Essential Features and Best Practices for Ecommerce Website Development

E-commerce is growing at a remarkable rate, yet you may not realize that some custom e-commerce websites barely break even while others become hugely profitable - Amazon and eBay provide prime examples. According to reports by Guardian and Yahoo Finance, respectively, Amazon reported a record profit of $2.5 billion for the second quarter of 2018, while sales on eBay have increased 9% over the year, reaching $2.64 billion. Both these firms put emphasis on user experience (UX/UI) design as well as security and hosting reliability and infrastructure; their primary goal is making their websites easy for visitors while making them quick, safe, and attractive!

Need to gain more understanding of the challenges that consume much of your time? Are you seeking help with eCommerce website development to increase conversions or boost traffic? This article presents nine features of an effective e-commerce site that could boost sales.

What are customers looking for from Ecommerce sites?

From start to finish, provide customers with an effortless shopping experience on your ecommerce website design, from landing on the homepage all the way to purchase completion and personalized experience. These main components should provide customers with what they are seeking in an online store. Customers make snap decisions almost instantaneously upon arriving on a website.

Top Sisteen Essential Ecommerce Website Development Features

Here we will explore some practical features of an ecommerce website that will enable you to meet the three pillars for success in ecommerce. These characteristics are features of the most popular ecommerce websites.

1. Top-level domain with HTTPs support

Secure connections are mandatory for an ecommerce website. If your target country is only one, consider opting for a country-code domain, as this will reduce potential issues with IP blockages.

2. User-Friendly Design

A customer's overall shopping experience should be top of mind when choosing an online retailer. If they experience difficulty navigating your site or finding what they're searching for, chances are high they will switch stores - utilize UX best practices in ecommerce for optimal success!

3. Prioritize customer experience:

Create a high-quality homepage that is simple and straightforward. Include a search box. List all categories in the navigation bar. Fokus on creating a responsive website.

Wishlist Customers who initially express an interest in purchasing something may later decide not to. Instead, they can add products they find intriguing to a wishlist so they can quickly locate them again when visiting your website.

4. Review/Testimonials

Offering testimonials and reviews has many advantages, from building trust with customers to garnering media coverage resulting in improved SEO ranking. Testimonials from your customers can help establish the credibility of your website. By showing potential clients that you are reliable and trustworthy, these testimonials can show them just that much faster.

5. Zoom Option for Pictures

A common mistake made by websites that feature photos and snaps is failing to offer customers the option to zoom. No one purchases something without first researching it extensively; even physical store customers tend to take an extensive amount of time looking over an item before buying. Therefore, adding a zoom feature to your e-commerce platform helps customers feel more at ease when they can fully examine each product before making their decisions based on full knowledge of everything available - while images must remain clear even when zoomed in or out.

6. User-friendly navigation

Every page needs an intuitive navigation bar and structure that makes understanding your website simpler for users, requiring less brainwork and effort on their part to comprehend. Therefore, it is vitally important that when designing website navigation, you take all possible considerations into account.

7. Responsive Design

Modern ecommerce customers rely on mobile devices more and more for online purchases, with 56% expected to use them by 2020, according to SaleCycle research. Responsive ecommerce website design for mobile devices will play an increasingly essential role in the success of ecommerce businesses.

Mobile optimization is essential when designing ecommerce solutions.

For optimal conversion rates and customer satisfaction, ensure your website design automatically adapts to fit the size and shape of mobile phones.

8. Product Videos Can Drive More Conversions

Video can significantly boost conversions on product listings. According to Think With Google's survey, over 50% of consumers reported online videos as helping them decide which product or brand to buy.

Many ecommerce businesses allow retailers to add videos and pictures of their product pages to enhance them with interactive media.

9. Secure Payment Methods

A key ingredient of any successful ecommerce empire is payment. Integrating popular payment options increases conversion rates and improves customer experiences, such as PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, or Braintree - trusted ecommerce stores must support multiple payment gateways so customers from around the world can purchase products through them. Mobile payments have also increased, so include Apple Pay or Google Pay at your checkout for customers placing mobile orders.

10. Checkout should be easy and manageable

On average, 69.89% of shopping carts are abandoned; this can affect retail stores when customers exit at the last moment. A well-optimized checkout process in ecommerce platforms will help minimize cart abandonment rates and encourage repeat business from customers by gathering all details necessary for the transaction, such as shipping address, delivery option selection, and credit card details from your customer as soon as they enter your store or website - customers often won't go beyond three pages to complete their purchases; many customers prefer one-page checkout extensions in these instances.

