E-commerce in Nuneaton

8 Key aspects of an online store (for the curious)

We recognise that the majority of entrepreneurs do not have time to go into details of programming (and it's nothing bad!). Especially for them we introduced the list of 8 key assumptions, which have to be scrutinised before creating a good online store. Be aware that badly prepared online store will not bring you any profit, on the contrary it will generate unnecessary costs.

1. Selection of the appropriate store system

When we complete the analysis of customer's needs, we choose an appropriate store system, which over the long term will be the best for the store. We can select from the WooCommerce store system, PrestaShop, Magento and Shopify and some others. The first two (WooCommerce, PrestaShop) are ideal for less developed stores. Their main features are the low cost of creating and developing an online store. In turn relevant protection (assured by us) guarantees stable operation. The third position (Magento) is a system dedicated to really expanded online stores. In this case the cost of creation and expansion of the store is much bigger and demands special programming knowledge. However, Magento provides us more possibilities, such as running several stores in one administrative panel.

2. First impression (trust)

Do you consider that an attractive offer will be enough to ensure a large number of orders? You are wrong. In e-commerce one of the most important factors is trust. If the customer thinks that your store is untrustworthy, your chances of order are equal to zero. Because of that a large number of budget online stores are closed before their actual "opening". Statistically, the first 5 seconds are the most substantial. Then the customer creates his own opinion, which is difficult to change. If your store seems professional, you have more chances for conversion. We wrote about conversions in point 3.

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

Each order, phone contact, request for an offer, filling out the contact form or adding a product to your favorites in the browser is an example of a conversion, so the action the customer is expected to do. The target of the online store creator is to increase the number of conversions. Special focus 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 maximise conversions:

4. A secure, recognisable and convenient payment system

Have you ever considered what payment system will be the best for your online store? When you decide about it, take notice of 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 have many verified systems to propose. One of the most universal and well-known systems all around the world is PayPal. Stripe works best in the United Kingdom. DIBS, Klarna and Vipps work best in Norway. Next, sales in Germany will be facilitated by Stripe, 2Checkout, and PayFast. If you don't see any payment system you are following, tell us about it! We will check if this system can be integrated to your online store.

5. Responsive version

Do you know that last year 82% of online shopping was done from mobile devices? This is why adaptation to the latest smartphones and tablets is an integral part of an online store. The designer of your online store has to focus not only on the correct display of the project in the mobile (responsive) version, but also the comfort of its use (trends of intuitive use of UX and UI). A polished responsive version may considerably increase the number of orders - if you don't have a regular customer base yet.

6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Firstly, let's learn something about how an Internet search engine works. In short, there are robots, which index data collected from websites and save them in a database. Retained information is analysed according to an algorithm created by Google specialists. Currently, the most substantial for positioning, among others, are the amount of specific content and their frequent updating on an online store (the more, the better). One of the essential elements of SEO is locating selected keywords (e.g. product names) in appropriate headings in an online store: h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6. To demonstrate, while you are interested in a phrase "online stores" in h2 headline you should place a text

Remember that local positioning (e.g. online stores Nuneaton) is much easier because of a smaller competition. The same rule relates to the popularity of your product range, which means that niche products and categories will reach the top position much faster. In case of popular products the appearance in TOP 10 in England is difficult and time consuming, however it is possible. The second crucial element which should be taken into consideration are links to your site. They may come from other websites or from your own online store. An example is following redirect to the website creator offer (it's best if linked pages are thematically related):

7. Acquire customers in the online store

Consider that you want to open a stationary store in your city. Would you choose a busy city centre or unoccupied outskirts for its location? A place of a stationary store is the equivalent of an online store advertisement. There are many free and paid ways of advertising. For example, natural search engine results (SEO and positioning), paid search engine links (Google Ads - formerly AdWords), banner ads on other websites (Google Ads), ads on YouTube (Google Ads), entries to the store on the recommendation (word of mouth, your customers' facebook, business cards), access to the online store from social media (profiles of your company). Call us and tell us more about your target group, so we can suggest how to gain new customers.

8. Maintenance and security of the online store

Many programmers do not know how crucial a server is, on which the online store is located. Depending on the store system, amount of users and the store functions, we focus on components' security and efficiency. However, to understand this aspect well, specialised knowledge of SysOps and DevOps is necessary, but you don't need to have it. Universal aspects, which should be taken into account are optional resource scalability, the amount of available RAM, the amount of disk space, the frequency of creating independent backup copies of files and the database (preferably if such a copy is created daily), the cost of restoring the backup of files and the database (optimally if it is 0 GBP).