Perhaps now more than ever, your brand's e-commerce experience can have a dramatic effect on your bottom line. But there are some basic steps you can take to ensure your website is set up to succeed when it comes to consumer satisfaction.

Here are some quick tips to get the most out of your online-shopping platform.

Service Availability

It's not enough to include an FAQ for your products or product categories (though you should certainly do that)—you also need to make your service team accessible as best you can. While team sizes vary greatly brand to brand, the ability to add live chat or chatbot functions is definitely achievable and more affordable than ever through third-party integrations. Make sure to set a reasonable response time—and advertise it. The worst thing you can do is infer "immediate" service through chat and not deliver—give consumers a realistic timeline to receive a response so you don't lose a sale.

Simplify Checkout

One of the biggest sources of abandoned carts is over-complicated checkout. Use form fields sparingly in your sales-closing process. And explore integrations with popular contactless payment apps, such as PayPal, Apple Pay, etc., to make entering lengthy credit card info a thing of the past. Finally, if polling your customers for information, such as "how did you hear about us?" and "what other products are you interested in?" consider reserving these potential roadblocks for return customers who have already proven to be proponents of your brand, rather than first-timers who may be put off.

Product Pages

Both for optimization with organic search rankings and social cross-promotion, as well as for general user experience, your product pages should prioritize optimum content front and center. Ensure you're using SEO-keyword-rich descriptions (without sacrificing a branded, human narrative) and put imagery and video demos front and center. Top-of-the-fold content should include these visual mediums, as well as clear pathways to find related products or categories. Consider adding a breadcrumb to your product pages in a relatively accessible spot to lead potential buyers retroactively back to additional, similar options.

Testimonial Videos

One element of e-commerce that can have a big sales impact is allowing customer reviews—but if you're not as confident about what sort of output will arise from integrating such a tool, consider embedding positive testimonial videos instead. Aggregate positive mentions and build them out into on-camera or motion-graphic videos to engage your consumer. This level of herd endorsement could sway a potential waffler to the "yes" column.

Off-Site Sales

Promoting your products outside of your web presence has become even easier thanks to product tools on social platforms such as Instagram. Make full use of the tools outside of your site to drive traffic or make remote sales. Instagram and YouTube are a great place to source potential buyer traffic, as they're inherently based in visual mediums. If you go through the trouble of developing high-quality videos and imagery, make sure you're getting the most use out of them across all your marketing channels.