BLOG . Ecommerce

An ecommerce website designed to enhance customers’ online shopping experiences offers convenient navigation, attractive designs, and safe and secure payment gateway options. The visual designs include attractive cataloging and the integration of analytical tools to ensure smooth internal navigation, faster load times, and customization options for online shoppers.

In this blog, we’re going to look at the advances in ecommerce website development that can help you improve your website’s organic traffic and increase sales. 

Steps to Develop an eCommerce Website

Given the large pool of online retailers, it is crucial to create an interactive website that caters to the needs of the target audience. The following are several critical features to take into account when developing a robust online platform and maintaining a competitive edge.

1. Establish your Brand

Create, establish, and define your brand to stand out amongst your competitors and resonate with your target audience. The execution of your brand identity across all platforms, including design, brand tonality, fonts, colors, content, logo, tagline, and overall look and feel, conveys the essence of your brand.

• Clearly articulate the fundamental values, mission, and vision of your brand. 
• Explain how your brand came into existence, its establishment process, and how you precisely tailor your products and services to meet the needs of your consumers. 
• Your integral communication will effectively engage your target audience. 

This fashion brand is a great example of how to convey what your brand truly stands for!

• Be the perfect storyteller, incorporating your customers into every chapter. 
• Let your customers feel that they are your partners and that they are also growing with the evolution of your brand. Use a consistent brand tone; it makes the association with your brand strong and ensures customer retention. 

GenNext continues the legacy of an Indian clothing brand that encourages India with comfortable and stylish clothing, exemplifying a perfect storyteller.

• The placement of their pictures also enables a sense of relatability between the brand and its custodians, which is crucial for customers to identify with your brand.
• Advocate for the uniqueness of your brand and its attributes, emphasizing how the brand’s USP is essential to its customers in every way.

Below is an example of a brand that promotes sustainable shopping to preserve Mother Nature as its USP.

• Engage your potential customers by sharing brief overviews of your brand’s history, foundation, vision, and mission. 
• Form a collaboration with your customers by enhancing their brand and product experience with your business; this helps build long and trustworthy associations with your customers, which is beneficial in the long run.

2. Buy a Domain Name

Acquire a domain name that is memorable and indicative of your brand identity. It is imperative to secure the domain name that accurately represents your brand name and identity or highlights the products that you sell during the initial phase of website development, as this online address represents the establishment of your brand online. 

Here are a few examples.

Sustainable shopping:

 Premium sneakers:

Pet foods:

• You can conveniently verify the availability of domains on Godaddy and Namecheap. 
• If you are unable to find the domain name you want to secure, these websites provide the closest names and extensions that can easily pass for your brand.

• The domain names are subject to specific registration periods. 
• Configure them for automatic renewal deductions and secure them for the maximum renewal period to avoid any future expiration issues.

3. Choose a Hosting Platform

Choose your hosting platform with care, taking into account the size of your business and the potential for future growth and scalability of your ecommerce website.

• Although shared hosting may not be the most cost-effective option for websites that receive substantial traffic, it is still viable. 
• A shared hosting platform does not provide the same level of control and scalability as a virtual private server, which is why it is more convenient for small and medium-sized businesses.
• Cloud hosting is the optimal choice for businesses seeking future scalability, while managed hosting is the optimal choice for businesses that wish to delegate the technical aspects to the hosting platform and focus solely on product innovations or new product developments.
• Assess the hosting platform’s fundamental attributes, including its disaster recovery capabilities, scalability, security, and bandwidth. 
• The hosting platform must be capable of seamlessly integrating a variety of APIs that are appropriate for your current and future business requirements.

4. Design Your Site

The website should be visually appealing, address all brand and product deliverables, ensure smooth navigation, and enhance the consumer’s shopping experience. 

• A UX/UI combination ensures an interaction between your brand and your customers ensuring larger purchases and customer retention.
• Be consistent with your brand tonality across all platforms. Be consistent with content type, font type, and color palette, and maintain a visual hierarchy that keeps customers engaged and collaborative with your brand and products.
• Ensure to highlight the unique selling point (USP) of your products and provide concise, informative product descriptions. 
• Be innovative in describing your products, and showcase them all with high-quality images, size descriptions, and other specifications as required.
• These product descriptions are totally brand-aligned, informative, and innovative and show the size and material details as they are self-explanatory and engaging.

• Include call-to-actions (CTAs) and guarantee seamless navigation through the checkout process. 
• Incorporate secure payment gateways to establish trust and credibility for your brand; we recommend using the most widely used payment gateway portals in your area.

CTAs

• In order to promote transparency, it is essential to be honest about your privacy, return, and shipping policies. 
• Ensure that you have a customer support service that is capable of addressing consumer complaints.
• Utilise banners and pop-ups to advertise seasonal specials, early bird discounts, or new product releases. 
• To augment the size of the cart, incorporate features that encourage consumers to purchase recommended products.

• Assure the website’s adaptability to a diverse range of screen types and its responsiveness to mobile devices. 
• You should optimize your ecommerce platforms for faster load times in addition to ensuring high-quality images.

