// by Colin
Web design e commerce has changed utterly over the last couple of years. 68% of Irish Consumers spent more online in 2020 than they did in 2019*. This trend is set to continue and your business can grow revenues exponentially with a performant, mobile responsive ecommerce website.
Here is a list of ten things you need to keep in mind for ecommerce websites design.
- What are you selling?
The top selling ecommerce categories are Clothing, Tourism and Experiences, Tech Products, Second Hand Items, Books and Music, Educational Courses, Food Takeaway/Delivery and Tickets. If you have a physical store, an ecommerce site is more effective and compliments your on in store experience. A combination of in-store and online generates 190% more in sales than a single market place.
2. Secure and reliable hosting.
You need to build from a solid base and go with a company that will give you security, page speed and piece of mind. Invest in good hosting so that your focus may lie where it is needed, on your business. We recommend one hosting company, WP Engine, for all WordPress development.
3. An excellent ecommerce website developer.
You will get what you pay for. A professional web design company, (like us for web design Galway and Ireland), may cost more but the knowledge and expertise of an experienced team will be invaluable to your business in the long term. .IE the official registry of .ie domain names has compiled a very accurate guide to Ireland website design pricing, find it here.
4. A great photographer.
There are tons of great resources out there for stock photography and good imagery is key to a great website. Remember, this is a visual medium. In our experience, nothing beats creating original images with the help of a talented local photographer. Investing the time and money to create original images for your website will take your site to the next level. Good web design agencies will always ask for original images.
5. A payments processor.
There are many payment processing companies in the market today, for us, Stripe is hard to beat. Its pricing is competitive and they have tonnes of integrations. Stripe allows you to craft payment flows that accept all major credit and debit cards on both desktop and mobile platforms.
Stripe gives your development team the freedom to customise your own checkout or simply use their pre-built, conversion-optimised form called Checkout. The platform also enables your website to save card details so returning customers can pay with just one click.
6. Third party integrations.
Integrations with your accounting platform for invoicing and stock levels, selling on facebook, shipping services and other integrations will save you lots of time and energy in running your business. Integrations are key to streamlining your business and many business functions are supported. Integrations are a cornerstone of a successful online business.
7. Mobile Optimisation.
A responsive e-commerce website is one that is mobile friendly. The majority of consumers now transact from a mobile device so it is now essential that your mobile experience is up to scratch.
8. Analytics and Marketing Tools
If you are not measuring performance, you will not be in a position to grow your business. Search engine optimisation and the monitoring of SEO must be a key part of your strategy. There are many tools available to help you gather this information and make better decisions. Marketing tools such as social media and email marketing integrations are also fundamental to the success of your online business.
9. Customer Support
A successful business will make themselves available to their customers. Customers get frustrated if they experience difficulty in accessing customer support. It is important that you have a strategy in place to deal with frequently asked questions and also to be available at key points in the customer journey, like check out, to help your customers to do business with you. There are many tools available that may be put to good use such as live chat, phone and email support.
10. Security and Data Privacy
As an online business you must be Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant and have a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) cert on your website. You will also need to store customer data securely and have the appropriate Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Terms and Conditions in place as per GDPR requirements.
If you would like to improve your ecommerce performance or are looking to start selling online feel free to arrange a free consultation with our team. There are grants available that you may spend with web designing companies in Ireland and you can read more about LEO Website Grants.
