Lingerie store owners face stiff competition online.
In order to be successful, you have to build a website that is relevant to your target audience, easy to shop, and keeps your customers coming back for more. Of course, this is often easier said than done. Many online lingerie store owners also operate brick-and-mortar stores and have limited time to manage both. While it’s great for consumers, the e-commerce space is saturated with lingerie stores – from small independent stores to big box retailers – making it difficult to stand out among the rest.
So how do you set your lingerie store apart in such a noisy space? By ensuring that your website is primed to enhance your customer’s online lingerie store shopping experience every minute of the day.
Before you put a plan in place, it’s a good idea to do a site audit first. Here are five common online shopping experience mistakes to avoid:
1. Your product descriptions lack key details
Unlike a brick-and-mortar shopping experience, customers who shop online aren’t able to try before they buy. Instead, your customers rely on your product descriptions to learn about the fit, sizing, and fabrication of your products. We all know that bras are a challenging product to buy online. By answering questions like “Does the bra run true to size?” and “How do the cups fit?” and “Which necklines can this bra be worn with?” in your product descriptions, you can anticipate your customer’s questions and help them make the best decisions.
2. You don’t have relevant size charts
You likely have customers that have a favourite lingerie brand but are interested in trying something new. Their favourite brand may be in UK sizing, while the new bra they are trying may be in US sizing. Many customers don’t know the difference between US and UK bra sizing (which we know just means that they need to convert their bra size from one form of sizing to another). This can be confusing for customers who rely on your online lingerie store to help them get it right. Including a size chart that features bra sizing for US, UK, Europe, France, Italy, Australia, and Japan bra sizes can be a huge help to your customers and improve their shopping experience.
3. Your customers can’t zoom in on your pictures
A high-quality picture is the best option we have when it comes to seeing an online product up close. Your customers want to be able to zoom in on the item so they can check out all of the important details. By giving customers the option to magnify a product’s pictures, they won’t miss any of the garment’s selling points and you can help them get a better idea if the item will work for them or not. Plus, this may also help lower cart abandonment rates and purchase return rates.
4. You don’t have anyone available to answer your customers’ questions
Your customers love shopping your online store because they can shop at any time – day or night. They don’t need to worry about opening hours or making a trip over after work. As convenient as online shopping is for the consumer, lingerie store owners must have a customer service team in place to help customers with after hours questions. You might list an email that is checked frequently, hire remote workers to assist with customer service around the clock, or employ a chat bot to answer some of your customers’ most common questions. Of course, your customers will likely visit your FAQ, Shipping, and Terms pages first to see if they find the answer, but it’s never a bad idea to have someone available to help if they get stuck.
5. Your website is difficult to navigate
Is your website built for e-commerce? When was the last time you tried shopping your own website? Is the checkout process quick and easy? Your customers may be looking to spend their hard-earned money on lingerie but end up skipping your store because it’s too difficult to navigate. Shopping online shouldn’t be a painful experience. You want to make it as simple and easy for your customers to shop your site. Organising your products into categories and breaking them down by style, colour, and size can help your customers shop your store without a hiccup. Adding a search bar and utilising SEO can help too.
Conclusion
If your online lingerie store guilty of any of these common mistakes? Don’t worry, they’re relatively easy to fix. There are plenty of guides and resources online that can teach you how to make your lingerie store an enjoyable and easy to shop experience that keeps your customers coming back for more. If you don’t have the time to dedicate to these on your own, consider hiring an e-commerce expert to help you out. They can identify the areas of weakness within your website and help you get back on track to exceeding your sales goals.