eCommerce

10 Tips You Must Take for Successful Custom eCommerce Website Development

By Kim Thanh   |   November 17, 2020

COVID-19 came and brought along with it an upward trend in shopping online. According to a survey by NRF, over 50% of people have now switched to make purchases through eCommerce websites. More and more businesses are moving their operations online to accommodate this new shift in shopping behaviors, usually with the help of a reliable custom eCommerce website development company.

In growing an online presence, it is essential that you take your eCommerce website development seriously. Consider your website the front of your store. No one will ever want to step into a cluttered and disorganized store, let alone purchase anything. A poorly developed website drives customers away. Conversely, an attractively displayed website is more likely to grab customers’ attention, inviting them to stay, and probably, pay for whatever you are selling. 

Whether you’re going to launch an online store, or to re-build and optimize your website, be sure to keep these following 10 tips in mind to have your custom eCommerce website development a success and take it to the next level.

1. Get your eCommerce website to run smoothly

The first thing to do is to have a fully functional website in place. In the past, developing an eCommerce site used to require a considerable budget to hire a team of developers with extensive technical expertise. However, with technological advances and the various options in pre-built eCommerce platforms such as Magento, Shopify or WooCommerce, it is now much simpler and affordable for even SMBs to have their custom ones.

Aside from making your site functionable and visually appealing with the most innovative eCommerce web design that inspires you, it is recommended that you consult a trustworthy eCommerce website development company to keep your site optimized and capable of handling large volumes of traffic should your customer base expand. 

Speed is one important indicator in evaluating website performance. “A slow to load website may prove to be detrimental to your sales record, considering that just 1 second longer in loading time results in 7% loss in conversions and reduces customer satisfaction by 16%”, according to Kissmetrics.

2. Optimize your website’s ranking 

After setting up your online store, the next step is to consider how to lead potential customers into visiting your website. Oftentimes customers do not navigate straight to your website. Nearly 46% of shoppers will start their journey on search engines with no specific product in mind. 

Along with the fact that websites on the top spot of Google search results are 10 times more likely to be visited than another page holding the 10th spot, it is probably in your best interest to focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to be as high in the top ranking as possible, or else your customers will turn to competitors instead. So having SEO as a part in the in-and-after development process is an essential step to grow in your niche market and start selling!

3. Make your website responsive

A responsive website is capable of adapting its layout to different devices’ screen sizes, whether it is a desktop, a mobile phone or a tablet, with the view to deliver an optimal and consistent experience in navigating the website by keeping the actions of scrolling, resizing and panning to the minimum.

Coding an eCommerce website that is responsive is extremely vital when over half of Internet users now use mobile devices to access websites. Remember to put it on your to-do list the next time you sit down with your custom eCommerce website development team! 

4. Provide high quality pictures of products

Online shoppers only have pictures and descriptions to rely on when making purchase decisions. Therefore, it is an absolute must for eCommerce sites to provide them with high resolution pictures for better visualization of the products’ quality. Blurry and pixelated images undermine the professionalism of your business, resulting in lower conversion rates. 

You can also leverage the experience even further by uploading images taken from multiple angles. If possible, add in the feature to zoom for small details to be seen clearly. The more convincingly your products’ pictures communicate, the higher chance of you effectively closing the deals.   

High quality pictures that allow you to zoom in by moving your mouse cursor over the image on Landers.

5. Keep your content succinct

A vital part of eCommerce website development is to plan your content right. While it may be visitors’ intention to make a purchase off your site, many won’t do it without first investing some time to research about the products.  If your products have only their names in the description section, the most likely scenario is that they won’t get sold. On the other hand, lengthy text blocks about the history of how the products come to be don’t do well in driving sales either.

Detailed and straightforward product’s description on Amazon

Try to keep your description short, informative and straight to the point. Instead of just listing numerous compenents and characteristics of the products, highlight their key benefits and how they can solve your customers’ problems. Use bullet points to make these contents scannable if needed.

