It goes without saying that most businesses would love to see their total revenue boosted by a healthy slice of eCommerce sales! eCommerce website design and development has surged in popularity over the years. For 2012, retail eCommerce sales in the United States reached just over $224 Billion (eMarketer comparative sales). This is an increase of 25% from the year prior and that growth trend is expected to continue for years to come. We still find numerous examples of companies that are having a difficult time keeping up with the demand to facilitate online transactions. The internet and mobile revolution are in full force and it’s critical that you hire a web design company that truly understands eCommerce website design and development. Your eCommerce website should immediately capture your customer’s attention and convert demand into sales.
So what makes for great eCommerce website design? More importantly, how do we create an eCommerce website that is effective? There are several factors to consider during the strategy and web design phase. But when you start to put all the pieces together you realize that’s it’s all directly related to the user experience and website conversion. With eCommerce websites these two factors should mesh effortlessly as they play a pivotal role in your website’s success. Working with a web design company that has the eCommerce expertise is an excellent start. Such a studio will have the years of experience you need to help steer you in the right direction. The page design for eCommerce websites should really have a central goal in mind – conversion. The goal is to convert more of your website visitors into paying customers. We want to increase how often visitors hit the ‘buy now’ button and make an online purchase. Therefore your product detail pages MUST be engaging and easy to use. Product images should be crisp and clear and load promptly. The flow from different products or product categories should be intuitive. The navigation should be clear and the overall flow should have your central goal in mind. The number of steps involved in making an actual purchase should always be minimal – a single page checkout in some cases may be ideal. Remember, the longer it takes for a potential customer to go through your shopping experience the more time you give them to have a change of heart and move off your website. Sometimes the checkout process can be so cumbersome that customers give up on making the purchase – yikes!
So what’s the best shopping cart solution out there and what content management system should you use? The answer of course is that it depends entirely on the scope of your specific website. The Project Manager will help you determine the appropriate shopping cart solution and content management system that best addresses your business needs. Do you go with a simple solution or do you require a robust and comprehensive solution such as Magento? Do you have just a few simple products or will you be selling thousands of products with various attributes? While there are various options to choose from you want to make sure your solution gives you plenty of breathing room to grow your business down the road.
Next you’ll need your eCommerce website to accept credit card payments online. In order to do this you will need to get yourself setup with a merchant account and gateway in order to process credit card transactions. It’s important that your checkout process be smooth, seamless and easy to use. Ideally, your customers should never have to leave your website to complete the checkout process. Security is another important factor you will need to address. Specific web pages such as the cart and account pages need to be secure as your customers will be entering sensitive data such as credit card and contact information online. It’s definitely a number of factors to keep track of so make sure you hire an experienced and professional web design company to do all the heavy lifting for you. These are just a few of the things you should keep in mind the next time you are looking to hire a web design firm design and develop an eCommerce website.