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eCommerce, the most competitive ecosystem in the digital universe. Building an eCommerce website from the ground up is not an ordinary task. It takes a ton of effort, patience, and most importantly the right strategy to progress further.
This article is aimed at delivering the best and most basic factors that are mandatory in building a perfect eCommerce store.
Every eCommerce store out there has something unique but there is a common ground hidden below all the fancy and customer-attractive stuff.
The common ground starts with a clear picture of the basic requirements, “what is the purpose of starting an eCommerce store?”
Be clear about the purpose, eventually, things will fall in place. With the basic purpose, sketch out the layout of how things will be and proceed from there.
Like a foundation to tall buildings, an eCommerce store must have five basic factors finalized before proceeding further. Ensure that your foundations are strong for your business to grow tall. Moreover, you must add some essential eCommerce features and functionalities that every user expects in your store.
Building up the best eCommerce store incorporates numerous factors and we have presented to you the mandatory ones that can take you in the right direction.
Mandatory Factors to be Considered
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about an eCommerce store? Well, be honest and write down your answers.
Oftentimes, the mandatory factors are overlooked and ignored. When it happens, it can cause a great deal of damage in the long run. Here, we have compiled a list of factors that are common to all the successful eCommerce stores around the world.
Need and want are two different things, the factors mentioned below are need and definitely not a branch of want.
Must-have factors that determine the success of the eCommerce store
- Proper Hosting
- Responsive User interface (UI/UX)
- Ideal Domain Name
- Tools to encourage customers and increase revenue
- Perfect CMS for you
Now, you may read and say “come on, we already know that”, yes, you already know it. But what are the nuances that are hidden in it? If everyone knows this, then why are there only a handful of successful eCommerce stores?
Do you get my point? Well, there are numerous conditions and hidden layers in each of these factors. Everything is analyzed and explained here clearly.
Proper Hosting Service
Reliable hosting is an invaluable part of your eCommerce business. There are different types of hosting services available, but select the one that meets your needs.
The hosting service needs to be fast, reliable and should be capable of handling high traffic. All this put together will constitute an exceptional service. Plans to scale up your business in the near future must be supported by the hosting provider.
Irregular or poor hosting service is capable of completely demolishing your business. Slow loading pages can result in loss of revenue through the abandonment of carts. Customers will have the worst shopping experience.
The recent development of technology has paved way for numerous hosting plans and each has its own features at a certain price range. There are some popular hosting plans which are commonly used by eCommerce companies. Before you zero in on the plan, ensure that you are satisfied with the plan and the future demands.
An easy way to do it is to find out the hosting partner of your competitor. By clearly analyzing your competitors, you can clearly identify the plan that suits your requirements.
Selecting the right hosting partner will determine the way you can scale up in the future. Also, don’t forget about the SSL certificate to secure your content and site. Plan and strategize your progress and select the best hosting plan according to it.
Responsive User Interface UI/UX
The user interface is the first thing that should be taken into consideration while designing an eCommerce store.
A responsive user interface elevates the liveliness of your eCommerce store. The better the user interface the better your audience experience. Your user interface design should be planned and developed depending upon your audience base.
The perfect theme, responsive interface, and proper navigation within the website, all put together will form a complete circle that is capable of increasing repetitive customers. When it comes to responsive themes, there are multiple options available, it is your responsibility to select the best for your eCommerce store.
Customize colors, fonts, and layouts to make the customer feel welcomed and special while shopping in your store. To gain an edge over your competitors, you need to focus on all the aspects of your eCommerce store.
The impact created by an eCommerce store theme is evident from day one. In many cases, the themes play a crucial role in bringing back a majority of the customers.
Selecting a beautiful theme is essential but zeroing in on a theme that suits your brand is important. There are a number of themes available in the market, take your time to select the one. If you miss or make any hasty decisions with respect to themes, then changing them after a period of time is a headache.
Go ahead with a theme that allows you to customize fonts, colors, and layout. There is no perfect fit but customization is as close as you can get when it comes to selecting the right theme.
