Do you want to start your own online business? It’s never been easier thanks to the internet’s abundance of resources and tools for eCommerce owners. On the other hand, online sales competition has never been fiercer. Only those with knowledge, patience, and experience can triumph.
The key requirements for eCommerce websites are covered in this article. So that, you get free to focus only on the essential success factors and build a fantastic online store.
Here is The eCommerce Website Requirements Checklist:
1. Fast, stable & secure web hosting
A web-hosting service is required to start your eCommerce website. Web hosting provides all of the services needed to launch, store, and maintain websites on the internet.
It also looks after your website’s speed, uptime, and security, all of which are critical for any eCommerce store. We’ll go over each factor now. If you want to start an online business from scratch, you can easily hire an ecommerce website development company in Mumbai.
2. Security
Customers must feel safe before entering their credit cards and other valuable personal information for checkout purposes, as cyber security remains a top concern for all internet users.
Furthermore, web browsers warn users whenever they visit a site that lacks an SSL certificate, as indicated by the subdomain “HTTP.” This alone may deter customers from visiting your online store.
A secured website has numerous advantages for store owners. It can protect them from cyber attacks, data theft, and a variety of other risks.
3. Stability
If your store closes unexpectedly while your customers are shopping, you will lose a lot of money and possibly your reputation. For eCommerce, digital stores must be operational at all times, unless they are under maintenance.
In fact, uptime – when your store is accessible online – should be at least 99%, while downtime – time for maintenance, system errors, and so on – should be less than 1%.
4. Speed
Amazon discovered more than a decade ago that every extra 100ms in loading time costs them 1% of their sales. The insight is still relevant today, which is why giant websites such as Amazon, Google, Netflix, and Facebook are so fast.
Customers are so accustomed to these quick experiences that they expect every other website to be the same. Google recommends that web pages take no longer than 2 seconds to load, and this has been the goal of all eCommerce stores.
Whereas speed performance is determined by the size and technical structure of your website, web hosting also plays an important role. Hosting plans with increased bandwidth and CDN capabilities produce faster web pages.
Understanding eCommerce hosting and selecting an appropriate service will thus solve many security, performance, and stability issues.
If you don’t want to deal with these technical issues, you can use a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform such as Shopify or BigCommerce. These platforms will handle all aspects of hosting, allowing you to concentrate on sales and products.
5. Highly-responsive mobile site
Responsiveness means that your online store can adapt to a wide range of screen sizes, allowing you to provide pixel-perfect experiences to your customers regardless of the devices they use.
According to Shopify, 71% of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in 2021 were made via mobile, while desktop sales accounted for only 29%.
Furthermore, the number of mobile shoppers in the United States is expected to reach 187 million by 2024.
It comes as no surprise that mobile is the most popular sales channel for all eCommerce stores, and optimising mobile sites for a consistent customer experience is essential.
Store owners must pay close attention to detail to ensure that their mobile web pages are flawless. Enlarging call-to-action buttons for easy fingertip touches, for example, or adjusting text banners to be fully visible on smartphones.
6. User-friendly web design
UI/UX design captures your customers’ attention from the moment they land on your site while highlighting your products and brand characteristics in the best light.
You may want to do a lot of creative things with your stores. However, keep in mind that the most important aspect of eCommerce website design is user-friendliness.
7. Strong operating systems
Reliable inventory and order management systems save you a lot of time on manual tasks and allow you to run a digital store with confidence.
For example, the backend of your eCommerce website can manage stocks and multiple warehouses, batch import catalogues and customer information, calculate tax rate per location, alert low-stock products, and so on.
8. Fast checkout process
Seven out of ten customers abandon their shopping cart. This means that 70% of customers do not complete their purchase.
The complicated checkout process is one of the most obvious reasons.
Many purchasing decisions are impulsive; consumers buy when they feel like it. Meanwhile, long checkout lines sap their patience and motivation to purchase.
9. SEO-friendly web pages
SEO (search engine optimization) is the practise of increasing the visibility of your eCommerce website on search engines such as Google and Bing.
