If your business operates in e-commerce, it has development needs that can shape your results in a big way. Breaches and other hacks remain a constant problem for online stores.
E-commerce website development pitfalls
Payment processing problems, fulfillment delays, security breaches, orders that suddenly drop off: these pitfalls can wreck a business. Getting e-commerce development right matters because the whole operation runs on conversions.
You have to pay attention to several areas to get successful e-commerce development and deployment right. From UX to securing your app against hacks, the best practices below can help you handle your e-commerce project well.
E-commerce websites to learn from
Many business owners and e-commerce developers don’t realize how specific e-commerce development needs are until something goes wrong.
To see what good execution looks like, look at some of the biggest brands and how they build for online commerce. Studying strong e-commerce sites will sharpen your skills as a developer. Two of these well-built platforms are Apple and Nike.
- Apple’s E-commerce Website
Apple’s store sells everything from iPhones and accessories to Macbooks. Its site has categories that are easy to browse, organized around its main products. That focus on products improves UX and helps visitors quickly find what interests them.
- Nike E-commerce Tips And Tricks
Nike’s site pays close attention to UX and loads fast. It uses big product images and video to show how the shoes look. Its checkout funnels and on-page optimizations make it one of the better e-commerce sites you’ll find.
1. Developing With An E-commerce Package Lets You Deploy E-commerce Quickly
To speed up your development, start with a packaged solution and build on top of it. It has become standard practice for e-commerce businesses to run on packages like WooCommerce, Spree Commerce, Shopify, and others. These packages help you start a new online store quickly. They bundle standard internet commerce features such as inventory management and product listings, and they ship with standards for payments and security systems. Unless you have a very large development budget, customizing a packaged solution is usually the most practical route.
2. If Nothing Else Works, Roll Your Own, But Pay Special Attention To PCI Compliance
Sometimes a packaged solution won’t work because your needs are too specific. A big retailer like Amazon or Walmart, for instance, has genuinely unusual demands. The scale and volume of items bought and sold in a single day is far beyond what most e-commerce sites will ever handle. Take eBay as another example: it has to support real-time internet auctions, so its design must support that approach from the ground up. It’s hard to picture these sites running on a standard package like WooCommerce. At that scale, infrastructure decisions can matter more than time to market. Even the choice of programming language and programming model moves to the front. For some large sites, PHP might be a poor fit compared with something like Java or C++. If your needs are that specific, build your own solution, but pay close attention to app security and PCI compliance.
3. Create A Mobile Friendly Design Because Many Shoppers Use Mobile
Many shoppers now buy on mobile devices. Across fashion, computer equipment, groceries, and more, people prefer mobile because it is more convenient. They carry their phones everywhere and shop on the go. Responsive mobile design and development matters more now than ever. If your site fails on mobile, it can crush your sales. So invest in a site that loads fast and works smoothly on phones and tablets.
Remember: Mobile phones and tablets now comprise E-commerce browsing majority!
4. Internationalize Your Site Adequately If You Sell In Multiple Countries
A lot of online sales now cross borders. If you ship to more than one country, plan for internationalization. It’s good practice to internationalize your site for each country you ship to. That creates a better experience for customers there, because they can view the site and read product descriptions in their own language. Do this well and you’ll probably see a real jump in sales.
5. Simplify Navigation And Make Filtering Products Easy
For many stores, one of the biggest areas to improve is navigation. A lot of sites never make it intuitive, and finding a specific product turns into a hassle. Some are so poorly organized that customers give up in frustration after failing to find what they came for. If that describes your site, you are losing business to bad development. Your developers should make it easy to search and filter the products.
6.Take A Cue From Amazon’s 1-Click Checkout Option
Checkout is an essential part of the process. Optimizing it matters because this is the one part of your site that directly involves getting paid. Everything else exists to lead up to this moment. If you don’t optimize checkout, you’ll lose many sales at the very last step. Abandoned shopping carts are a major problem for a lot of stores, and clumsy checkout pipelines are part of the reason. Make it as easy as possible for the customer to place and submit an order. Amazon is a good example with its 1-click checkout, which lets a user check out at any time knowing they won’t have to slog through painful forms.
7. Use An Appropriate Color Palette
Spend some time picking the right color palette for your site. The right palette fits your product type and your audience. If you run a summer fashion store, use bright, outdoor colors. If you sell hospital equipment, choose colors that convey the product’s usefulness and seriousness. Ideally your palette shares colors with some of your products so the presentation feels unified.
8. Make The Typography On The Site Easy To Read
Other stores fall down on typography and readability. Make the text on your site easy to read. Set product descriptions in a legible, sans-serif font so visitors can take in why they should buy. Make labels large enough that people can scan product names quickly. If reading your product text is a chore, customers will bounce to a competitor that looks like it has better products. Those products might not actually be better. Often they aren’t: the competitor just presents them better and makes it easy to read what makes each one unique.
9. Avoid Clutter, Which Can Overwhelm A Visitor
Avoid clutter in your UI. It can overwhelm a visitor and send them off without picking a product. Don’t cram all your product images into a tiny space. Use sizable images, but also plenty of white space, so browsing feels relaxed.
10. Integrate Convenient Payment Options
To make your store succeed, integrate payments in a way that makes buying easy. Offer a variety of payment options so most customers can pay the way they want. At a minimum, accept credit cards and debit cards. Payment systems like Stripe, Square, and PayPal make it simple to accept payments. Offering several options can widen the audience that actually buys from your site.
