There are approximately 200 million eCommerce shoppers in the United States alone and eCommerce sales are predicted to grow by $491 billion by 2018. By having a stable and dynamic website, an eCommerce company can tap into the size of that market. And with a website that follows these guidelines, they can have a great eCommerce website that fuels growth
User-Friendliness
A user-friendly website is reduces friction between the first touch and the purchase. Having a clean navigation menu with emphasis on the shopping cart will remind visitors that they are there to purchase something. Great eCommerce websites are also mobile-friendly, and cater to the quickly growing group of on-the-go shoppers. If they have questions about the products or service, they should be able to find them easily in an FAQ or using Live Chat that goes directly to one a company representative.
Checkout Experience & Flow
A great eCommerce website has a great a checkout process that is optimized for moving visitors towards the purchase. This means fewer clicks, clear calls-to-action, and a streamlined purchase flow. While the product is usually the center of attention on most eCommerce websites, the shopping cart should be easy to find, easy to use, and easy to fix. If it’s not, you will find that visitors abandon the site before they complete their purchases.
Promotions should be obvious to a visitor who is visiting the site for the first time, and a visitor who is intending to purchase something. For example, free shipping on orders of a certain size is a fantastic way to push visitors over the edge to becoming customers.
If you can’t fix problems with the checkout process quickly and efficiently, you’ll continue to hemorrhage visitors and customers. You can also use that process to determine where visitors are leaving the funnel, and improve your website accordingly.
Website Administration
Updating an eCommerce website should be quick and painless – very few elements should be hard-coded, as they have a more involved process to alter. There are a number of reasons that the products on an eCommerce site would have to change, including seasons, events, and promotions, and admins should be able to change the site to reflect that with minimal effort.
While the checkout process focuses more on the customer, the security of the website is paramount as well. eCommerce websites need to be able to process transactions securely, quickly, and at volume. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard must be followed by eCommerce sites – and associated badges provided should be present on the site – especially at checkout – to ensure that visitors know their payment information is safe.