11. Order Tracking

Your customers want to know when their order will arrive - that is usually their primary question when placing an order with you. Your website must enable customers to easily track the status of their orders.

12. Chatbots

Running a website that generates revenue all day, every day, can be invaluable; but this means providing customer support during these hours too. Chatbots offer just such support. LivePerson's survey discovered that positive attitudes about chatbots increased almost 2-fold between 2020 and 2021.

Chatbots are used by many custom ecommerce solutions to assist online shoppers by answering basic inquiries or leading them directly to specific products and support pages.

Many ecommerce sites offer an automated assistant that gives visitors prompts when searching for answers, products, or answering customer service inquiries.

13. SEO capabilities

SEO abilities are an integral component of e-commerce website solutions and provide an effective means of spreading your message.

Searching Google for relevant and high-ranking keywords can drive interested visitors directly to your website, creating cost-effective organic traffic with high-intent clients.

14. Website Loading Speed

Google conducted a study that revealed how increased bounce rates occur for each additional couple of seconds of page loading time.

Google considers website speed an essential ranking factor. Therefore, hiring an experienced custom ecommerce software development team to optimize your store to make it attractive, functional, and fast-loading is highly recommended.

16. CMS (Content Management System)

CMS (content management system) software is essential to an ecommerce website, enabling you to organize all dynamic content - like blog posts and visuals - into one central place.

CMS allows you to easily add or alter content on your website, with changes being automatically reflected across. By updating it with fresh material to support your products and services, your CMS enables you to keep it up-to-date and provide customers with new resources.

17. Product Management.

Imagine shopping online from one of your favorite retailers. Your product(s) of interest will always be in stock, available in multiple versions, and offered with promotions or discounts as needed.

As you build an ecommerce website, be sure that its functionality includes features for adding, editing, and tracking inventory - this will allow customers to consistently receive the products they desire from you.

18. Marketing strategy

From the very outset, it is crucial to develop an ecommerce strategy. Once defined, this plan will help define your website structure and decide on key features.

If social sharing is part of your website's marketing strategy, for example, advertising on social media channels might be key to its success. Mobile commerce could require push notifications or the creation of an app as part of its promotion.

How can I select a custom e-commerce development agency?

Next, we will examine the work of an ecommerce designer and developer and why it's crucial that their skills match up with your web design requirements.

Research by PWC indicates that 73% of U.S. customers consider customer experience an essential element when making online purchases, yet only 49% think brands deliver an enjoyable customer journey.

Hiring a leading self-hosted ecommerce software provider who specializes in e-commerce development is the ideal way to enhance the user experience on your website.

You might get lucky and find custom eCommerce development services that understand current ecommerce best practices to create websites that will delight customers while increasing conversion rates.

Understanding different developers' strengths.

Some developers specialize in giving your company its identity with beautiful frontend design, while others excel in backend customization and technical implementation.

As part of your evaluation of developers for your online shop, it is essential that you are aware of their strengths.

Some developers can handle both frontend and backend design; however, most opt to specialize in one. When hiring a developer to meet your specific requirements, select someone whose skills align closely.

When creating an e-commerce website, several key elements must be kept in mind:

• Web security and PCI compliance.
• Search engine optimization (SEO).
• Payment gateways with multiple payment options are available
• CMS (Content Management System).
• Mobile-responsiveness.
• Shopping cart design.
• Product filtering capabilities to meet individual customer requirements.

Before choosing a developer for your online storefront project, be certain you understand exactly what skills and qualities will be necessary to deliver on it.

If your e-commerce solution is built on an open-source framework, for instance, then backend programming might be more crucial than design services (though both will likely be needed).

If you are using a SaaS-based platform, more front-end work may be required. Someone familiar with building APIs could be ideal. Although most SaaS platforms come equipped with prebuilt apps and integrations that can help reduce complexity quickly, more advanced customization may necessitate hiring an expert.

Final Word

Whilst these top features may not be limited, you may wish to add or alter them depending on your project and budget. Implementing nine design elements can create an excellent customer experience and help convert casual visitors to regular customers; ensure this happens by testing out your site against those standards and selecting an experienced web design firm as a partner in building it for you.