What Makes A Successful Ecommerce Website? Find Out Here

After all, who wouldn't want to buy clothes without having to visit the store or buy gadgets (or groceries for that matter) without even leaving home? So why do some online businesses succeed while others fail? What are the top factors that contribute towards making a specific eCommerce business a success story? Here is what you need to know.

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Headless Content Management System 

Many eCommerce businesses are now investing in a headless or decoupled CMS infrastructure. This is basically an architecture where the front-end of your site can manage its content without being closely associated with the back-end CMS. When you use Headless CMS Development, integration becomes an easy task and developers can focus their time on building new features instead of managing existing ones. Headless CMS also allows for faster developer onboarding as it reduces the learning curve. Different teams will find it easier to work together since they don't have to keep waiting for other teams to build or test something before they can start working. It's no wonder then that many companies are making the switch towards decoupled infrastructures!

Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

A company's USP or Unique Selling Proposition is basically what makes it unique and stand out from the crowd. It can be anything - a better price, advanced features, the story behind its products, and so on. This forces customers to see your brand in a positive light and also go back to you for more! Be sure to keep this in mind when creating or re-engineering your website. Here are some USP ideas:

1. High-quality products
2. Excellent customer service
3. Free shipping worldwide

Social Media Presence

It goes without saying that if you want people talking about your brand online, then social media has become increasingly important in today's digital world. Social media marketing now forms a big part of most eCommerce strategies because it allows brands to connect with their customers on a more personal level. It also gives them the opportunity to help resolve customer queries and complaints by sharing or retweeting messages made by customers on different platforms. Try to use social media as much as possible without advertising too excessively - you cannot afford to annoy people on these platforms!

User Experience (UX)

This basically refers to the overall experience that a user has when they visit your site or use your app. For instance, if you have an eCommerce website that doesn't allow people to pay online, what would be their incentive for buying from you? Of course, there will be no reason for them to come back and try again! Therefore UX is extremely important as it allows users to feel comfortable while browsing through your site or using your app. This includes aspects such as speed, responsiveness, ease of access, and more. Keep these things in mind as you design/create/redesign your website. 

When it comes to eCommerce, UX can also refer to heuristics. Here are two things you need to keep in mind:

Ease of learning - how long does it take for users to learn the ropes on your site? Remember that even if certain functions or controls are obvious, take them out anyway as not everyone will necessarily understand them right away. Once people get used to your website, their experience will improve vastly. That is why many companies invest in usability testing before launching new websites or apps.

Error prevention - how can you simplify a user's experience so that they need to face as few errors as possible? Wrong purchases, delayed deliveries and faulty payments tend to discourage users from coming back to your website. Therefore it is important that the design team takes these things into account while working on a site's architecture or creating new features/transactions/etcetera for the site.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

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SEO is basically designing your website/app in such a manner that it ranks high on different search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing, etcetera. This applies both for organic results (when people type in keywords related to your business/products/services, etcetera into the search bar of any major search engine) as well as local results (results specific to your country/city, etcetera). These keywords should be included in your tagline, page titles, and content too. 

These are some of the things that can make or break your eCommerce website. Remember, what works for one business may not necessarily work for you. It is all about knowing your customers and working towards improving their experience with each interaction on your site (or via your app). Focus on UX while designing/redesigning, take into account heuristics when creating new features/transactions/etcetera and use social media effectively to resolve customer queries and boost SEO. Keep these points in mind and you'll be well on your way to having a winning internet presence!

Marvin Fry

Update 12 August 2021