Ecommerce businesses are now rapidly spreading their wings around the world as more and more people now prefer to buy at home without stepping out.
It is convenient and more comfortable to buy stuff using the tip of your finger and a mobile device than going out and wandering the streets.
The core developments like The explosion of technology, Significant changes in the economic policies of governments worldwide, Being a one-stop shopping solution, and better customer service & better policies have played an important role in the success of the ecommerce business.
For all these good reasons, more and more brick and mortar retailers are moving towards ecommerce.
Which is indeed a good step. But, do they know that there is a considerable difference between the methodology of ecommerce and brick and mortar business?
An appealing website, the concept, strategy, customer base, and customer service, all of these factors determine your fate.
Here, we have enlisted the Top 10 Things to Consider during ecommerce website development.
1. Theme / Clean and Appealing Design
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The first step for a successful ecommerce business is to have a user-friendly and appealing website. Yes, the ecommerce website plays a vital role in the success of e-business. Choose the website theme that is simple yet beautiful as well as relevant to the products.
Decide about the color codes, fonts, font’s size, Alignment, etc, during ecommerce website designs. Remember that appearance is just as important as other things such as product descriptions, pricing, payment option, refund policies, etc.
So make sure the look and feel of your ecommerce website always be on the top of your priority list.
2. Responsive Web Design
Another must-have ingredient for any successful ecommerce website is the responsive web design. A responsive website is a website that is compatible with every device and platform.
As the significant number of online shoppers carry out the payment process across different devices, especially on smartphones and tablets, developing the responsive website has become inevitable.
Most of the CMS platforms need to be configured before they can maximize responsive design.
Moreover, the responsive design will also eliminate the need to develop separate platforms for mobile and desktop visitors. Make sure you keep all of these points in mind during ecommerce website development.
3. Proper Product Showcase and Descriptions
The ultimate purpose of the ecommerce website is to sell the products. Isn’t it? Therefore you must highlight the products in a pleasant possible way. Use high-quality large images to get user attention.
High-quality Images will also help the users to visualize the real product.
Just like the excellent image, a proper product description is also essential. Describe the products in the best possible ways by stating all its features in detail.
This includes the type, color, size, weight, thickness, cut, and fit (for clothes), and all other necessary details that a customer needs to know before purchasing the item.
This ecommerce website development approach will not only help the users understand the products better, but it will also reduce the product return rate.
4. Website Security
You can protect the brick and mortar stores by various means like installing CCTVs and appointing the security guards. But how would you secure the ecommerce website?
Besides, platforms like eCommerce, where large amounts of financial transactions take place, are always the soft target for hackers for unethical means.
The most sought out way to ensure the safety of the user data is to support SSL to encrypt information. With an SSL certificate, you can protect your customer’s valuable information, including delivery address, e-mail IDs, phone number, and credit card details.
5. Easy Checkout Process
One of the key reasons behind shopping cart abandonment and conversion rate drop while checkout is the dubious checkout process.
It is estimated that more than 20% of customers will abandon the shopping process if they are forced to register on the website.
While ecommerce website design, ensure that the design flow is user-friendly and even the first time customer or a guest customer too can easily purchase items without going through any barriers like the registration process.
Emphasize making transactions as smooth as possible for consumers to check out their purchases quickly.
6. Provide Multiple Payment Options
What an embarrassing experience it would be for any customer or even for the ecommerce website design company when a customer has to abandon the shopping process in the end just because of the unavailability of the preferred payment options!
Make sure your website offers enough options to customers to pay via online wallets as well as cash on delivery options to pay when the product is delivered. Besides, your website should accept Visa & Mastercard payments as well.
Moreover, offering multiple payment options is an easy way to expand the customer base without making any substantial efforts or spending extra dollars.
7. Proper Placement of Call to Action (CTA)
CTA is extensively used for marketing purposes nowadays because of its higher CTR.
Call to Action is an instruction for the audience designed to provoke an immediate response, usually using an imperative verb such as Buy Now, Add to cart, Save for letter, etc.
Proper placement of CTAs plays an important role in enhancing users’ engagement and performance of landing pages, which ultimately boosts your sales revenue.
Few things to consider while designing CTA:
1. Choose highly contrasting colors.
2. Take care of the CTA button size as well as font size.
3. Design the button in a rounded squircle or rounded square shape.
4. Limit the button choice to two.
You can even ask your ecommerce website design company to place the CTA at your preferred places to increase the CTR further.
8. Search Functionality
Suppose you are shopping across an ecommerce website, but you are not getting the item that you are looking for? What happens? You got irritated.
Then you will try to find the item through the search option. But unfortunately, there is no search function on the website! Now? You will leave the website and swear never to use it again!
User experience is a significant part of ecommerce website development.
Having intelligent search functionality is a must-have feature that all websites should have, especially ecommerce websites. Using the search functionality, customers will be able to find what they are looking for quickly and easily.
While ecommerce website design, integrate a functional site search box with autocomplete functionality that helps users to discover related items or popular products. Another option is the faceted search that allows users to narrow down their searches in various ways.
Make sure that it’s functional across all browsers and devices.
9. The Sales Funnel
The sales funnel is an essential design approach for ecommerce website development. The funnel generally consists of a home page, a search results page that includes products, individual product pages, and the checkout process.
The purpose behind designing the funnel is to lead the customers from one part of the site to the next in a possible smooth way.
The way to design the sales funnel mostly depends on the type of product you’re selling.
10. Related Products Suggestion
People often love to buy more than one product which are related to each other in a certain way—for example, shaving cream and aftershave cream or a pair of Tshirt and denim or Cushion and its covers, etc.
But often they do not know either about the item which will perfectly match or do not remember to buy it. For such reasons, during ecommerce website development, you can add the suggestions of the products that match the product that the customer is checking on or have added to the shopping cart.
For example, if the customer is looking for dresses, then you can suggest the matching shoes, handbags, or other accessories as a similar product suggestion.
Add such suggestions to every product page.
Apart from these Top 10 Things to Consider when Designing an ecommerce Website, there are many other points that you should keep in mind while designing an ecommerce website. Such as,
1. Integrate With Social Media
2. FAQ section
3. Customer Reviews and testimonials
4. Website loading speed
5. Contact information and support
6. Multiple product buying
Conclusion:
Although ecommerce website development has become quite an easy job after the introduction of platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento, there are still plenty of things that you need to consider.
By incorporating most of the above points during ecommerce website development, you will be able to develop an ecommerce website that users can efficiently operate.
Besides, these ideas will not only help you build a high-quality ecommerce website but also contribute to building a loyal customer base.