It is rather a common knowledge today that during the few years eCommerce and culture of online shopping is only flourishing and almost taking over the world one step at a time. Hence, the way to success in 2017 no longer stand on the concept of get your product out there and wait to see how it performs but instead the best way to success according to retailers is to be strategic since the very starting and target their efforts both offline and online.
According to a point-of-sale solutions survey of 1,164 U.S. business owners conducted in 2017 by Square and Mercury Analytics it was witnessed that 34 percent of business owners sell through their website (built using a website building platform), 25 percent of business owner sell through Facebook and 40 percent sell on social media as a whole.
According to research of BigCommerce, eCommerce trends, data and statistics show that 51 percent Americans prefer to shop online, 96 percent of Americans with access to internet have made at least 1 online purchase in their life and eCommerce is growing 23 percent year by year. Hence, it is safe to say that e-commerce is the future and it is here to stay.
Hence, it is important to not only build your eCommerce website but to also develop your online store in a manner that helps you take your website to its optimum potential. Here is the checklist for emerging eCommerce website development:
1. Make your online store personal to cater to your targeted segments:
It is essential to know who your customers are and how can you make personalized offers and marketing message to best engage with your customers. For most effective results, you need to make sure that the elements of your website such as the web design and content makes each customer feel unique and special.
You basically need to know what your customers want maybe before even they know and then give it to them. You can do so by being well-informed and analyzing data by having a system to know most recent, the frequency and monetary data of customers and the purchases.
2. Is your online store responsive?
It is actually hard to believe if you have an eCommerce website and you don’t know how important it is to make your web design mobile-friendly. However, even if you are unaware, mobile phone devices make up almost half of online sales and therefore, you need to get your eCommerce website responsive on mobile phones.
Today, the attention span of customers is even shorter than before and if they already have used any responsive online store, they are more likely to not give an extra chance to see what you have for them.
3. Operational efficiency:
Operational efficiency is very important when selling online. New online buyers are already hesitant and a small malfunction may make them change their mind. Hence, when developing your website or make it your website development check to make sure all functions in your online store, such as filling cart, check-out process, delivery and return of goods and services, work smoothly.
Operational efficiency is important and can be very challenging for both customers and owner’s perspective.
4. Master the art of stock control:
Anyone who have sold goods or services, online or offline, knows proper timely management of delivery can be a bit of a challenge but managing stock is truly an art. Especially when you are selling online having a good control on your inventory is important. If an unavailable item shows to be available on the site and a customer purchases it, late delivery or cancellation of order will hurt your goodwill in market and that customer may never return back.
Many software available in market can help you keep a check on inventory at all times and enable you to provide a better customer experience.
5. Technical excellence and ability to adopt:
Everything web is changes consistently, there is always some update, some new element or some new convenience that can make the customer experience you provide better. To always stay at the top of your game, it is important to be always aware and prepared to adopt to necessary changes that add your website and its functionality.
6. Access your SEO tactics and try to stay on top of google:
Normally, eCommerce websites don’t rank on search engines as well as the content websites do. However, to make sure your online store is competitive in market, you should keep updating SEO efforts to stay at the top of your game, as search engines like Google constantly change their algorithm.
Many tools are available that you can use for SEO, such as Google AdWords and Keyword Planner.
7. Use social media platform:
In the year 2017, social media is too important to put on side for all businesses big or small. Moreover, there too many ways an eCommerce website can use social media channels to strengthen customer engagement, retention and to provide an ultimate customer experience. Hence, it is only a smart choice to integrate your social media channels on your website so that your customers can leaves reviews and feedbacks, which can help you improve and positive feedbacks can work as a great way of promotion.
8. Remove friction to help prevent basket abandonment:
A study shows 31 percent of buyers abandon their baskets because of complicated payment procedures, therefore make sure you don’t lose sales due to this. Take steps like account creation, save billing and shipping addresses for future visits, provide several delivery and payment options for customers and reduce number of pages to complete the process.
Conclusion:
The above given checklist is for emerging eCommerce website development, following through this list will help website owners to make sure that they take their online store and its entire functions to the optimum potential. The above checklist will make sure the development process of any eCommerce website is at its best not just the web design aspect but also the website content and other elements for an all-round website development.