E-commerce has changed the face of retail, enabling businesses to reach customers and sell their products more efficiently. Therefore, choosing the right company to develop an e-commerce website is very important. An e-commerce business website must increase sales, attract customers and generate profits other than just being aesthetic.
In order to develop a successful website, you must analyze every aspect and consider the importance of website development process.
And the first step towards a stable online business starts with choosing a trusted e-commerce website development company. However, with so many choices of web development service providers, it becomes quite difficult to choose the one that best suits your needs. Therefore, to help you choose the best e-commerce web development company in Delhi, we have listed some important factors to consider.
1. Portfolio and company history
2. Confidence in the market
3. Quality of service, customer feedback and recommendations
4. Time and convenience in project implementation
5. Professionalism and unique skills to suit your business needs
6. Time to market and on-time delivery
7. Professionalism and experience in the development and deployment of team members
8. Extended support and service
It is important to conduct a thorough study of the suitability of an enterprise solution for your business needs.
Table of Contents
What is e-commerce website development?
E-commerce website development is a common investment solution for most business owners, retailers, entrepreneurs, and companies to turn the competitive advantage of online shopping into a permanent income stream through professional online e-commerce stores. The e-commerce website “Online Store” allows users to find, compare and buy online the products or services they want within minutes with a few clicks. Users then, through their smartphones, tablets, and computers, have the option of investing their time and resources in a very convenient manner. Developing an e-commerce website is hence a rational solution to boost your business growth with more sales and higher revenue.
A look at some must-have Features for an E-commerce Website
Easy-to-use control panel
This could mean clickable images, so users don’t have to search for text or autocomplete in the search bar. The key to the user-friendly design is to help people get what they want in as few steps as possible.
High-definition visual content
Product photos from multiple angles and video reviews will help buyers make informed decisions. However, the number of visitors can decrease along with the page’s loading speed if you don’t think about the technical part.
User Rating
Having features that allow customers to share their positive or negative experiences with a product helps other users make purchasing decisions and increases trust in your site.
Mobile Friendly Customisation
According to the Hootsuite Digital Report, the 5.112 billion unique mobile users account for 48% of the time spent online: that’s 2/3 of the world’s population. Another statistical report shows that 79% of smartphone users have purchased from their devices in the last six months. With statistics like these, adapting your website design to mobile networks is necessary.
Certain things that you should consider in E-commerce Website Development
1. Website Security and Protection
No internet user wants to make mistakes while surfing the internet, but it’s not just the security of their computer that is at stake. As an e-commerce business, you store large amounts of data about your products and the users who log into your website to make a purchase. Security is hence one of the most important requirements for an e-commerce website. Each of these data breaches puts your business at risk. Compromising with the security can result in your prospect’s contact information getting stolen and sold or losing your basic data forever.
An unsafe website will give you a bad reputation on Google and other search engines. Not long ago, Google started marking websites without an SSL certificate and HTTPS protocol. This is more than just a warning or recommendation. Users cannot visit websites without these two components, and you may lose potential orders if your certificate expires.
2. Optimisation before and during e-commerce website development
Speaking of bad reputation, Google’s new benefit to users is that it bookmarks sites with slow loading speeds. If people clicked on a link in the past, waited for it to load, and came back when it wasn’t fast enough, now they can even choose not to check for slow websites.
According to a study by Think with Google, visitors are 90% more likely to bounce when a page takes up to five seconds to load. This is another reason to consider optimisation and ensure your website is in the highest performing state.
The goal of SEO is to increase your sales by pushing them to the top of the search engines using various strategies and techniques. This includes adding keywords to the content you add to your site, as well as meta-information about the page – title and description – and images. Many experts forget that customers can find you by searching for images, but only if you add an “alternative” description to your visual content.
Another thing that many companies give up on is hiring an SEO specialist in the early stages of e-commerce website development. At the very least, a website should start with all the necessary meta tags. Still, an SEO specialist is necessary to help you structure your pages and internal links, create a content strategy, create a mobile-friendly design, improve loading speed, and more. All these are very crucial aspects in impacting the quality of your website.
3. Website search and filter function
People even use the search bar on sites that don’t sell anything. Furthermore, if your website offers advanced search capabilities, then you have the opportunity to maintain a competitive edge. Furthermore, search bars can include advanced features like visual search.