5. Determine How Orders Will Be Fulfilled

Evaluate the scale of your business and the potential for future growth. Subsequently, determine the order fulfillment model that will best meet the needs of your business and your customers.

• While fulfilling an order in-house has more control over damages, returns, and customer support, it can be an expensive and time-consuming model. 
• With stock management, packaging, warehousing, and returns totally under your scrutiny, it may lead to micromanagement and not leave enough time for innovation and growth. 
• If you don’t have a labor shortage, this model is the best choice for managing your ecommerce business!
• A third-party fulfillment model guarantees that all packaging, storage, and shipping are entirely under their control, while you concentrate solely on business growth, innovation, and expansion. 
• Nevertheless, the inventory operations are entirely under their control, and there may be substantial commissions associated.

Recently, the dropshipping model has gained popularity, allowing you to concentrate on building your brand, designing your website, and adding value and identity, while the manufacturer handles your orders.

The order fulfillment process is dependent on the scale and size of your ecommerce business and its future growth plans.

6. Build and Launch Your Website

Create your website using reputable ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, and Wix. Determine the distinctive characteristics of each option and choose the one that aligns with your business objectives and financial constraints.

• Ensure that your website incorporates secure PCI-compliant payment gateways and provides a diverse selection of convenient payment options for your customers. 
• Incorporate two-factor authentication to enhance security. 
• Display all your shipping options and partner with vendors who have credibility and reliability in the shipping markets.
• Ensure that you conduct A/B testing and do a soft launch where you can share your ecommerce site with friends and family and take credible feedback for the improvisation of the prototype.
• To increase organic traffic, it is essential to implement a combination of technical search engine optimization, off-page optimization, and on-page optimization prior to commencement. 
• Perform page load testing on a variety of displays to guarantee a customer experience that is engaging and enriching.
• By advertising in markets that are easily accessible to your target audience, you can create anticipation for the launch of your ecommerce platform.
• Collaborate with influencers to communicate the brand launch effectively. 
• Use countdowns and teaser campaigns to maintain consumer enthusiasm as they eagerly await the launch of your brand’s website.

7. Maintain Your Site

It is essential to consistently monitor your ecommerce site to ensure that it is up-to-date with the most recent plugin and extension updates in order to ensure its continued success in the online marketplace. 

• Be proactive in your approach to 404 errors or corrupted links.
• You should regularly back up your website to safeguard your data and other website information from cyber attacks or malfunctions. 
• Optimize all pages across available screens for load time, image pixels, and link errors on a consistent basis.
• Check all transaction functionalities to ensure that customers do not encounter any issues when selecting a discount or offer in the event of new discounts, coupon codes, or offers.

These are a few site maintenance intricacies you cannot overlook if you want to sustain and grow in the online retail market.

• Launch a revolutionary ecommerce business with ecommerce website development experts and transform your online business. 
• We deliver high-performance websites that suit your specific needs and drive enhanced customer satisfaction.

FAQs

Do you need a developer to build an ecommerce site?

To establish and maintain a strong online presence, it is essential for ecommerce businesses to hire a developer, especially if they lack technical expertise. It is essential to have a website design that is both seamless and provides an exceptional user experience to revolutionize your brand in the ecommerce industry, thereby ensuring a seamless purchasing experience.

The technical aspects that are essential for the successful operation of an online store include the following:

•  API integrations
• Mobile phone responsiveness
• Product catalog placement
• Customization
• Maintenance of a visual hierarchy

Therefore, enlisting the services of a developer is a more uncomplicated alternative, allowing business owners to concentrate entirely on other critical business aspects.

How to develop an ecommerce website?

Once you’ve determined the products your brand intends to sell, the target audience it wants to reach, and your niche, you can begin the web development process. 

It is essential to take into account the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) when creating an online business website.

• Obtain a domain name that is relevant to your brand, products, and services.
• Acquire a hosting platform that is suitable for the current and future requirements of your ecommerce site.
• Ensure that your ecommerce site is organically recognized by the local search engines by incorporating appropriate keywords into your content. 
• Use informative content, high-quality images, and crisp CTAs, and make sure that the product pages and product categories are attractive and interactive. 
• Ensure that it is a responsive design that is adaptable to mobile devices or any other screens.
• Ensure seamless navigation to the shopping cart, and incorporate appropriate integrations for smooth payment processing.
• Devise a marketing strategy to promote your business and increase brand awareness. 
• Maintain and monitor the site post-launch to ensure that your customers have a continuous, enriching online shopping experience.

How to promote an ecommerce site?

The online market is the best way to promote an ecommerce site. That is where you will meet your potential clients, and with good SEO practices, you can build brand awareness across different platforms.

•  Paid advertising platforms are essential in promoting your website. 
• You can run ads or invest in an end-to-end SEO campaign to ensure a successful ecommerce website.
• Conduct market research, understand your target audience’s unique needs, and run SEO campaigns on their favorite products.
• Collaborate with influencers to engage a more specific and extensive audience. Additionally, this will guarantee consumer loyalty and retention.

Email marketing, content marketing, and promotional discounts are also powerful tools to promote your online business, however, search engine optimization is the most critical element in your marketing campaign.