You would want your eCommerce store to appear on the first result pages of search engines for the most website traffic, just as any sausage vendor would want their trucks to be in the most crowded places for many people to see.
You don’t have to appear on every search results page, but it would be ideal if your website appeared in the results list for search queries related to your products.
According to a 2019 study, organic search results account for 52.3% of all website traffic, and 68% of online experiences begin with search engines.
Because search engines such as Google are trusted sources for buyers to find and research products, an SEO friendly eCommerce website can attract a large number of prospective customers.
10. Smooth sales channels integration
Connecting your online store to your physical stores unifies inventory and order data while also enhancing customer experience.
While shopping in a physical store, for example, buyers can scan QR codes to browse product information on the store’s online sites and use vouchers sent in their emails to purchase.
Furthermore, from social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to marketplaces like Amazon, diversifying your sales channels increases your chances of being discovered online, which means more revenue.
Many Shopify stores that are successful because of their distinctive product lines integrate with Amazon to reach a larger number of potential customers. Furthermore, using Instagram ads to direct users to eCommerce sites is a common strategy for increasing sales.
11. Low shipping fee
It’s common for giant eCommerce websites like Amazon and Alibaba to offer free shipping by leveraging their advanced fulfilment systems. The problem is that consumers are so accustomed to receiving freedom that they take it very seriously. If there is no free delivery offer, 61% of customers are “somewhat likely” to stop buying.
Small businesses with limited budgets, on the other hand, cannot offer free shipping in the same way that the big boys do. The challenge is to keep shipping costs as low as possible while maintaining shipping quality.
12. Product reviews
Aside from price considerations, customers have many reservations about purchasing products from a brand they have never purchased from before. This is especially true if you sell high-priced items such as electronics or furniture.
Product reviews are by far the most persuasive way to break down this barrier and increase new customers’ purchasing confidence. People look for reviews on purpose in order to gain trust and information. If, on the other hand, a site has few or no reviews, visitors will question the brand’s dependability and, in many cases, will refrain from purchasing.
As a result, any eCommerce newcomer should make an effort to collect reviews and testimonials.
13. Blogs
A blog is an effective content marketing channel for attracting new visitors and converting them into repeat customers. It significantly improves SEO visibility, which means more customers will find your eCommerce site.
You can also keep customers coming back to your website and build brand loyalty by providing useful tips, reviews, instructions, and entertaining content for your users.
Creating a useful blog can take time and effort, but it can also be done for free. A blog is an excellent way to create a successful eCommerce website from the ground up, requiring only knowledge and creativity. This is especially true for small businesses, where investing in ads or other paid marketing tools can be prohibitively expensive.
14. Integration with a digital advertising service
Most eCommerce businesses rely on paid services (such as Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and so on) to drive more potential customers to their online stores.
Whereas organic content marketing efforts such as SEO or blogs take time to mature (at least 6 months before you see any noticeable benefits), advertisements provide a faster way to reach your target audiences and generate sales.
Connecting your eCommerce store to an ad tool is required for it to collect on-site data from your customers, learn, and deliver better-targeted ads.
15. Report + Analytics tool
Reports are essential for determining the next step in the performance of your website.
Aside from revenue and the number of products sold, there are a few other metrics to be aware of. Sales conversion rate, website traffic, email opt-in rate, average customer value, and cart abandonment rate are a few examples.
Any popular eCommerce platform can provide some form of analytics and data. Magento, for example, includes reports for sales, taxes, abandoned carts, most viewed products, and more.
Google Analytics is the most widely used analytics tool. Google Analytics can help you measure SEO performance, understand different customer sources, and identify your most popular web pages, among other things.
As your company grows, you can integrate more data tools to take advantage of AI and big data analytics for a more in-depth look at your customers.
These are the fundamental requirements for launching a successful eCommerce website. I weighed many factors in order to narrow down the list. I hope it provides you with some useful insights for your eCommerce strategy.
