The growth of people who prefer to sell and buy products online has seen eCommerce completely change how the retail business operates. If you want to thrive in the online space, you have to keep the customers coming back to your online store. This way, you can convert the leads into sales and grow your brand value. You have to take your eCommerce website development seriously if you have to achieve this. The website has to stand out over the competition. Here are five things to consider when developing your eCommerce website;
Website security
It is important to invest in security certificates for your website. No customer will want to shop in an online store where their personal information is at risk of being accessed by malicious characters. Regulatory requirements also demand that websites that accept credit card payments meet PCI compliance. Never store credit card information on your website as you will be held liable for any data loss in the event of a security breach.
The website should be responsive
The number of people who access the internet on their mobile devices keeps growing each year. Your online store is most likely to get a huge number of traffic from mobile users. It is important for your website to responsive on every aspect- from navigation, to making an order and paying for it. You can only ignore mobile users at your own peril.
Optimize the website performance
Your website should load as fast as possible or you risk losing out on customers. When sourcing for web design and development services, always enquire whether the developer can optimize your website for quick performance. The aim is to provide your customers with the best experience whenever they visit your online store. An optimized website also helps with SEO ranking which you will need to increase the visibility of your online store.
Allow anonymous checkouts
While having your customers create an account on your profile helps with big data analysis and email marketing, it may be counterproductive. Not all customers will want to go through the hassles of creating an account just to purchase a simple product. Repeat customers will want to create a profile to make future purchases easy, but it is also advisable to be accommodative of one-time buyers. You can give them the option of creating an account after they’ve made the purchase.
On-site search functionality
It will be difficult for customers to browse through your entire catalog in order to buy something that is bottom of the list. Enable on-site search functionality on your website so that they can easily find what they are looking for. You can also include autocompleting and suggestion features so that they don’t have to type out entire product names.
Allow them to narrow down on the products by price range, brand name or category so that their shopping experience is smooth.
