Essential features of an ecommerce website

Shopping Cart

Not to ignore, this is the most important ‘must have’ thing in your website if you are dealing with multiple product lines. A shopping cart is where the customers store their virtual products for checkout and purchasing. If you build a flexible cart, both your registered as well as guest would be able to place orders.

 Order management

Order management panel eases the work of the merchant as it provides a wholesome detailed knowledge of cancellation/Refunds/ Replacements/COD of the buyer and also order status/Exchange/order updates and much more. It helps the merchant to manage the orders and related information.

 Security

With a payment gateway all the crucial information for the buyer like card details and personal details are encrypted and not saved. It is held through secured page. Any passwords are not stored in a format that is readable.

Scalable Infrastructure

Scalable infrastructure is very important in terms of traffic as when the traffic increases the hosting infrastructure should be able to scale. The higher the response time the higher is the drop in transaction rate and loss of leads. So, building scalable infrastructure is very important.

Mobile compatibility

Even if you are new to this industry, you know how much mobile phones dominates the world of internet. And so, it has become the need of every website to build websites that are compatible when used on phones. Mobile compatibility is what we call ‘Responsive Design’. Points that such not be ignored while building a responsive design are- less load time, high resolution images and eye catchy templates.

Communications

when a customer place an order he expects every possible update regarding the order like shipments, payment confirmation, delivery status, expected delivery time etc.

Logistics integration

All customers want is the real time shipment updates. Integration of logistics services not only enables seamless shipping but also order tracking capability. However, if you have separate panels for shipment, the customer may find it difficult to manage their orders as they have to approach the courier partners separately.

Simplicity

studies show that 76% of customers stay on the website if it is easy to use. So, simplicity should be considered by every ecommerce business. And simplicity can be achieved without sacrificing sophistication.

Style is not the objective; the objective is to provide what the customers want and avoiding unnecessary complexity in the purchase process. It takes just seconds for a visitor to decide whether to stay on the website or not and buying is yet another aspect. If the visitor find your website way too complex to use, well he’s got plenty of other options to go to.You can ensure that the user experience is good by focusing on various elements like providing reviews, FAQ info and on the buying side by providing filters, categories, comparison function and much more.

High-Resolution Photos and Video

with the increasing competition, buyers are expecting more from the sellers and the sellers too are willing to offer more to stand out of the crowd. Every company is trying to be as innovative as possible because their customers are willing to shift to other seller easily. Customer retention has become very important. In order to engage customers in to the website more, developers are focusing on visual aspects more as visual content is more appreciated and understood. So, if you add some interesting images and videos to your website you can ensure the stay time on your website. Being an ecommerce site, buyers want different angles, zoom in features to get to know about the product. Another important part is the load time. Adobe says that the drop-off rate is 39% when the images take too much time to load. So, images should be high resolution and also optimized for the page load.

User-Generated Reviews

Most of the orders placed online are based on the reviews of the buyers, 92% to be exact. Now do not worry if you also have negative reviews as all positive reviews are considered as censored and spammy by the customers, so, having negative feedbacks can prove that your company and products are genuine and authentic. You can also add user generated reviews on your social media platforms as most of the leads are generated on the social media. This can be very helpful to you if you are new and want to generate traffic. You can also provide filters for the ‘most helpful reviews’ or ‘newest first’ and so on.

Special Offers

If you scan through the famous ecommerce websites you will see a lot of offers in their marketing practices via texting, social media, emails. You can see the discount for ‘first buy’, discounts in ‘referrals’, ‘sharing’ and much more. They are also providing discount coupons like ‘200 off’ on order over 2999. So, the buyer is immediately tempted to place the order due to heavy discounts and offers because who does not like discounts? This drives sales and effective leads and traffic on your website.

Related Items

You must have seen phrases like “you might like this” or “frequently bought together” or “best bought together”. Applying these phrases in your website will drive more sales than anything as it creates excitement in the customers due to serotonin rush.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

When it comes to complex purchases there is need of confidence with the seller as buying online is much complicated then face-to-face. When you have FAQs it builds credibility and confidence.

Social Media Presence

Connection between buyers and brands online in terms of trust is very important for long term retention of the customers. This can only happen when the customers are able to connect emotionally with the company. Social connection is a great opportunity to create an undeniable bond with the customers. This can be ensured by linking social profiles with the ecommerce websites. When the customers relate to the brands socially, there is an automatic drive and flow of ‘buy now’ and with the latest offers and discounts, the customers cannot resist but buy.

When new customers approach your website and see the social media accounts of the company, they immediately incorporate authenticity and advocacy. With the followers and likes they immediately build trust. Here are some social media marketing strategies for your business