8 Digital Product Store Features That Customers Love
Do you know which digital product store features customers appreciate while shopping online?
A smooth and enjoyable shopping experience is paramount to your success. The User Experience (UX) of your e-commerce store can be the difference between a loyal customer and an abandoned cart.
Therefore, it’s important to understand and implement digital product store features and elements that drive conversions, boost customer satisfaction, and cultivate long-term loyalty.
🔎 In this article, I’ll cover:
Power of UX for Digital Product Stores
Let’s face it, online shoppers have options.
A study by Baymard Institute revealed a staggering global average shopping cart abandonment rate of about 70%. This means nearly 7 out of 10 potential customers leave their online purchases unfinished.
While shopping cart abandonment can be attributed to various factors, a negative user experience certainly plays a significant role.
Here’s why UX matters:
- Increased conversions: A streamlined and user-friendly experience encourages customers to complete their purchases. Frictionless storefront navigation, clear product information, and a straightforward checkout process from start to finish all contribute to higher conversion rates.
- Improved customer satisfaction: When customers find what they need easily and have a positive experience overall, they’re more likely to be satisfied with your brand. This translates to positive reviews, repeat purchases, and brand advocacy.
- Enhanced brand loyalty: A positive UX fosters trust and builds brand loyalty. Satisfied customers are more likely to return for future purchases and recommend your new products to others.
As with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and other marketing initiatives, investing in a well-designed user experience is an investment in your business’s success. Now, let’s explore specific features and elements that will make your digital product store a haven for happy customers.
8 Key Digital Product Store Features
What makes a successful online store and positive UX for eCommerce websites?
Certainly, things like a mobile-optimized site, good site security, high performance, and personalization are all very important.
But there are more specific digital product store features you can include to help boost engagement and drive conversions.
For each, I’ll explain how you can leverage or implement the features in your Easy Digital Downloads store:
This is the ideal WordPress plugin to sell digital products. You can use it to sell tons of different types of digital products, from online courses, audiobooks, and webinars to memberships, stock photos, digital art, and fonts. Check out this blog post if you’re looking for more digital product ideas.
Whether you’re selling eBooks, WordPress themes, license keys, graphic design presets, or something else, Easy Digital Downloads is an excellent eCommerce platform for beginners that comes with a wide variety of marketing tools and ways to make passive income.
Plus, using it to create and power your own website, rather than sell on a marketplace like Etsy gives you the most control over your pricing, profit margins, and customer experience.
1. Efficient Navigation & Search Functionality
Why customers love it: They can more efficiently search for and find the products or content they want.
Customers shouldn’t have to play hide-and-seek with your products. A clear and intuitive navigation menu, along with a robust search bar, are key.
Leverage categories and tags to organize your products logically. In addition, you can use a plugin like SearchWP:
This tool integrates seamlessly with Easy Digital Downloads and WooCommerce to provide better search functionalities. It considers all of your product details, including taxonomies and attributes.
2. ‘Favorite’ or ‘Save for Later’ Button
Why customers love it: They can browse and purchase on their own time, and easily come back and find their favorites later.
With the prevalence of social media in our lives, you’d assume that the ability to “like”, “love”, or “favorite” products would be pretty standard. However, it’s a feature that is often lacking on digital product stores.
This can be a big missed opportunity.
In reality, customers aren’t always ready to purchase a product at the exact moment they first see it. Not allowing your customers to save products for later makes it just a little bit harder for them to return and easily find them again in the future.
The EDD Favorites add-on can help:
It works with the Wish Lists extension (which I’ll cover next) and lets shoppers quickly ‘favorite’ downloads. They can add or remove items from the Favorites list with a single click.
3. Shareable Wish Lists
Why customers love it: They can save products and digital goods, window-shop, share their favorites, and enable others to buy gifts for them.
Although it’s similar to saving products for later, letting customers make wish lists takes things one step further by expanding the reach of these saved products.
Not only can customers keep track of the products they like. They can also easily share their wishlists with friends, family, and colleagues – bringing additional traffic to your store and making it easy for others to buy your products as gifts.
EDD Wish Lists lets your users easily save and share their wish lists:
They can quickly add a product to the list and create new wish lists without leaving the product page. It lets you create an unlimited number of lists, including guest users.