6. Simplify your product catalogue

Having a lot of uncategorized options may do more harm than good. A long list of somewhat similar products make your site look cluttered and disorganized. Moreover, often when offered with many choices, most customers will find themselves stuck in a decision paralysis, not knowing what to buy. As a result, they may choose the easy way out and walk away, which in turn will negatively affect your sales.

Avoid this issue by organizing your products into categories that customers can easily access through the menu bar. Well-organized groups of products make it easier for them to pinpoint exactly where to go, further streamlining the navigation process. Incorporating AI that helps the site suggest similar products from the same category that may interest customers is also a nice  trendy function to have.

Product categorization on Zilingo

7. Offer site search 

During your custom eCommerce website development process, remember to include a site search feature somewhere visible on your site. This simple search bar allows visitors to type in whatever they are looking for and then receive results from your page immediately.

Such feature will greatly enhance user experience. Most of the time, customers already have a specific product in mind when they arrive at your website. If they cannot find what they want after a few clicks, it’s likely they will switch to your competitors’ site or somewhere else for it, rather than spending more time navigating your website. If possible, consider adding filters to improve your site’s search bar. This allows customers to narrow down the available options for them to be as specific as possible.

The site search feature on Landers allows you to look for products in each specific category.

8. Showcasing reviews

Having reviews and testimonials on your eCommerce site can greatly increase conversions and promote your sales. In fact, almost 95% shoppers read reviews before making their purchases, according to the report from Spiegel Research Center. You can have all your testimonials appear on the homepage, or if possible, try to include a separate rating section for each of your products. That way, customers can find the relevant reviews easily, without having to navigate through the site too much. 

Each product on Back on Track has its own review section.

A point to make is that businesses shouldn’t be wary of having negative reviews on their sites. While it’s true that 5-star ratings enhance the confidence of your customers, a website with 100% positive comments may seem a little bit off. People have different criteria in their judgement, and it sounds unreal that no one has any complaint to make. As such, some negative remarks may actually add more legitimacy to your business. Should you handle those remarks well, it can even improve the reputation of your brand.  

9. Remove checkout’s pain point 

The purchasing journey on your website should be straightforward at all times, especially at the payment stage. Make that process as convenient as possible. This involves asking only necessary information (name; shipping address; payment method) to proceed. A list of irrelevant and personal questions bore your customers. Even worse, it may make them suspicious of your business. 

Simple checkout procedure on Hoang Phuc International that only requires name, phone number, address and payment method details.

Furthermore, do not force your customers to create a profile just to buy your products. Such hassle contributes to a high shopping cart abandonment rate. Let them check out with a guest account instead. You can always ask them to register later once they have satisfyingly completed the transaction.   

10. Test everything

Your eCommerce website needs to go through the Quality Assurance (QA) stage before launching. It is not a good idea to release a clutter and error-prone website, since you will only receive complaints on the website operations instead of revenue. Hence, do your testing properly. Put yourself in the customers’ shoes and go through their purchasing journey to find any possible bottlenecks. Get your friends, relatives or even a professional testing service provider to help you for a more objective opinion if possible. 

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Regular site checks toss the errors aside. Frequent maintenance keeps your website smooth-running and provides your customers a seamless experience. Moreover, it allows you to keep track of your site’s growth, as well as its capacity to accommodate current and future traffic volume. With this information in mind, you can execute an optimization plan accordingly, further increasing your return.  

Not sure how your eCommerce website is performing? Contact us to get a free eCommerce website health check right away! 

Conclusion

The ideal situation is that once your website is set up and run, you won’t have to worry about it anymore. Yet it is often not the reality. Consumer behavior changes over time. Therefore, as an eCommerce website owner, you should ensure that the site stays relevant and updated through regular checkups and maintenance.

Remember that your efforts in custom eCommerce website development all come down to two things: delivering an attractive user interface and improving customer experience during their shopping journey. 

The last 7 years have honed the competencies of fram^ – a leading software development company in Vietnam, especially in developing and guiding the growth of eCommerce businesses. No matter if you want to launch, optimize, migrate or go omnichannel, fram^ all can help with high-quality eCommerce development services that are tailored to your needs. 

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