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While there are many more requirements and qualities to consider, this article lists the top 10 most important features for a successful online store.
Before we launch or even plan an online shop, we first must know the essential requirements and features to build one. Here are some of the main ones for a successful online shop:
User-friendliness plays a significant role in a successful online shop. When users visit your website, they should immediately find what they are looking for and everything should be easy and quickly accessible on your website. When a user spends their time visiting your website, they’re going to leave the shop if they get bored. The best way to achieve great user-friendliness in your website is with a simple and easy-to-use design.
Since more than 50 % of your traffic is on a mobile phone, your website needs to be responsive for any device out there. It’s even better if you start designing the mobile version first and then move to the design of the desktop version because most user are more likely to visit your web page on a mobile device.
Having high-quality photos and videos on your website is a key factor to success, especially for pictures or videos of the products you sell online. Most users will likely leave your website if the content takes too long to load, or they have bad quality. Ecommerce websites should display multiple photos per product. The pictures need to be high-resolution and have an optimized page loading time.
Every online shop should have a FAQ section. An online store must have the most asked questions answered right away to save time for users and your business. At the same time, it builds a trusted effect between your store and the traffic you generate. An FAQ page is an excellent place to address inquiries about your business, as well as general queries about your industry or even your competitors. People who did not know about your company but got an answer to their search query on your site and clicked through to learn more can be attracted by providing responses to these types of questions.
Web security is essential to prevent hackers and cyber-thieves from gaining access to critical data. One of the reasons why users don’t purchase on a specific website is security. A user needs to feel secure before starting or finishing a purchase. You can provide this security by putting as many trust elements as possible in your store and having a reviews section or a Trustpilot badge. More on that later.
Page speed also is a fundamental requirement to convert users into buyers. If your online store is slow, the user will most likely leave. There are various things that can affect your page speed, for example images or videos. You must make sure all the media you upload to your store isn’t large. Smaller sizes result in better page speed which has a significant effect on SEO as well.
Individualized choices are being developed by retailers in order to increase customer interaction. It’s also a chance to introduce a brand to new customers. When customers share their wish lists with family and friends, they are sending free traffic to a website with built-in social proof. Ecommerce sites that don’t use wish lists are essentially leaving money on the table.
By providing purchasers with information about the company and its products, user reviews and ratings add to brand credibility and social proof. When making an online purchase, almost 90% of people trust peer or consumer recommendations. Additionally, negative reviews can also be beneficial. It has been proven that products with no negative evaluations are often seen as filtered, leading customers to believe the favourable ratings are not real. Ecommerce sites can incorporate plugins from the most prominent review systems, such as Yelp, Foursquare, and Facebook, depending on their capabilities.
There are a variety of popular online payment methods to choose from. Make sure to clarify why your website limits payment alternatives. Understanding who the buyer is and applying the most effective solutions are the keys to success. If your buyers are tech-savvy and prefer this mode of payment, it’s critical to be upfront about why it isn’t an option. This openness establishes the brand’s understanding of its customers and fosters trust.
The method of getting your ecommerce website found on search engines like Google and Bing is known as SEO (search engine optimization). For the maximum website traffic, you want your ecommerce business to appear on the first result pages of search engines. To accomplish this, you must learn and understand the different guidelines to rank well in search engines, change your website’s content and make some technological adjustments. Without these above-mentioned features and requirements, you won’t be able to have a successful online shop. There are much more requirements and features, those are just the most crucial ones. If you want to build your own web shop or have questions relating to e-commerce development platforms or apps, read our blog posts for Shopify and Shopware. Our dedicated outsourcing team can be your collaborator in e-commerce.