4. Seamless Checkout Process
Why customers love it: They experience more instant gratification and less wasted time.
One of the biggest obstacles to making sales on a digital product website is the purchase process. If it’s complicated, cumbersome, or takes too long, customers can easily lose interest.
In fact, an excessively long or overly complicated checkout process is cited by the Baymard Institute as one of the most common reasons for cart abandonment:
EDD offers a streamlined checkout process with minimal steps, allowing customers to complete their purchases quickly and conveniently.
You can also use it to enable guest checkout to allow customers to purchase without creating an account. This removes a potential barrier and caters to impulse buyers.
It’s also smart to strategically offer relevant upsells or complementary products during checkout to increase average order value.
Additionally, it’s essential to choose the right payment processor to use on your website that allows for quick, secure payments.
5. Digital Wallets & Payment Options
Why customers love it: They can quickly and easily complete purchases using their preferred method.
Catering to diverse customer preferences with a variety of payment options fosters trust and inclusivity.
Easy Digital integrates with popular payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.Net. Additionally, you can use Stripe Pro to offer alternative payment methods like digital wallets (e.g., Apple Pay, Google Pay) or for added convenience:
Although the numbers vary, most sources project sales made on mobile apps and devices to make up well over the majority of all eCommerce sales. Increasing numbers of mobile-savvy users, more advanced smartphones, and a fast-paced society that is more on-the-go than ever. So, it makes sense that consumers prefer mobile shopping.
6. Product Reviews & Ratings
Why customers love it: They have community opinion to refer to when choosing a product, and they feel more secure when making a purchase.
Social proof and customer confidence are powerful tools when selling digital products. Customer reviews and ratings build trust and can significantly influence buying decisions.
You can use the EDD Reviews add-on to easily integrate customer reviews and ratings directly into your product pages:
I also recommend actively encouraging customers to leave reviews by offering incentives or simply by making it easy to do so.
7. Compelling Product Descriptions
Why customers love it: They can get a better understanding of what to expect from your products.
Your product descriptions are your sales pitch. Provide clear, concise, and engaging information that highlights the features and benefits of your digital products. This can be especially important when selling physical products, but it’s also relevant for digital files you sell online.
Use captivating language that speaks to your target audience’s needs. Include detailed information like file formats, compatibility details, and download link/installation instructions.
Consider incorporating high-quality product images, screenshots, or even demo videos to showcase your products in action.
8. Exceptional Customer Support
Why customers love it: The experience feels more personal, their purchase concerns are resolved quickly, and they don’t have to do much work to find answers or to contact you.
Even with the best planning, unforeseen issues might arise. Offering exceptional customer support demonstrates your commitment to customer satisfaction.
Provide multiple support channels for customers to reach you, such as live chat messaging, email ticketing system, or a dedicated support forum.
Consider creating a comprehensive knowledge base with self-service resources like FAQs, troubleshooting guides, and video tutorials. This empowers customers to find solutions independently and reduces support load.
Clearly outline your return policy on a dedicated page. Specify the time frame for returns, conditions for eligibility (e.g., unused products), and the refund process.
FAQs About Digital Product Store Features
Let’s wrap up with a couple frequently asked questions about digital product store features.
How can I personalize the shopping experience for my customers?
Personalization can be achieved through various methods. Product recommendations are useful to suggest relevant products based on customer browsing history or previous purchases.
Targeted email marketing is another excellent strategy. Segment your customer base and send targeted email campaigns with personalized offers and product recommendations.
Are there any additional features I should consider for my digital product store?
There are a few additional features to explore. One is subscription model integration. Consider offering subscription models for recurring revenue. EDD lets you easily create a membership site and accept recurring payments.
I also recommend implementing abandoned cart recovery campaigns to remind customers about uncompleted purchases. EDD integrates with extensions like Recapture to automate this process.
Use EDD to Power Your Digital Product Store
By prioritizing these features and elements, you can create an online business and digital product store that fosters a positive user experience.
Don’t have your eCommerce site set up yet? Get started with Easy Digital Downloads to get one up and running in no time:
What features do your customers love? Do you have some experience to share when it comes to your own digital product store? We want to know! Leave a comment below.
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