There are lot of things to consider when you start designing the Ecommerce website from site performance to user engagement. Designing an ecommerce website is a complicated and challenging task. Designers have to consider many things before designing an ecommerce website and to make sure the site is intuitive and easy to use in order to make sales.

Reasons you need an ecommerce website

• No geographical limitation

Ecommerce website does not tie you down to a physical location. It gives you the wings to operate anywhere and not be limited to a particular locality.

• Versatility

Online sales include a lot of features that will help you to create data that will be useful when you plan to expand your inventory or create advertisements in the future.

• Door to  unhindered Growth

Ecommerce websites lets your website grow limitlessly as it lets you reach a wider circle of customers than a physical store. It also makes you popular due to the reach you will get and this will help you establish yourself as a brand.

• 24*7 availability

Ecommerce website gives you the power to open your store 24*7 at lesser cost and this gives your audience the flexibility to make their purchase at any time. Any holiday or Sunday will not affect your store's functioning nor do you have to depend on your employee's availability.

• Increased profits

The number of employees you hire for your ecommerce store is comparatively lesser than aiming to open physical stores at the same number of places and the power to be available 24*7 gives you increased profits. It also decreases the cost of inventory management.

Ecommerce stats

• Let us see some stats to know the benefits of ecommerce even more.
• Stats say that 53% of global internet users have made an online purchase in 2016 which approximates to 1 billion. (Source: US Government)
• On a stat based on customer behaviour it was found that 40% of boys between 18-34 years said that they would buy everything online compared to 33% girls of the same age criteria.
• The top 3 traffic sources that drove sales for Ecommerce sites last year were Organic (22%), Email (20%) and CPC (19%). The others are display and social account with a negligible 1 and 2% respectively
• 43% of e-commerce traffic comes from Google search (organic) and 26%  comes from Google Adwords says another source.
• When it comes to customer behaviour,   39% of users will stop engaging with a website that takes a long time to load 38% users will leave a website if they find it unattractive or unpleasing to their eyes and says Adobe
• An eye tracking survey says that 400 pixels from the left edge is the area of desktop site viewing which gets the most viewing time  
• A study on shopping cat behaviour states that 44% users will abandon their shopping cart if the shipping cost is high or if they find surprise charges during checkout.
• Return policy that is flexible plays an important role in the success of an ecommerce site. A stat by comScore supports this stating that inconvenient returns policy discourages 80% of shoppers 
• If you are targeting audience in china then this is a stat that you need to know. McKinsey's 2016 China Digital Consumer Survey Report states that 31% of Chinese WeChat users made a purchase through WeChat in 2016 which is double the rate compared to the numbers in 2015. 
• It's 7 times more expensive to obtain the loyalty of a new customer than retaining an existing one says Invesp
• The Average Order value for repeat customers is twice as high compared to the customers who are purchasing for the first-time  
• A high quality smart Customer service is indispensible for the success of any ecommerce website. This is proved by the stat by  RightNow that claims that 89% of shoppers stop buying from online stores that have bad customer service.

Related: What Sets the Top Ecommerce Companies Apart from the Rest

Things to Consider during ecommerce Website Development

An ecommerce website that is built abiding a few strategies makes a great deal of difference when it comes to conversions. Here are few things that you can add to your eCommerce Website Development strategy.

Implement Responsive Design

Use of mobile phones for shopping has grown at a high stride without looking back and there is no doubt that these numbers are going to shoot up with time. As a matter of fact, stats support this point that by 2017, the number of sales made using mobile are going to add up to over one fourth of ecommerce sales.

When users access your website through their smartphones or tablets and find a broken unattractive website to shop, they are more unlikely to prefer it as they have n number of options available to shop the same product.  Hence it is important for you to make use of the development in technology to render a good responsive design website to your customers. A website with responsive design adapts itself to the user's screen and displays a clean website design.

Include Refined Search Bars and filters

Statistics show that 30% of visitors to ecommerce sites use search bars on top of the ecommerce website to find the products they are looking for. So it's important implement search functionality in your website and place it in the website such that it is prominent. In addition to this, do not forget to implement features like autocomplete that will suggest the possible options that is available in the website while the user is typing a product. 

Include filters for each and every categories and sub categories to help the users to zero down on what they want from your website  by Including by department, size, price range, manufacturer, and much more. This will help them find exactly what they are looking for without any hassle or frustration. As looking for something in your mind for a long time among hundreds and thousands of pages will indeed be frustrating to customers who already have a slightest idea of what they want. Whether you're developing new webpages or optimizing existing ones, make sure that you have clean, SEO-friendly code.

Simplified Checkout 

Even though user details are very important for a business to follow up on customers and track them, do not force your visitors to create an account in order to purchase from your website. This will intimidate them to leave your website abandoning your page making you eventually lose out on customers.