With this functionality, users can upload photos of items they like, and your search engine will try to find similar, if not identical, products. Category browsing is only necessary when users don’t know what they’re looking for and need inspiration. Other times, a simple search will find the product you need in just a few clicks. Some users can’t remember exactly what a product is called, so you might want to tag your product with keywords or synonyms.
4. Registration and Related Issues
Signing up on an e-commerce site has several benefits. It saves your shopping history or shipping address, but some users prefer guest checkout forms or the one-click checkout feature.
Think about how many different accounts you have online. Like the average user, you may have a lot of different things, and some people want to avoid signing up on other sites to place a one-time order. If the sales forecast exceeds the receipt of some buyer’s personal information in your database, you should consider adding a guest payment feature to your e-commerce site. There are other ways to remind shoppers of your website address, e.g., by adding it to the order packaging or at the end of the message tracking number.
Registration forms are not your only option. They can also ask users to register via social media or a minimum form with their name, email address and phone number. Either way, you can automatically create an account and send them an email with your credentials.
5. Payment Options
Adding all the possible payment options can be overwhelming while you’re in the process of developing an e-commerce website. Still, you’re limited to the buyers using that option if you’re only offering one.
Unexpected shipping costs (55%) and long checkout processes (26%) are the main reasons why shoppers abandon their carts. As per the 2019 Payment Methods Report, 6% of the users will pay you a deposit due to insufficient payment arrangements.
The most popular payment methods are PayPal, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, American Express, Stripe, Square, Visa, Masterpass, and 2Checkout. Depending on the type of item you are selling, there are several options you should consider, including cryptocurrencies as their popularity continues to increase.
6. Shipping Price
As noted above, unexpected shipping costs are why 55% of customers abandon their shopping carts. This may be because they don’t know the price or expect a lower quantity or additional fee.
Shopping online is a matter of convenience, and if you don’t have free shipping, you should have detailed information about shipping options and prices in the menu with links on each product page.
7. CMS Integration
A Content Management System (CMS) helps you store and manage all your visual and written content and marketing documentation in one place. You can edit or add new information, and the changes will be automatically displayed on the website as soon as they are published. A CMS can also help your employees respond to customer tickets quickly.
8. Mobile Functionality
According to the 2018 Criteo Global Commerce Review, more than half of online transactions are done via mobile devices. While people are more likely to buy through mobile apps, you’ll still get better conversion rates if your e-commerce interface adapts easily to mobile networks. For example, Walmart Canada managed to increase conversions on its website by 20% after introducing a more responsive design, and they also reported a staggering 98% increase in mobile orders.
9. Nice shopping cart design
We don’t need statistics to tell us that online users love a simple but functional shopping cart. A simple shopping cart involves as few steps as possible but ways to increase its functionality.
For example, you can have three types of users: registered, unregistered, and those who choose to remain guests. In the first step, when the user clicks on the shopping cart, the platform can ask the user to log in, register or shop as a guest. Consumers should be automatically redirected to their full shopping cart after registering or logging in. Searching for the same items, again and again, can be a daunting task. On the other hand, you can run a one-step test in which all the steps are in a dynamic window that automatically updates when the user enters data.
10 Customer Service and Contact
As noted in the Payment Methods report, millennials value personalisation as personalised recommendations from support agents. While e-commerce stores try to make it happen, customer support helps shoppers solve shipping, payments, returns, etc. We recommend that you have a contact section on your website and an information bar at the top of each page with a clickable phone number or email address.
Only reputable web development companies can help you enjoy a fully customisable and competitive e-commerce website design. If you want your business to be successful locally and globally, choose a development with care. Before entering into any contract, you should analyse the company based on the above factors. Hiring the right company is very important because it can make or break your business.
Parting Words
Finding the right digital marketing agency or e-commerce website developers can be a tedious task. The problem becomes more pressing when you go out to look for e-commerce web developers who have the expertise in your business’s industry to offer a customised solution.
Finding suitable e-commerce website development companies must be the most important priority for your business. Expand My Business has the rich experience of working on hundreds of e-commerce projects by helping businesses find their perfect agency partners who have just the solution for their digital needs.
