5 things to consider when developing a web-shop solution

1. Responsive design

The use of mobile devices to access websites is constantly growing, and sales through web-shop solutions are a big part of this traffic. In fact, statistics show that by 2019, more than a quarter of sales through web-shop solutions will be done via mobile phone. This means that it is extremely important that your web shop solution is optimized for mobile devices, providing the best experience to users regardless of the device they use to access your website.

Tip: Implementing a customizable design to make a website accessible and usable on every device is important to the success of a web shop solution. Consider using mobile first design, both in the design and development process and in the programming process.

2. Purchase without registration

Many web shop solutions will often require users to create an account in order to complete a purchase, as this allows for subsequent communication that encourages future sales, as well as tracking customer demographic information for sales analysis. However, it is important to remember that not everyone wants to go through the process of creating an invoice in order to buy a product. Recurring customers want to register and take advantage of invoices, such as storing their information for future purchases and receiving notifications of upcoming sales, but it's still a good idea to provide an option for customers who want to place just one order.

Tip: Since you still want to try to encourage users to create an account, you can try to design a purchase process to allow users to fill out the form, and when you're done, allow them to create an account using the information you originally entered on the form. Consider the so-called. a quick purchase, where the customer will show interest in one product by leaving only one of their contact details (e.g. email or phone number), after which your task is to contact the customer and complete the sale. In the web shop solutions we have developed for our clients, this functionality has proven to be very effective and has brought over 50 new orders on a monthly basis.

3. Search is important

Statistics show that 30% of visitors to web-shop solutions use search to find the products they are looking for, so it is important to ensure that search functionality is accessible and easy to use. In addition, it's a good idea to use options such as autocomplete search terms to help users find popular products or items related to their searches.

Filtered search is another important way to help users find products. This functionality allows them to narrow your search in a variety of ways, including by department, size, price range, manufacturer, etc. Providing this functionality gives users more power to find what they need, allowing them to limit their searches to exactly what they are looking for.

Tip: To make sure your search results work best, make sure your product information is fully defined and well-organized, enabling filtered search and better search results overall.

4. Security is important

All web shop solutions should support SSL to encrypt information that must remain secure. This especially applies to credit card and payment information, but also to all other customer information such as address, phone number, email, etc. Customers expect that their personal data will remain secure when shopping online, which ensures that implementing SSL is not only a good idea, but something that is absolutely necessary. Of course, make sure that the web shop solution at the application level is protected from unwanted intrusions.

Tip: Do not store credit card numbers in the database of your web shop solution. While it may seem like a good idea to keep card information in a file to make it easier for customers to make purchases, storing that data on your servers poses a huge security risk, and if your database is compromised, you will be responsible for that loss.

5. Optimize site performance

If your website is slow, you are likely to lose customers. Statistics show that 40% of users will leave a web page that takes more than 3 seconds to load. This is especially true for mobile users, who often access multiple websites at once and are likely to switch to your competition's website.

To prevent losing customers due to slow load times, you want to make sure your website is optimized and running as fast as possible, here are some tips to help it run smoothly:

• Merging JavaScript or CSS files of a web page into individual files will speed up their interaction with the web page, as users will only need to download one JavaScript file or style sheet instead of five or ten.
• Compress images, which will allow them to provide the best images in the smallest possible size, reducing download time.
• Use caching to reduce the time spent sending data between the web server and the database server.
• Optimize SQL queries using an index, which can be especially important in web shops with a large amount of data.

Keeping these aspects of web-shop solutions in mind when developing will help you provide the best experience for your customers, but keep in mind that there are many more elements to consider when developing.

Do you need help to understand how to start developing your web-shop solution?

Please contact us to discuss your, new or existing web shop, or feel free to leave any questions in the comments below, and until then, check out our portfolio web-shop solutions at this link.