Implement Guest Checkout feature in your website to avoid this scenario. A customer who is happy with your services and products will undoubtedly comeback to purchase more. You can do your bit of encouraging customers to register by putting up a prominent CTA with a coupon but leave it upon their choice to register with you. 

Simple payment

Ecommerce sites lure customers with options like free delivery, easy returns, 'one click' payment options etc. Keep the billing form also simple with limited fields by trying to avoid unnecessary form fields and offering one click payments and offering to remember card details etc.

 Great Content

A content that engages and interests a customer is necessary to retain your customers and encourage them to spend more time in your websites to take a look on your products. A great content that has good quality keywords are sure to give you good search engine rankings. It also helps your customers to get an idea of your best products. Apart from high quality images, high quality content are also required to attract customers to your website. 

Including Blogs which are posted from time to time with discussions on latest products and your brand related information will encourage your customers and visitors to spend more time on your page eventually subscribing to it. Make sure that you post relevant, engaging content that is trending and shareable in social media to take your brand even further.

Security badges and Trust seals

Ecommerce websites undoubtedly involves money transactions. For people to entrust you with their money, they have to trust your brand and credibility of your website. Using https link and trust badges can shoots up your conversion rate by 72.05% says stats. This is a valid reason since users who purchase from you entrust you with a lot of confidential details too other than money, they provide their personal details and bank details to complete a transaction. A small insicent of security breach will damage your brand reputation. Hence it is necessary to ideally look at SSL to make sure that any information provided by users are encrypted once stored on the site. 

See to it during ecommerce web development that it adheres to PCI standards while receiving any payment information. 

Optimize Performance 

An ecommerce website that sells multiple products are loaded with a lot of product information and, high quality and still expected to not compromise on performance as no visitor waits more than 3 seconds for a page to load. Hence it is necessary to optimize your website for performance. It is also necessary for an ecommerce website to stay up and running all the time as website downtime do a great harm to reputation of your brand and makes you lose a lot of customers.  Hence it is recommended to seek the help of Cloud computing services to avoid such issues. It is also necessary to see that your website performs faster on mobile devices too during web development.

Example of top ecommerce websites in Middle East:

1. Awok (https://www.awok.com/)

This website offers High quality products in jewellery, electronics, toys and much more. It offers multiple modes of payment, quick and efficient delivery of products, 24-hour customer support system , 100% genuine products guarantee and 14-day hassle free exchange or return policy for the convenience of its users.   

2. Basharacare.com (www.basharacare.com)

This website deals with skin and body care products. All products it offers are backed by a dermatologist thereby winning user trust. They also offer quick delivery of products and after sale customer support system to its customers.

3. Blowout and Go (https://www.blowoutandgo.ae/)

This is a service based website that offers the customers to book makeup and hairstylist services from home. It offers best hairstylist and makeup artists who are trained well to do the task for customers. 

4. BuyOnDubai.com (http://www.buyondubai.com/)

This website is Middle East's biggest electronic online website. It deals with electronics and also provides great deals in selling computers, mobiles etc. Buyondubai is widely appreciated by its customers for its faster delivery of products, enriching shopping experience, easy checkout process and hassle free return policy. It has a customer centric policy which is another feather to its cap.

Related: Top E-commerce Companies in the Middle East

How eDesk HUB helps in selecting the ecommerce company via assisted services

Choosing an Ecommerce Website Design and Development Company for your business to entrust the development task in building high quality websites from the vast pool of development companies available in the market may be taxing.

If you plan to develop an ecommerce website for your business, you can count on eDesk HUB ASSISTED SERVICES to give you a list of top ecommerce development companies who are pro in their fields with best web developers and designers and we also provide you with their reviews. Our motto is to help you in making the right decision. 

• We have phone support team to discuss your project requirements and help you in creating an RFP for your project
• You can also give us your project details and we help you find the best companies
• We white label and forward your project specifications to the pre-vetted companies
• We forward you the final proposals and a comparison sheet
• You decide which company to work with after reviewing the company profile and proposal
• The agreement is signed between you and the company directly.

eDesk HUB also has the curation of Top ecommerce website development companies in Middle East that will help you to choose from  

Conclusion:

If these points are considered while developing your website, it will not only increase the conversion rate but also establish your brand by winning the trust of your users. Build a high quality, top performing custom ecommerce website at better ecommerce website development cost by choosing the right Ecommerce Website Design and Development Company and sit back and see the growth of your enterprise.

If you are into web application development business and aims for exposure to the right audience, Register your company on eDesk HUB. By creating your company profile and submitting client references, you'll hear from potential customers who are looking for your services.

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