What to Consider While Selecting an Ecommerce Solution
E-commerce has become an integral part of our lives. In today's time, almost every business
owner owns a website and many more are opting for ecommerce web design. The reason is the
ample amount of benefits
offered by an e-commerce website. It helps to conduct the business 24/7 and you can sell
products to international customers as well. However, ecommerce website development requires
certain factors to be considered to get the best results. Discussed below are some factors to be
considered while selecting an e-commerce solution.
Budget: This is very important. There are a number of e-commerce solutions available and they
are priced according to the number of functionality they offer. Most of the times, people go for
the cheap solutions. However, you should be careful enough so as not to get duped in lieu of a
cheap solution. Always go with a solution which offers the functionality required by you and is
priced right.
Integration: Always check the integration of the e-commerce solution. Most of the times, prepackaged solutions fail to integrate with database. Therefore, always go for custom ecommerce
development. Ensure that the solution can tie into any legacy networks or systems.
Flexibility: Flexibility is the key to success. So, you should look for an e-commerce product that
provides enough flexibility. It is very important to have a solution which can grow and adapt
along with your business. It should be fully compatible with your future needs as well.
User-friendliness: If you have an e-commerce product that makes you scratch your head every
time you use it, it is high time you switch to a user friendly shopping cart. The e-commerce
solution should have all
required features and an easy checkout process to ensure that your customers stay on your site
and complete the transaction.
SEO tools: When it comes to web marketing, it is important to ensure that search engines can
index the product pages of your website. Without good SEO ranking, you can't expect your
business to achieve much.
Conversion tracking: It is always beneficial if you can track conversion information based on
search engine traffic and keywords. It tells you which keywords are resulting in sales. A good
ecommerce web development solution provides partial form conversion tracking.
Security: While making online transactions, customers are always concerned about the security
of their sensitive information. While selecting an ecommerce shopping cart solution always find
out about the security procedures from the vendor.
What to Look for When Choosing an eCommerce Solution for Your Website
eCommerce websites are special because they require certain tools and server configurations in
order to run successfully. To meet the special needs of online business owners, the eCommerce
industry has become extremely competitive, and as more companies begin to offer eCommerce
hosting plans it becomes more difficult to choose one out of the hundreds available. However,
regardless of how many plans are on offer there are some constant factors to consider when
shopping for an eCommerce hosting plan.
Reputation and Reliability
First and foremost, before any other factors are considered, it is important ensure the reliability
and reputability of any web hosting provider. Even more important than plan features and pricing
is the quality of the service provided. All of the features in the world cannot make up for site
down time and insecure web hosting. Thus, before comparing plans it is best to assemble a list of
the most reputable eCommerce hosting providers.
Features and Functionality
Once you have a pool of reputable web hosting providers to choose from it’s time to begin
comparing plan features. It is important to realize that features are far more important than
pricing, as you may end up paying more in the long run if you have to upgrade to another plan in
the future. Features that are important for any eCommerce hosting plan are:
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Shopping Cart
Product Catalog Builder
Payment Processing Tools
Store Building Tools
Integrative Tools (Such as eBay and Amazon integration)
Adequate Bandwidth
Adequate Disk Space
Google Adwords Credit (most hosting providers offer this)
SSL Certificates
Site Search Engine Tools
Without the above features an eCommerce hosting plan would be essentially useless. All of the
above features are equally important, so it is crucial to find a web hosting company that offers all
of these features. You should be able narrow down your list based on the above criteria.
Customer Support and Service
Once you’ve narrowed down the list based on the above aspects, it’s time to compare the
customer service and support of each company. Support is such a crucial part of any web hosting
plan, because there are so many things that can go wrong. Without a qualified and helpful
support team by your side you could end up facing many problems by yourself, which could
drastically decrease the overall productivity of your business.
Plan Pricing
Finally, after you’ve narrowed down the list to a few carefully picked selections based on the
above criteria, it is time to compare pricing. The best way to compare pricing is to find the plan
that would best accommodate your needs and then compare the pricing and features of that plan
between services. For example, if you find that the one company’s bronze plan suits you best
then you would simply find a plan from another company that matches up well with that plan in
terms of features, and then compare the prices of the plans.
By using the above process to select your eCommerce hosting plan you’re essentially
guaranteeing quality service for your site.
questions to ask when developing an ecommerce site
How many products do you intend to have?
How many categories do you intend to have?
How often do you intend to update?
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What features of your current website would you like to keep?
What don't you like about your current website?
Who currently uses your website? (ie how many people visit and who are they?)
