Because of Amazon, eBay, and iHerb, don’t give up on online businesses. eCommerce Website Development is still a brilliant business concept with over 2 billion digital shoppers worldwide. However, creating a successful online business that stands out from the crowd takes more than simply a nice design and effective SEO.
Creating a marketing plan early on may offer you a vital head start, and coming up with a distinctive, memorable store name for your online home address is a fantastic place to start. In terms of design and development, we’ve compiled a list of what constitutes a strong eCommerce site, as well as a few crucial considerations to keep in mind while creating a successful online store.
Must-have Features for eCommerce Websites
User-friendly interface
This might include things like clickable pictures that eliminate the need for a user to aim for text or an autocomplete feature on a search bar. The goal to creating a user-friendly design is to make it as simple as possible for customers to acquire what they desire.
High-resolution visual content
Product photos from various perspectives and video evaluations aid in the decision-making process. If you don’t thought through the technological aspects, however, visitor counts and page load speed may suffer.
User reviews
Having a tool that allows consumers to discuss their good or bad experiences with a product assists other users in making purchasing decisions and adds credibility to your website.
Mobile-friendly adaptation
According to Hootsuite’s Digital Report, 5.112 billion unique mobile device users spend 48 percent of their time on the internet, accounting for two-thirds of the world’s population. According to another study, 79 percent of smartphone users had made a transaction using their device in the last six months. With figures like these, it’s clear that adapting your website to the mobile web is a must.
Top-15 Things to Consider in eCommerce Website Development
1. Website safety and security
No one wants to catch a bug when surfing the web, but it’s not only their computer’s safety that’s at stake. Because you save a lot of data about your items and the consumers who register to buy on your site as an eCommerce business, security is one of the most important eCommerce website needs. Any data breach puts your company at danger; your leads’ contact information might be stolen and sold, or you could lose vital information forever.
Unsecured websites have a negative reputation on Google and other search engines. Google began identifying websites that did not have an SSL certificate or use the HTTPS protocol not long ago. These aren’t just suggestions or cautions; without these two components, users won’t be able to access websites, and if your certificate expires, you risk losing possible orders.
2. Optimization before and during eСommerce website development
When it comes to poor reputations, Google’s new feature for users flags websites that take too long to load. If people used to click on a link, wait for it to load, and then go back if it didn’t, they could now avoid checking out a website with a slow load speed entirely.
According to study conducted by Think with Google, if a website takes more than five seconds to load, the likelihood of users bouncing jumps by 90%. That’s all the more incentive to consider optimization and make sure your site is running smoothly.
The goal of SEO is to increase your sales by using various methods and approaches to help your website rank higher in search engines. Adding keywords to your website’s content, as well as meta information to pages — titles and descriptions — and pictures, is a big part of it. Many professionals overlook the fact that clients can find you via an image search if you include ‘alt’ descriptions in your visual material.
Another item that many businesses overlook is hiring an SEO expert early on in the construction of an eCommerce website. At the absolute least, the website should begin with all of the needed meta tags, but an SEO expert may also assist you with page structure and internal linking, content strategy, developing a mobile-friendly design, and optimizing loading speed, among other things.
3. Website search and filtering functionality
Even if your website doesn’t sell anything, people utilize the search bar, and if it does, it should absolutely include sophisticated search capability. A visual search function, for example, allows customers to upload a photo of an item they like, and your search engine will try to identify a product that is close, if not identical.
Users just need to browse categories if they don’t know what they’re looking for and need some ideas. In other circumstances, a quick search will yield the product they require in a matter of seconds.
Because some consumers may not recall the actual name of a product, you may wish to tag yours with keywords or synonyms.
Although there are certain advantages to registering on an eCommerce website, such as keeping buying history or shipping address, some customers prefer a guest checkout form or a one-click-buy function.
Consider how many different online accounts you have. You undoubtedly have a lot of them if you’re like the typical user, and some individuals don’t want to register on yet another website only to place a one-time order. Consider including a guest checkout tool on your eCommerce site if making a transaction is more important than collecting the personal information of a few customers. Other options for reminding customers of your website URL include include it on the order packing or including it at the conclusion of the message with the shipping number.
You don’t have to use a registration form; you can simply invite people to sign in using social media or fill out a simple form with their name, email, and phone number. In both circumstances, you may create an account for them and email them the login information.
5. Payment options
When you’re just starting out with an eCommerce website, including all potential payment alternatives can be too much, but merely offering one restricts you to customers who utilize that option. Despite the fact that unexpected shipping costs (55 percent) and a lengthy checkout process (26 percent) are two of the most common reasons for buyers abandoning their shopping carts, the 2019 Payment Methods Report found that 6 percent of them would abandon you because you didn’t offer enough payment options.
PayPal, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, American Express, Stripe, Square, Visa, Mastercard, and 2Checkout are the most popular payment options, according to ESP Inspire. You might want to look at cryptocurrency possibilities depending on the sort of things you’re selling, as it continues to grow in popularity.
