The importance of interactivity in an ecommerce website

April 25, 2012 - PRLog -- Static ecommerce site? No! Dynamic? Yes!

For an ecommerce business, irrespective of whether it is entirely on ecommerce or is partly on it; the primary concern is how it appears to its visitors. Visitors are the ones who could eventually become customers. So, how the site appears to them is a very important factor in converting them from visitors to customers. There are other factors such as the price of the product, availability and so on, but the appearance of the site is a great first step to taking them to the purchase.

Displaying products v/s selling them

An ecommerce website is not just a place on which the business is displayed. It is where a sale actually happens. This fact gives the element of interactivity a greater level of importance. This is not quite the same as a business that uses a website for making itself known. If for instance a builder has a website, it is meant to draw potential buyers to the business. If the site displays the product, it can draw customers to the office; but in an ecommerce site, the sale has to be completed there. How does this happen unless the customer is compelled to buy?

Static content is dull!

An ecommerce website that displays its products has to make it look really attractive. While this is one aspect; it also has to make it appear as lifelike as it can get. Let us say an ecommerce website is selling a purse. Such an ecommerce website is more likely to create a compelling urge in the visitor to buy the purse when it offersinteractive options.These could include displaying what the interiors of the purse look like. Or the site could provide a means of making the visitor get an idea of how it could sit with her clothing. This kind of interactivity is more likely to make the customer feel at ease and buy the product than one that just has a static image of the product.

Interactivity doesn’t stop with the product

Interactivity is no doubt the prime factor for a product. But it doesn’t quite stop there. It extends to the next stage of the process, namely the payment. Here too, an intuitive look and feel of the payment gateway is important. Making the payment process as real as it can get is likely to make the transaction smoother. In all, interactivity is at the core of the ecommerce business. A good ecommerce site should incorporate this at every stage.