14 Must Have Features for eCommerce Website

by MindTech

eCommerce Websites and their Features

When you design and create a website for your eCommerce business, the main aspects that have to be taken care of are, design, functionality, and features. However, from the plethora of features, which are the main features that one must really focus upon? Which are the eCommerce platforms that need to be targeted in order to achieve your business goals? When you own an online business and an eCommerce site, there are few features that have to be implemented in your site. This article will help you understand what the best eCommerce website features are and those eCommerce features that are mandatory for every online store or online shopping platform.

When you run an online business, you aim for its success. However, the success of any such online store depends on not just the products offered or the marketing of your website, but it depends on the features of your website, Emerging Technology in the eCommerce industry that benefits the owner as well as the customer. The owner would require a lot of tools to handle the website as well as some administrative features that are apt for the business processes. For instance, in order to provide payment terms to the customers, the platform must enable you to fix a specific credit limit for your customers. Check Factors determining the cost of eCommerce Website Development.

Key eCommerce Website Features

Listed below are some of the eCommerce website features that you must look into before diving into such projects:

The website must be user-friendly

It is better to keep the webpage simple than make it fancy and increase the complexities. The design has to be good and elegant and you could avoid using fancy features. The simplicity of the website enhances the ease of using it. This is the most important feature according to 76 percent of the consumers. The objective of your website has to be to enable consumers to complete their purchases swiftly. You can look into the filters, comparison options, and categories when you create your website. In order to ensure that your website is user-friendly, you can enhance the search function, or include visual navigation, etc. Make sure that your website has features that make it more competitive than lag behind.

Integration of Diverse Payment Gateways

To ensure that your website is upto the mark, it must be able to integrate with many payment gateways and this must not be limited to just a couple of options. Shiprocket 360 has some payment gateways which are pre-approved and can be integrated with the online stores easily.

The Shopping Cart

This is crucial for any online store. This is the place where the products are stored by the customers in order to proceed with their checkout. It is recommended to have a flexible shopping cart that enables a guest user as well as a registered user to proceed easily with the checkout.

Order management

A good and complete order management panel will just simplify various activities which in turn enables the seller to ensure that the orders are fulfilled and completed. It offers in-depth data such as buyer cancellation, COD order verification, refunds, status updates on exchange order, and much more. 

Security

When we talk of Online transactions, we are aware that it has literally taken over our lives. This is where security and privacy is very important. When you have an online store, it is important to make sure that the data of your customers is protected. The eCommerce platform has to be very secure. You must ensure that you have the SSL certificate in place and it must be done through a recognized vendor. The most popular one used by the top eCommerce stores is Symantec. You can include additional security by way of two-factor authentication, wherein in addition to the username/password, a system-generated code will be sent across through text or email. Also, make use of firewalls that blocks malicious traffic. Make sure that the privacy policy link is shared in the footer of your site.

Receptive Design

Once you have an eCommerce store, you must ensure that it is mobile-friendly. In a world dominated by technology and smartphones, not having this feature will put your website on a downward trend.

Localization of the website

Reach is very important when you sell your products online. However, when you expand the reach of your business, you must ensure that the delivery is taken care of, currency differences have to be considered, as well as languages of different regions need to be integrated.

Progressive Payment Options

For any eCommerce website, you must ensure that you have the advanced options of payment integrated into the website, for instance, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. This improves the shopping experience for your customers and they can complete their purchases in just a click. Though there are a lot of options available, you must understand your buyer and then implement a solution that is cost-effective. In case, you can offer limited options, you must provide an explanation for the same. Transparency is important to build trust between the buyer and the business.

Shipping details

One of the top reasons why purchases are abandoned is the totally unexpected cost of shipping. A website has to include information on shipping way before the checkout. You can include a shipping charge calculator, where the customer can enter the location code and get the approximate shipping charges applicable for that area. You can also include various options for delivery as well as approximate delivery time on the website. Also, make sure that you list out the countries that do not fall in the normal shipping zone. Wherever applicable, you can offer some codes to avail of free shipping as well.

Compact pages

An online business has to make sure that the product pages do not bombard customers with a lot of information. The pages must have enough information on products to make sure that the time of customers is not wasted in scrolling too many pages. Also if you bombard them with information, you might lose a customer. In short, the pages have be compact and concise. The product could have photographs with a brief description of it along with the benefits of using the product, color, size, fit, and the price along with the button “Add to Cart”.

Expandable Infrastructure

The hosting infrastructure must be in a position to expand when the traffic to your site increases. This will avoid the business from losing out on customers as well as revenue.

Accessible Reports

The reports have to easily available as exports that include detailed information pertaining to orders, reports of products, as well as a customer database. This is helpful to analyze the business and its growth rate. The website has to be pre-integrated with various tools of marketing and analytics that will help the business market the brand in a better way and read performance reports of the store.

Integration of Logistics

This is important to ensure that the shipping is seamless and the business, as well as the customer, can track their courier and get real-time updates on the same.

Reviews

Reviews are very important, especially those written by users of the products. Products of businesses are considered only if they have a good rating which is 4 stars or above. Also, note that negative reviews do not kill your sales. Many times, a brand with a lot of positive reviews are considered by shoppers to be fake. 

Conclusion

There are numerous online stores selling a wide range of products. However, what makes the difference in the stores is the eCommerce features that are being implemented. The list of features provided above will definitely help you in setting up your online store keeping in mind the needs of the consumers, in addition to being cost-effective. A website that is user-friendly has a lot of payment options, logistic integration, security, and is compact will be quite successful in getting the required traffic. These simple points will definitely be useful when you decide to have your own online store.

If you have any eCommerce Website development idea in your mind, let us know! We will be more than happy to discuss your eCommerce project and provide you an accurate quotation along with expert consultation for free.

MindTech

MindTech Consultancy is a top-notch web and mobile app development company in USA and India with 10+ years of experience. We provide web and mobile app development to all level of business and industry and make sure that the application and website get the attention of the target audience and the visiting customers.

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