E-commerce in Manchester

8 Key factors of an online store (for the inquisitive)

We know that a lot of businessmen do not have time to get into the details of programming (and it's nothing wrong!). Especially for them we made the description of 8 key factors, which have to be well-thought before constructing a good website. Remember that a badly prepared online store will not make any profit, on the contrary it will generate unnecessary costs.

1. Selection of the appropriate store system

When we finish the examination of customer's needs, we select a proper store system, which in the long run will work the best for the store. At our disposal, among others, there are the WooCommerce store system, PrestaShop, Magento and Shoper. WooCommerce and PrestaShop are ideal for less expanded stores, because they characterise with the low cost of creation and development of an online store. On the other hand relevant security (ensured by us) provides stable operation. Magento is a system devoted to really big online stores. Here the cost of creating and developing the store is higher and requires specialised knowledge of programming. Nonetheless, this system provides more options to us. One of its greatest features is the possibility of running several stores in one administrative panel.

2. First impression (trust)

Do you believe that an attractive offer is enough to guarantee many orders? Not always. In e-commerce one of the most essential aspects is trust. If a client thinks that your store is untrustworthy, there is a little chance that he will make an order. Because of that the majority of budget online stores are closed before they are actually "opened". Statistically speaking, the first 5 seconds are the most important. Then it is hard to impact on somebody's opinion - even if it is unjust. If you make a positive impression from the start, your chances for conversion will increase. We wrote about conversions in point 3.

3. Orders and questions about the offer in online stores (conversions)

Conversion is understood as each order, phone contact, request for an offer, filling out the contact form or adding a product to your favorites in the browser is a conversion - all of the presumed customers actions. The online store creator has the purpose of maximising the number of conversions. Particular emphasis should be put on the intuitive way of adding them to the basket and the length of the ordering path. Our company uses for instance below form to increase the conversions:

4. A secure, recognisable and convenient payment system

Have you ever wondered what payment system will be the best for your store? Before making this decision, consider its recognition among target clients, functionality (e.g. support for VISA and MasterCard, BLIK, Google Pay, Apple Pay) as well as initial and fixed costs. We can propose numerous verified systems. One of the most popular systems, which is recognisable by clients around the globe, is PayPal. Stripe works best in the United Kingdom. DIBS, Klarna and Vipps work best in Norway and Stripe, 2Checkout, and PayFast are the most suitable for German market. If we haven't enlisted any of the payment systems used by you, tell us! We will examine the possibility of integrating it with your online store.

5. Responsive version

Do you know that most (82%) of online shopping was done by mobile devices? For this reason, adaptation to the latest smartphones and tablets is the norm of an online store. The creator of your online store should provide not only the correct display of the project in the mobile (responsive) version, but also the convenience of its use (trends of intuitive use of UX and UI). A refined responsive version may markedly boost the number of orders - especially if you don't have a lot of regular clients yet.

6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Do you know how it works? In a nutshell - robots index data collected from websites and save them in a database. Collected data are scrutinised according to an algorithm designed by Google specialists. At present the positioning is predominantly determined by the amount of special content and the frequency of its updating in an online store. (the more, the better). One of the most essential elements of SEO is putting chosen keywords in correct online store headings - h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6. To illustrate, a phrase that we are interested in is "online stores'', so in h2 headline we put a phrase

Be aware that local positioning (e.g. online stores Manchester) is simpler because of fewer competitors. The same rule applies to the popularity of your assortment - niche products and categories will get to the top much faster. Within popular services it is burdensome and time consuming to appear in TOP 10 in England, but it is still possible. Next substantial element to consider are links to your own site. They can come either from your online store (e.g. from the Blog section) or some other web design, preferably of the similar theme. An example is below redirect to the offer of creating web designs:

7. Acquire customers in the online store

Imagine that you want to open a stationary store in your city. Would you prefer to place it in a crowded city centre or unoccupied outskirts? A stationary store location is an equivalent to an online store advertisement. There are many paid and free ways of advertising. For instance natural search engine results (SEO and positioning), paid search engine links (Google Ads - formerly AdWords), banner ads on other websites (Google Ads), YouTube ads (Google Ads), entries to the online store by the recommendation (word of mouth, your clients' facebook, business cards), access to the online store from social media (your company's profile) and many others. Contact us and tell us more about your target group. We will be happy to suggest some convenient solutions for your business.

8. Maintenance and security of the online store

There are many programmers, who do not recognise the substance of the server, on which the online store is placed. We draw our attention to efficiency and safety of components depending on the store system, number of users and online store functions. However, due to comprehending well this issue, specialised knowledge about SysOps and DevOps is required, which you don't need to have. Universal issues to consider are the amount of available RAM, optional resource scalability, the amount of disk space, the regularity of making independent backup copies of files and the database (optimally if such a copy is created daily), the cost of restoring the backup of files and the database (preferably if it is 0 GBP).