8 Essential Things To Consider When Building Your eCommerce Online Store

With over 4 trillion dollars worth of online retail sales, eCommerce is no small thing now. It is the definite future of sales and business. Having an eCommerce website is almost like a mandated factor for a business. Users are ready to buy your product and services online if you’re ready to sell them. But if you’re looking to grow your business with the help of an online store, there are a lot of things you need to consider before getting started. Here are 8 essential things to consider before you start to build your own eCommerce online store:

Choosing the eCommerce platform

Choosing the right platform is very important when it comes to providing a top-notch user experience and increasing the conversion rate. The selection depends on the kind of product you’re trying to sell. Woocommerce – the wordpress plugin is very popular because it’s highly customizable and supports a large number of plugins. But if you’re aiming to showcase a large number of products that need to be updated regularly, Magento might be your best option. Apart from these, there are SaaS platforms like Shopify where you don’t need to worry about hosting or payment gateway integration. Consulting an expert develop ing team will help you find the perfect platform for your online store.

Choose the Right Design

The first thing a potential customer notices is the design of your online store. A classy design with a superlative UI ensures good conversion. You can develop the home page to showcase your offers and top-selling products while the product pages could be made as comprehensive as possible.

Your website design must not only be visually pleasing to the audience, but they should also be able to make sense of the products featured in your store. If the design does not match with the product you’re showcasing, it would affect the whole shopping experience of the user, not to mention less conversion and consequently, visits. A good eCommerce web design is preferred to be clean and simple that should help showcase your products rather than being a visual spectacle on its own.

Never settle for a pre-built template if you think it doesn’t go with your products. Even though custom designs are more expensive, it will help you create a fabulous user experience that will initiate long-term sales boost.

Proper Product Showcasing

While developing your online store, make sure that there is room to add product photos, videos, descriptions, and other features like a size chart or product dimensions. These should be placed in such a way that they are comprehensive and organized. This will allow users to learn about the product more clearly and select the exact ones that suit them. It’s also recommended to give provision for user reviews and testimonials. Having high-data images and videos should not weigh your website down in terms of loading speed so it’s vital that you use visual assets with minimized data size, or use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to host them separately. Make sure you do not use too many plugins since it could slow your website down.

Make Your Website SEO Friendly

You should consider making your website SEO friendly during the development stage itself. This saves time as well as gives you a headstart in the race of ranking. You can implement methodologies like keyword research, metadata optimization, content optimization, analytics, and tag manager implementation during the developing stage itself.

Optimize For Mobile

Since 60% of website traffic is coming from mobile devices, there is no question of your online store not being mobile-friendly. Make sure all the features, user interface, and functionalities are properly working on mobile phones too. You can also add additional features like the WhatsApp chat button on the mobile version of your online store.

Guest checkout is important

Around 35% of users abandon their shopping carts because they were prompted to create an account before making a purchase. Technically speaking, creating an account is easy but most users find it tiresome. Most of them are subconsciously reluctant to give out their information until they trust your website completely. Enabling customers to place the order without having to create an account reduces checkout abandonment. Once they are happy with the first couple of orders, you can prompt them to create a personal account, and most probably they will.

Payment options

Different users rely on different payment methods that are available to them. Some of them have their personal favorite payment method, which they are adamant to use even if they have other options. There is a chance that users might exit the sales funnel just because they couldn’t find the right payment option. So it’s better to provide all of the most common payment options to the customer on your eCommerce website.

Security & Support

Users need assurance that their money and personal information are secure while trading with you. It’s never an option for your online store to be hacked and your data to be stolen so there should not be any compromise in that area.

A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate allows a secure connection of your website with your customers. It also is an assurance to the customers that they are using a safe website. Users can identify your website as one with an SSL certificate if your website URL has an HTTPS prefix.

Even though platforms like Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce  have revolutionized eCommerce development  for business owners who are not so tech-savvy, there are a lot of variables that need to be considered while developing one. Consulting with a team  of expert eCommerce developers can help you get the best platform, design a classy interface, provide all the features, functionalities, and security to your customers. This will make your users love shopping from your online store, resulting in elevated sales and revenue.