If you’re considering getting into ecommerce, then you’ll have to put a decent bit of effort into getting ready. You’ll need to source products, figure out marketing strategies, and more. A vital part of this is ecommerce website development, which is one of the more important areas to focus on.
As vital as it is, it’s also one of the more complicated areas. You can’t just launch a basic website and expect to see a lot of success.
Instead, you’ll need to put the effort into multiple areas. Focusing on certain factors helps with this. Many of them will be vital to whether or not you see success with your ecommerce company. Others could help to make everything more manageable going forward.
Five of these could be worth focusing on from the start.
eCommerce Website Development: 5 Factors to Consider
1. Search & Filtering
Your ecommerce website’s navigation is a large part of its functionality. When potential customers land on your site, they’ll usually be looking for specific things. They’ll want to use a search bar to help them find this, and it’s vital you have one there for them to use. Don’t just put in a basic search bar, though.
The more advanced this is, the better it could be for you and your potential customers. Filtering is a notable feature to focus on with this. That way, potential customers can narrow down results until they find exactly what they’re looking for. This should domino onto your conversion rates.
2. Mobile Functionality
More than half of online sales are made through a mobile device. This means you’ll need to put a decent bit of time and effort into your website’s mobile functionality. It’s practically a necessity for ecommerce website development. Make this a priority from the second you start building your website.
Shorter paragraphs, graphics fitted for mobile screens, and more than a few other factors all play a role in this. While this can be a time-consuming part of the process, it’s more than worth it. You should end up with a better conversion rate because of it.
3. Payment Options
Every business needs ways to accept payments. With ecommerce, cash is naturally out of the question. That doesn’t mean there aren’t more than a few other ways to accept payments online. Credit cards and PayPal are some of the more common, and it’s worth setting up your ecommerce website to accept them.
Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be too complicated. It’s just a matter of integrating the right gateway for payment solutions. Once this is added to your ecommerce site, you shouldn’t have a problem making sales and getting paid on time.
4. CMS Integration
You’ll need to have a decent bit of content on your website. This doesn’t just mean product descriptions and images. There’ll be more than a bit of support content, as well as marketing materials and more. This can be difficult to manage if you don’t have the right resources and tools in place.
A content management system (CMS) is a great option for this. The right platform lets you create, edit, and manage content quite easily. You have multiple options with this, each of which offer their benefits. It’s worth taking the time to compare them to find the best one for your needs.
5. Safety & Security
Internet users are increasingly aware of potential security and safety issues online. They’re skeptical of any website that doesn’t put some time and effort into this. If they believe your ecommerce website isn’t safe or secure, they’re not going to buy from you. Make this a priority from the start.
This doesn’t just help you with potential customers. It also helps you rank better on search engines, and can help you avoid any security breaches. These breaches could be much more serious than you’d think, and it’s always worth putting the time into proactively avoiding them.
eCommerce Website Development: Wrapping Up
Starting an ecommerce business is appealing for multiple reasons. It doesn’t take much of an upfront investment, and you can focus on areas you’re passionate about. You’ll need to put time and effort into a few notable areas from the start, however.
eCommerce website development is one of the most important of these. Your website is the foundation of your ecommerce company’s success.
While this needs some time and work, it doesn’t need to be as complicated as you could think. Focusing on the right factors from the start helps give you the best possible chance of success going forward.