March 31, 2020 
Technological advancements and latest innovations such as the Internet of Things (IoT), smartphones have completely revolutionized the online shopping ecosystem.
The rise of eCommerce platforms both for desktop and mobile applications have added value to the eCommerce space.
Today’s customers are switching from brick-and-mortar stores to online, virtual platforms for browsing and purchasing products. Their purchase journey has evolved and now become more complicated.
Apart from their own instincts, they are relying on extensive product information, peer, and customer reviews about the products they intend to buy. With this evolving customer expectations, eCommerce development is more crucial, lately.
The eCommerce website has the potential to either make or break the business success, growth in sales and revenue. In this article, we have detailed some of the key web development tips for eCommerce websites.
Go for a Simple Design
With the popularity and wide-scale adoption, businesses are striving to acquire a competitive edge over their counterparts by staying on top of the mind of their target customer base. While the attention span of customers is narrowing down, a catchy, intuitive yet simple website design is critical to deliver great first impressions.
Many eCommerce businesses leave no stone unturned to make their website look sophisticated. But, the million-dollar question is, is it enough? Well, an aesthetically great website may capture the audience’s attention, it’s the simplicity, and user-friendly design that encourages customer conversions.
eCommerce businesses must focus on leveraging a web design to attract prospective customers from all walks of life and improve the dwell time to boost sales. Besides, they are also advised to avoid complicated animations, multi-fold content, ambiguous terminology and redundant stock images up to the maximum extent possible.
Make the Website Aesthetically Compelling
First impressions are everything, lately! A blurry or unclear image of a product on the eCommerce website may ruin the customer’s brand perception. It might discourage their purchase decision. This is the reason why eCommerce businesses must pay greater attention to using high-quality images to exhibit their products.
As the customer cannot actually feel the product before buying, the presentation carries a lot of importance. eCommerce brands could also leverage videos to demonstrate and promote the product in a creative and intuitive way.
Navigation Menu is a Must
Navigation menus are critical when it comes to the success of any website. It is of utmost significance for eCommerce websites also. The navigation menu should appear either horizontally at the top of the eCommerce website or vertically on the left side, across all the eCommerce solutions.
A well-organized navigation menu improves the customers’ ease of usage and ultimately their brand experience. One of the crucial features of the navigation menu is that it should allow customers to easily search for a product.
The dropdown menu should be used to showcase the categories and subcategories of products offered by an eCommerce business.
The Shopping Cart Should be Handy
The buying behavior of customers has evolved quite rapidly. They prefer to browse through an endless portfolio of products and to add the selected ones to the shopping cart in a hassle-free manner.
Here, the readily recognizable shopping cart is of utmost importance; the icon should pop up across all the pages of an eCommerce website to assist the customers to add their choice. This will go a long way in offering the users a consistent look-and-feel over the products they’ve added to their cart, serving as a continuous reminder for them to complete their shopping process.
This strategy will help eCommerce businesses to boost the conversion rates and reduce shopping cart abandonment scenarios.
Incorporate Customer Testimonials to establish Credibility
With the constant source of brand promotions, today’s customers have grown immune to the monotonous product promotions. Studies have highlighted that customers today rely more on the digital word-of-mouth and peer, customer ratings and reviews than brand promotions.
Thus, customer reviews and testimonials are the best way to cast a brand in positive limelight and establish the quality of its products. Positive feedback from the existing user base can influence the buying decisions of potential customers and boost sales.
Thus, eCommerce brands must take requisite measures to strategically place their customer testimonials/reviews throughout their eCommerce websites.
If the customer testimonial bears the name and image of the customer, it is a welcome addition as this reinstates the authenticity of the testimonial.
Integrate Social Media
Today, social media have become an integral part of our personal and professional lives. More and more businesses are realizing its significance and making attempts to unleash its true potential for their benefit.
Online retailers and eCommerce brands should also leverage social media to amplify the reach of their brand messaging to a rather massive audience base.
Studies have cited that a lot of e-commerce orders are generated from Facebook and Instagram. Thus, sharing and exhibiting popular products on social media handles could be beneficial for e-commerce brands to drive good conversions.
Create a Sense of Urgency
Have you heard of the term “sense of urgency”? Do you have a clear understanding of it? When we are talking about eCommerce brands, upping the sales scale, the sense of urgency is of great significance.
Let us consider a couple of scenarios. Have you ever come across the situation wherein your selected product is out of stock? You might feel disappointed. Yet, here is another scenario wherein the message says only a few pieces are available or the offer ends in say 10 hours or by today mid-night.
This is sure to encourage more views and purchases. Creating a product scarcity scenario intentionally can boost sales. This strategy leverages the fear of missing out (FOMO) that, in turn, results in impulse buying.
Got more queries on eCommerce web development? Wait no more! Connect with the experts at Vinculum today!