Be clear, and precise in selecting the best fitting theme as it will become a representation of your brand. Visually create a positive experience for your visitors and turn them into customers.
Domain Name Is Important
The importance of selecting an ideal domain name cannot be emphasized enough. A crucial aspect of any eCommerce website.
Yes, I agree, it is a complicated process, there are billions of domain names in existence. There is nothing wrong with putting some time and effort into selecting a domain name. A domain name expresses who you are, it lets the world know about your store.
A unique domain name with complete relevance to what you are doing is a must. There are a couple of tips that can help you in selecting the domain name.
- Name it from the customer perspective – If you look at successful businesses around the globe, you can find one common thing hidden behind layers of success. Their names are customer-friendly and it expresses customers’ intentions. Get the name from your target audience’s perspective.
For example, if you are selling sports goods, then think of a domain name from an athlete’s point of view.
- An easy-to-remember name – Never ever think about using long names, never. A short and meaningful domain name is easy to remember. It sticks to the user’s mind and is easy to remember. Be clear and strong about using a short domain name. The moment you have zeroed in on the domain name, find its availability and purchase it immediately.
A domain name is a huge part of having a successful eCommerce store. The moment your store name reaches every household, you start to witness the rising revenue graph.
Tools to Encourage Customers
Encouraging and rewarding customers is a part of the process. There are a ton of tools available in the digital space for this purpose.
Each tool is significant to grow and expand your business. If you look at the recent statistics, you can clearly see that the eCommerce industry is losing more revenue due to cart abandonment.
Now, if you are a new store owner, what will you do about it? The obvious answer is, selecting the best cart recovery plugin. The plugin you select should not only recover carts but also should encourage customers to purchase more.
For example, when a customer recovers their abandoned cart, you need to reward them. Like, a discount for their next purchase or referral points, something that will encourage them to visit your store more often.
These tools are effective and have a proven track record to retain customers for a longer period of time. Make sure to use effective tools that enhance your store.
Also, once your store starts to scale up you need to have methods to gather audience information and generate leads. By implementing the best popups in the eCommerce industry you can generate potential leads. A strategy to convert leads into loyal customers will help you immensely in reaching a bigger target and audience.
Getting a tool is not enough but having the right tools will help you go a long way. Also, you need to encourage customers to shop more in your store. Must reward them when they make a special purchase. All these are effective ways to encourage customers to visit your eCommerce store often.
The best loyalty plugin in the digital spectrum allows you to embed numerous options that are aimed at improving your eCommerce store standard. Having the right set of tools will make your job easier and also help in implementing effective ways to grab audience attention in the competitive digital space.
Deliver the best experience for every user visiting your website. When your target audience is satisfied with your eCommerce store experience, they will turn into store promoters and bring in more customers.
Include these effective tools during the initial stages of your eCommerce store building. This will effectively reduce your burden and at the same time will increase your store’s growing pace.
Perfect CMS
Content Management System (CMS), the platform that helps you a great deal in managing your eCommerce store and business. The perfect CMS platform provides solutions to the look and functionalities of your website.
The bottom line is, CMS is the bloodline of your eCommerce store. A perfect CMS platform plays a crucial role in building, intensifying, and elevating your eCommerce store. The platform allows you to modify your business on the go and give you a chance to stay in the competition.
While selecting a CMS platform, select the one that is easy to use, affordable, and supports your operation. WordPress is one of the most used and user-friendly CMS platforms out there.
But there are many other platforms, make sure that you get the one that suits your needs. Using the one that does not suit your needs will result in chaos in the later stage of the business.
Deliver outstanding experience in your eCommerce store with the right platform. Every aspect of building an eCommerce store is important and during the initial stages itself, you need to plan for future growth, in terms of both revenue and brand awareness.
Conclusion
Building an eCommerce store is not an easy task but can be made easy if proper planning and strategy are involved. Make changes whenever necessary and execute the perfect plan without any hindrance. Think about all the aspects and execute them with caution. Selecting the tool will make your tasks much easier and help you a great deal in scaling up your business.
A great eCommerce store is within your reach.
