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5 E commerce Set Up Factors For Success

If you are looking to

  • Sell products online – and take payment
  • Create wish lists  – so customers can compare and contrast
  • Provide the ability for a customer to request a quote – so you can respond back with a price
  • Showcase some products clearly – so a customer has information for further action

Then an e commerce platform could be just what you need. Whether it’s Shopify to give you a low cost start, Woo Commerce a mid tier package  through to Magento if you have highly complex products with lots of configuration potential, there is lots to consider.

5 E commerce Set Up Factors For Success

The context of the site for a customer

  • What is it that they want to buy on your site
  • Do they hate wasting time
  • Whilst they potentially want to buy do they hate being sold to
  • Might they feel that they are being coerced into a purchase
  • Once they have been on the site will they feel that they are being tracked and stalked (until they opt out forever)
  • How easy is it to pay
    • credit card
    • pay pal
    • all payment mechanisms
  • How safe and secure do i feel when dealing with the site
  • Is it really clear how I reach you in the event of a dispute (showcasing address / telephone numbers etc) to demonstrate your not dodgy

The context of the site for the business

  • Is your primary aim to take money (we have built many sites that allow customers to build a quote , develop a wish list , see and select products in a very easy way )
  • Is your site purpose to make money
  • If you can create “Happy” customers then potentially you can make more money
  • If your site is fast, then potentially you can make more money
  • If your ecommerce activity is low maintenance, then potentially you can make more profit
  • If you have the capability to analyse and track then that will increase the potential to reach more customers

E commerce Set Up Considerations

1: Tracking – aim for as little as you can get away with

  • Tracking adds javascript
  • Javascript adds weight, complexity etc
  • People don’t like being tracked
  • Many people may be blocking tracking scripts

2: Design – aim for the simplest you can get away with

  • The Information Architecture – too many options are bad
  • Ask yourself do you really need to use extra fonts
  • Is that fancy transition really required
  • Have the images to be used been optimised for the web (Yes your products look great but you really don’t need 25mb images)

3: Accessibility – do not ignore people with disabilities

  • We have written about it before – the range of disabilities is extensive sight, sound, motor, cognitive etc
  • Accessibility is also for people who have changed circumstances that are not disabilities e.g trying to make a purchase whilst you have screaming children at your feet, trying to make a purchase on a mobile with poor connectivity
  • The following resource is a useful introduction 

4: Use Technology correctly

  • Have a competent DNS registrar and host
  • Always use HTTPS
  • More importantly do not use HTTP ( note HTTP is not faster than HTTPS even on pages that have no payment / e commerce or are just blogs)
  • If possible use containers
  • Think about moving all your media off site (Amazon S3) to avoid massive downloads

5: Developing the E commerce site

  • No shared accounts
  • Developers should be given their own details . Better still they get invited into accounts
  • Whats the policy of revokation
  • What  is the protocol if you don’t want to work with someone anymore
  • Backups – have you tested restoration
  • Have you been through a through testing process
  • When deploying to go live for what period of time does your site go down
  • For another day “atomic deployments and multi server environments”
  • Clean code / code style used / code linting used
  • Modern programming principles (composer) and using .env files
  • Measure site performance

Summary – 5 E commerce Set Up Factors For Success

  • Simplify
  • Fast
  • Accessible
  • Efficient
  • Secure
  • Logical

For more information and news on marketing, digital and ecommerce click here. To contact Andrew Goode an experienced marketing and digital professional click here

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