Building an e-commerce store has never been easier. But there is a world of difference between an e-commerce store that works and an e-commerce store you can count on being operational for years to come. The difference is almost always in the early decisions made long before the first order is put through.
There are far too many e-commerce businesses that approach building their store as something to tick off the list. Get it done, start processing orders, and fix it as they go. It’s six months down the line that the store that once seemed workable starts to feel cramped. The checkout process is not capable of handling the level of personalization customers have come to expect. The expansion of product offerings suddenly demands workarounds that make the back end feel like a mess. The site might even buckle under the traffic generated by a well-placed promotion.
With the End in Mind
The best e-commerce setups start with the end in mind, not with the building of the store as it exists today. Considerations about product expansion, seasonality, and what customers expect from shopping experiences aligned with their brand must be accounted for. A store that handles 50 orders a day is not the same as an e-commerce setup that can handle 500.
The platform selected is more relevant than most new business owners realize. What works for a setup that handles 30 products is not suitable for someone selling thousands of products with needs that require complex inventory management. Switching platforms down the line is not straightforward. Getting it right during the initial setup saves years of hassle.
The Technical Foundations That Matter
Performance is about so much more than quick-loading pages. It’s about how well a system scales to meet firm needs over the next few years. Will this platform integrate with the warehouse management system that they will require? Is it compatible with the email and customer experience solutions that can ensure success? These integrations must feel seamless and effortless.
A look at the Pacific IQ Client Portfolio reveals just how well an e-commerce store can perform when adequate planning and expertise go into building one. The firms that get it right are always the ones where someone thought of these integrations. It’s not an issue that should only be addressed a year down the line when problems keep piling up.
Mobile usability is a whole other ballgame. More than half of all e-commerce traffic comes from mobile devices, and mobile customers do not have a lot of patience for poor user interfaces. Navigation must be seamless. Checkout should work flawlessly on screens half the size of desktops. Images should load quickly, and the user journeys designed on mobile should be nothing short of exceptional.
Building for Customer Experience
There is a fine line between making sure the technical aspects of an e-commerce setup are functional and making the setup impossible for customers to use. This is the time to consider the customer’s shopping experience.
Customers do not care about how cool the e-commerce setup is. They just want to find what they want quickly, understand what they are buying, and get it, all in a seamless experience.
Product pages that are designed for conversion cover all of this. They answer the questions customers have before they have to ask them. They provide quality images from various angles and detailed descriptions. And they cover everything important from and shipping information. By the time someone lands on the page, they should have everything they need to make a buying decision.
The cart abandonment rate is one of the biggest challenges that e-commerce shops face when converting customers. Each extra step in the checkout process makes it harder for customers to complete a purchase. Each field they need to fill in and every moment of confusion adds to their desire to abandon their carts.
The best check out processes make it as easy as possible for customers to share only the information firms need to fulfil their orders.
Planning to Scale, Not Overbuilding
There’s a fine balance when building e-commerce stores that are designed to accommodate ten orders a week and those built to withstand the deluge of Black Friday. It would be idiotic to design a store for the ten orders of today to be resilient in the face of next year’s Black Friday onslaught. It would also be a bad decision to design a store so sparse that it will require a complete rebuild in a year.
Well-designed e-commerce stores balance complexity and flexibility while allowing firms to grow their business without cumbersome day-to-day practices. This balance involves choosing solutions that will grow over time. This might be tiered pricing for platforms that unlock modules as firms use them. Other cases of this may involve modular systems where companies add functions without rebuilding their entire site.
Inventory management sneaks up on firms. What works for 50 products in one location might not work for 500 products scattered across the globe. Inventory management solutions should cover multiple locations if firms scale; sync with suppliers, and provide accurate stock information for customers with queries.
The Role of Data and Analytics
An e-commerce shop provides valuable insights from day one. Where do customers come from? What do they search for? What do they abandon? What do they buy together? These questions must inform every decision firms make in the future but only if they can gain insights from them.
Setting up proper insights tracking methods in advance means firms get to discover why product pages give problems to customers and why customers abandon checkout flows halfway through. They also get to see what product combinations need more information on product pages and which pairing should be avoided when planning promotions.
This choice puts firms on a path to making insightful decisions rather than spending thousands of hours guessing at best practice solutions.
Get Help When Needed
Building stores is no one-man show, and not when it comes to designing an e-commerce store focused on long-term success rather than functionality. The firms that get these setups right work with a team who knows what they are doing—who knows which shortcuts become sore points down the line and which solutions pay off long-term.
The cost of doing things right up front may feel exorbitant. However, it’s more painful (and costly) down the line when firms have to suffer the consequences of cheating themselves by attempting to build something themselves.
An adequate foundation is necessary for these efforts. E-commerce setups should work to assist firms rather than keep owners awake at night as they struggle with avoidable issues caused by faulty initial setups.
