Developing an eCommerce Website is still a great business idea. Making a good online store that will stand out from the group involves more than pretty design.
Coming up with a catchy, memorable store name for your web home address is an excellent place to begin. And creating a marketing strategy early on can give you a valuable head start. As for design and development, we make a fantastic eСommerce website. OmTec Web is best ecommerce development services provider for your business websites. As well as a few key points to account for when planning a successful web store.
Must-have Features for eCommerce Websites
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User-friendly interface
This could mean clickable images. The user doesn’t have to aim for text or an auto-complete function on a search bar. The key to a user-friendly design is to help people get what they want.
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High-resolution visual content
Product shots from different angles and video reviews help shoppers make a decision. However, visitor numbers might drop along with the page load speed.
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User reviews
Having a feature lets customers share their experience with a positive or toxic product. That helps other users create shopping decisions and adds credibility to your website.
Top-15 Things to Consider in eCommerce Website Development
1.eСommerce website safety and security
No Internet user wants to catch a bug while browsing the web. But it’s not just the safety of their computer that’s at risk. As an eCommerce business, you store data about your products. Security is one of the most crucial eCommerce website requirements.
An unsecured website gives you a bad reputation on Google and other search engines. Google started flagging sites without an SSL certificate and HTTPS protocol. These are more than just warnings or recommendations. Users won’t be able to visit places without these two elements. And you might be losing potential orders if your certificate has expired.
2. Optimization before and during eСommerce website development
Talking about bad reputations, Google’s new perk for users is flagging websites with slow loading speeds. If people would click on a link in the past, wait for it to load, and go back. It doesn’t do so quick enough, and now they might even forgo checking out a website with low load speed altogether.
The purpose of SEO is to enhance your sales by making it rank higher in a search engine with different strategies and techniques. Part of it is adding keywords to the content you add to the website. As well as meta information to pages: titles, descriptions, and images. Many specialists forget that customers can find you through an image search. But only if you add ‘alt’ descriptions to your visual content.
At the very least, the website should launch with all the required meta tags. Still, an SEO specialist can also help you organize page structure and internal linking. Create a content strategy, build a mobile-friendly design, improve the loading speed.
3. eСommerce website search and filtering functionality
People use the search bar even on websites that don’t sell anything, and it should offer advanced search functionality. The advanced feature can be a visual search to upload a photo. If it’s not the same, a search engine will find a similar product.
Browsing categories is only necessary if users don’t know what they’re looking for and need some motivation. In other cases, a simple search will find them the product they need in just a couple of clicks.
Some users won’t remember exactly what a product is called. So you might want to tag yours with keywords or synonyms.
4. Registration and related issues
There is a specific benefit to registering on an eCommerce website. Like saving the shopping history or delivery address. Still, some users prefer a guest checkout form or a one-click-buy feature.
Consider how many different accounts you have on the web. Probably have numerous ones for other things, and some people want to avoid registering. Other ways to remind shoppers of your site address include adding it to the order packaging. Or at the end of the message with the shipment number.
You can also ask users to sign in with social media or a minimal form with their name, email, and phone number. You can auto-generate an account and email them the login details in both cases.
5. Payment options
Adding all possible payment options might be too much when you are just developing an eCommerce website.
The most popular payment methods are PayPal, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, American Express, Stripe, Square, Visa, Masterpass.
6. Shipping rates
As mentioned before, unexpected shipping costs are customers ditching their shopping carts. It could be because they don’t know the rates or expected a lower sum or extra charges.
Online shopping is a matter of convenience. And if you don’t have free delivery, there should be detailed information about shipment options. And rates in the menu with a link on every product page.
7. CMS integration
CMS helps store and manage all your visual and written content and your marketing documentation in one place. You can edit or add new information, and the changes will automatically be reflected. A CMS can also help your employees promptly respond to access from customers.
8. Mobile functionality
People are more likely to buy from a mobile app. You’ll still have a better conversion rate if your eCommerce interface easily adapts to the mobile web. They increased their website conversions by 20% after releasing a more responsive design.
It is considering that more people use mobile devices each year. It’s reasonable to invest in responsive design, like adaptable typography and image size. And mobile-specific features, such as hidden menus. The mobile site should be optimized down to the product descriptions.
9. Website design that matches the products you are selling
Your website’s color scheme should match and complement the products you are selling. Designing an eCommerce website that should be self-explanatory of the various items people can find here.
10. Good shopping cart design
A simple shopping cart involves as few steps as possible but ways to enhance its functionality.
You can have three types of users: registered, unregistered, and those who’d prefer to remain a guest. In the first step, when a user clicks on the shopping cart, it can ask them to log in, register, or buy as a guest. Users should be automatically redirected to their full baskets once they register or log in. On the other hand, you can do a one-step checkout, where all steps will be in one dynamic window. That updates automatically when a user inputs data.
You can also incorporate cross-selling and upselling into your shopping cart by adding a section with products that interest a user. That’s something to consider early into your eCommerce website development process. You need to decide how to determine the most relevant products for a particular buyer.
11. Proper product showcase and descriptions
Users value quality content. High-resolution images, video reviews, and comprehensive product details have an impact on your conversion.
Adding individual measurements to clothes, using instruments, and energy consumption for appliances. That will support convincing customers to buy your product.
12. Customer support and contacts
Customer support helps shoppers solve issues with shipping, payment, returns, etc. It’s good practice to have a contacts section on your website and a strip of info at the top of each page. With a clickable phone number or email.
Having your physical address and phone number for contacts mentioned on the website automatically adds to your credibility. Consider adding a WhatsApp number, Facebook Messenger chat bit. Other chat options for the younger population don’t generally enjoy talking on the phone.
13. Social proof
Customer feedback is always good to add credibility to your site, so think of how you can get and display it. It could be written reviews or product unboxing, or an option for customers. To add their video reviews and product images to the site. Additionally, you can have a comment carousel on the main page with links. To the products that have been reviewed.
14. Marketing strategy
Whether you are launching a eСommerce website that based on a physical store or new to the retail business. A good marketing strategy developed along the website can give you a head start on the first orders. However, it also defines the website’s structure and determines the elements that help create a good one.
Early on, developing a marketing strategy can help you identify what features you’ll need. Want to add sharing options for social media or push notifications, both in desktop browsers and mobile devices. It’s more efficient to do that while developing a website rather than after it has launched.
15. Supportive articles
Another thing you should consider is the documentation related to the use of your website and the policies that regulate it. Sections with an FAQ, shipping information, return policy, cookies, privacy information. And other policies should be live on your e-shop as soon as it’s up and running.