6. Shipping rates
As previously stated, 55 percent of shoppers abandon their shopping carts due to unexpected shipping expenses. It might be because they are unaware of the rates or expected a smaller amount, or because there are additional fees.
If you don’t have free shipping, complete information regarding shipment alternatives and pricing should be available in the menu with a link on each product page.
7. CMS integration
All of your visual and textual material, as well as your marketing paperwork, can be stored and managed in one place with a content management system (CMS). You can modify or add new information, and once published, the changes will be instantly reflected on the website. A content management system (CMS) can also assist your personnel in responding quickly to client tickets.
PrestaShop, OpenCart, or Magento are examples of ready-made solutions. You can incorporate these features into your website code because they are open-source.
8. Mobile functionality
According to ESP inspire’s 2018 Global Commerce report, mobile devices account for more than half of all online purchases. Even if individuals are more inclined to buy through a mobile app, if your eCommerce interface is easily adaptable to the mobile web, you’ll have a higher conversion rate.
Given the growing popularity of mobile devices, it makes sense to invest in flexible design, such as adjustable typeface and picture size, as well as mobile-specific features like hidden menus. Down to the product descriptions, the mobile site should be optimized.
9. A website design that matches the products you are selling
The color palette of your website should match and enhance the things you’re selling. If you’re creating an eCommerce site for gaming or fandom-related merchandise, the typeface or backdrop you use should be self-explanatory of the wide range of products available.
Green, yellow, and purple are good colors for food-related eCommerce because they promote hunger. There should also be enough of white space so that the site’s style and the food products don’t clash.
10. Good shopping cart design
We don’t need statistics to tell us that online consumers like shopping carts that are basic yet useful. Although a simple shopping cart has the fewest steps possible, there are methods to improve its usefulness.
You can have three sorts of users, for example: registered, unregistered, and those who choose to stay anonymous. When a user clicks on the shopping basket in the first step, it might prompt them to log in, register, or buy as a guest. When users register or log in, they should be instantly redirected to their complete baskets; having to seek for the same products again might be frustrating. You may, on the other hand, conduct a one-step checkout, in which all stages are contained within a single dynamic window that changes automatically as the user enters data.
By introducing a section containing items that a consumer might be interested in, you can also include cross-selling and upselling into your shopping cart. That’s important to think about early on in the construction of your eCommerce website, because you’ll need to figure out how to separate the goods that are most relevant to a certain consumer.
11. Proper product showcase and descriptions
Users desire great content in addition to convenience. Conversion rates are influenced by high-resolution photos, video evaluations, and detailed product information.
The disadvantage of internet purchasing is that buyers cannot see, feel, or try on the goods, therefore product descriptions are the only information they have to make a decision. Adding specific dimensions to clothing, instrument usage purposes, and appliance energy consumption can all assist persuade buyers to acquire your goods.
12. Customer support and contacts
Millennials desire customization, such as customized advice from a support professional, as indicated in the Payment Methods Report. While the eCommerce business strives to make this feasible, customer service assists customers with shipping, payment, returns, and other concerns. A contact section on your website, as well as a strip of information at the top of each page with a clickable phone number or email, is a good idea.
Having your real location and phone number for contacts listed on the internet (shop, main office, or warehouse) increases your trust instantly. Consider including a WhatsApp number, a Facebook Messenger chat button, or other chat alternatives for younger people who don’t like conversing on the phone.
13. Social proof
Consider how you can obtain and show customer feedback to help your site gain trust. It may be written reviews or product unboxings, or buyers could upload their own video reviews and product photographs to the site. On the main page, you may also have a comment carousel with links to the goods that have been reviewed.
14. Marketing strategy for eCommerce Website Development
Whether you’re launching a website based on a physical store or you’re brand new to the retail industry, a smart marketing plan established in tandem with the website will help you get a jump on the initial orders. However, it also establishes the structure of the website and the factors that contribute to its success.
Early on in the process, develop a marketing plan to help you figure out what features you’ll require. You could wish to include social media sharing options or push notifications on both desktop and mobile browsers, for example. It’s more effective to do this when a website is being developed rather than after it has been released.
15. Supportive articles
Another item to think about is the documentation for your website’s use as well as the regulations that govern it. As soon as your e-shop is up and running, sections containing a FAQ, shipping information, return policy, usage of cookies, privacy information, and other policies should be live.
Final Thoughts
It’s an understatement to say that there’s a lot to think about when creating an eCommerce website. We know all the features, details, and technologies you’ll need to create a comfortable, practical, high-performance online store that will attract customers based on our previous expertise. Even if you utilize WordPress, eCommerce plugins, or software like Shopify, it’s not an easy task. If you engage an eCommerce website development solutions, make sure you pick one that can create the appropriate web shop for you in terms of both style and functionality.
If you want to build a high-performing web shop that sets your company apart from the competition, get in touch with our team to learn more about the development process.
