a customer-centric experience, it’s important to understand the technology requirements of your eCommerce website.
This includes aspects like website hosting, content management systems (CMS), customer relationship management (CRM) systems, analytics tools, and integration capabilities.
By selecting the right technologies, you can ensure smooth operations, data-driven decision-making, and personalized experiences for your customers.

4. Choose the Right Platforms

Selecting the right eCommerce platforms and tools is crucial for a customer-centric website.
Consider factors like ease of use, customization options, scalability, mobile-friendliness, and built-in features like search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing capabilities.
Popular platforms for eCommerce websites include Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and BigCommerce, among others.

5. Prioritize Omnichannel CX

The omnichannel customer experience (CX) refers to delivering a consistent and seamless experience across various channels and devices, such as desktops, mobile devices, social media, and physical stores, if applicable.
Ensure that your eCommerce website integrates well with other touchpoints, such as mobile apps, social media profiles, and customer support channels, allowing customers to engage with your brand effortlessly.

6. Don't Compromise with Security

Building customer trust is crucial for an eCommerce website.
Therefore you should implement robust security measures, such as SSL encryption, secure payment gateways, and protection against fraud and data breaches.
Also, make sure to display trust symbols, like security badges and customer testimonials, to reassure visitors that their personal and financial information is safe.

7. Plan Your Site Structure

As an eCommerce website owner or marketer, your objective should be to minimize user clicks and facilitate quick and easy navigation for your customers.
While it’s impractical to display all products on the homepage, finding a balance is essential.
To optimize your website effectively, consider organizing your products into a few overarching parent categories.
For example, if you run an apparel website, you can have categories like casual wear, party wear, formal wear, and more.
It’s important to ensure that these categories can fit seamlessly into your navigation bar, allowing users to directly access their desired category from any page.
Additionally, prominently displaying a search bar on all pages can significantly reduce the time needed to locate specific products.
By implementing these strategies, you can enhance the usability and efficiency of your eCommerce website.

8. Design a Responsive Layout

In today’s digital landscape, online shoppers utilize various devices such as mobile phones, tablets, and desktop computers. So, it is crucial that your website delivers a consistent experience across all these platforms.
This is where responsive website design plays a vital role.
Responsive websites are designed to automatically adapt their layout and content to suit different screen sizes, ensuring a seamless user experience.
Without responsive design, users on certain devices may encounter difficulties, such as excessive scrolling to read content or partially visible images.

9. Enable User Ratings and Reviews

Customer reviews and ratings play a significant role in building trust and influencing purchase decisions.
As per a report by PowerReviews, 99% of online shoppers read reviews when they buy online.
Therefore, you should allow customers to provide feedback and rate products on your website. Display these reviews prominently to help potential customers make informed choices.
Also, make sure to respond to customer feedback promptly to demonstrate that you value their opinions.

10. Simplify the Checkout Process

A complicated and lengthy checkout process can lead to cart abandonment.
This is why you should streamline your checkout process by minimizing the number of steps, eliminating unnecessary form fields, and providing multiple payment options.
Make sure to enable guest checkout to accommodate customers who don’t want to create an account. Clear and transparent pricing, shipping costs, and return policies also contribute to a customer-centric checkout experience.

11. Offer Personalized Product Recommendations

Leverage customer data and behavioral patterns to offer personalized product recommendations.
You can simply implement a recommendation engine that suggests related or complementary products based on the customer’s browsing and purchase history.
Personalization enhances the shopping experience, increases conversion rates, and boosts customer loyalty.

Wrapping Up

Indeed, the age-old adage holds true: the customer is always right.
Therefore, when designing your eCommerce website, it is essential to consider the features that will resonate with your customers.
Your paramount objective should be to deliver a seamless shopping experience that delights them. Make sure to utilize the aforementioned tips to enhance your eCommerce website and elevate the overall customer experience.
If you’re looking for someone to help you to achieve the things we’ve discussed in this article, Techtic can be a help.
We at Techtic help eCommerce businesses build customer-focused websites that drive customer engagement and revenue.