Who would you like to have visiting your website? (eg friends & family, locals, overseas
viewers)
What ways will these people find out about the website? (eg word of mouth, local
advertising, exhibitions, search engines, internet advertising etc)
What is the main aim of the website? (eg displaying current paintings for sale, displaying
portfolio, attracting potential buyers over the internet, as a 'shop-front' to sell the
paintings)
Do you want people to be able to buy the paintings online?
Roughly how many paintings would you like to be able to display on the website? (up to
100? up to 500?)
Would you be dividing the paintings into different groups or categories, or just displaying
them all together?
What sort of information about the paintings do you want to display? (eg caption,
detailed description, price, date, media etc)
What other pages do you anticipate the website having, other than the gallery? (eg artist
profile, info about commissions, contact page, guestbook etc)
Do you anticipate needing regular updates/changes to the site other than uploading photos
and information? (you will be able to do this yourself)
Do you have a web hosting company in mind?
If not, after it's all set up, do you want to liaise directly with the web hosting company?
When do you need the new website to be ready by?
Tell me about your target audience
Who are your competition?
Do you have a business plan?
Why will people buy from you instead of your competition?
How much do you expect to earn from the site?
How much will you need to earn?
What will happen if your site doesn't meet this goal?
What problems can you forsee occuring if you are too successful?
Who will handle customer support?
Who will handle day-to-day admin? Do they need training? Support?
Do you need a fully supported commercial solution, or are you happy to go 'open source'?
What will you need from us on an ongoing basis?
Do you have existing branding or will you also require this to be created?
How will you market the site?
When does the site need to be launched?
Are you ready to proceed now?
What is your budget?
Are you funding this yourself, or getting a loan or third party funding?
How will you meansure the effectiveness of the site?
How will you encourage repeat puchases and customer loyalty?
What day can we meet to sign contracts and take our 50% deposit?
Are their product images web ready or will you have to mess with them?
Are they intending on offering coupons, or discounts?
Will there be monthly specials?
Will they be charging tax and shipping? (These last two can take a while to setup given that they
are usually zone specific, so zones have to be setup and specified.)
Will they be offering recurring payments? Selling memberships?
You will also need to know who the payment gateway is or if they have one.
How many gateways will they want to use? Some sites offer more than one form of payment.
Each has to be setup.
Will their hosting be using a secure certificate?
Do they have a unique IP for this if they will be using one?
Do they want to offer an affiliate sales program?
If so do they have their banners ready?
Do they have a terms of use and a privacy policy?
Will you be cross referencing products by manufacturer?
Do they want a search function? Shop by price? Refer a friend? Purchase without account?
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Ecommerce or electronic commerce refers to buying and selling of goods through electronic
medium. This means that all the business activities are done all the way through the internet. It
has been seen an implausible growth over the past years, along with new ecommerce stores
popping up every day. Moreover, it helps to increase the revenue from a wider customer base. As
there is so much competition in the market, you need to follow some steps to make your
ecommerce web design more successful. Below is the list of necessary steps you need to
comprehend before creating an ecommerce store:
1) Select your niche and be focused
This the most important step involved in ecommerce web development. For this, you need to
choose your niche and then target the particular niche for your company. Before creating an
ecommerce store you need to perform a complete research about your targeted niche. This
research will help you in knowing the demand of your products and to what extent the sales
turnover of your company will increase. Once you scrutinize all the procedures which are
involved in selection you should go ahead with your decisions.
2) Branding and Domain Name
Another most important step you need to focus is the brand image. This entails store name and
domain name of your ecommerce store. So, if you are interested in expanding your ecommerce
store then all you need to do is simply make a short catchy name that has a more general
meaning. For instance, Amazon.com etc.
3) Customer Experience
When a potential customer visits your ecommerce store make sure they do not lose track of your
site. For this you need to design your website with clear navigation and proper functionality.
Moreover, your ecommerce website design should be user friendly and with a simple design.
However, your website should be designed in such a way that it can compete with other
ecommerce stores as well.
4) SSL Certification
The other most important factor involved in ecommerce website development is the security and
safety factor. If your customers are influenced with the same, then they visit your site without
any hesitation and can also shop easily. Therefore, while creating an ecommerce store always
keep safety and security factor in mind. And also make sure that you set up an SSL certificate as
a proof of document.
Ensure that you follow all the above mentioned steps while creating an E-Commerce store for
selling products and services to potential customers. More important you need to hire an
experienced ecommerce web design company to develop a fully functional and feature rich store.