There is no doubt about the viability of E-commerce business. Owing to the tremendous rise in Internet traffic, E-commerce has become an extremely profitable venture in recent years. With the likes of Amazon, Alibaba, and Walmart; the benchmarks have been set very high and these brands dominate the lion share of the market. Nonetheless, there is still plenty of demand for E-commerce services throughout the world.
When it comes to creating an E-commerce website, things are not straightforward. There are a lot of requirements to satisfy the needs of the user. We will cover the four essentials for creating an engaging E-Commerce website.
1. Responsive Design
More people than ever are browsing the Internet today – on a wide range of devices. It is estimated that nearly 50% of traffic exits a website when the website’s layout does not appeal to them.
This is why a website needs to have a responsive design, irrespective of the size of the screen. People are not just accessing E-Commerce sites, they are taking orders from their smartphones and tablets. The more complex and detail-oriented the layout is, the more challenging it is to make it responsive for all screen sizes.
2. AI for Recommendations
The best way for traffic retention on an E-Commerce website is to recommend products based on people’s preferences. By doing that, there will be more traffic which will also help in faster rankings in SEO.
Enabling personalisation is also an excellent way to provide an enriched buyer experience. Gamification and chatbots can massively push up the engagement to a whole new level.
3. Speed
When it comes to shopping, people are generally impatient. This is true in the case for both online and offline shopping. With all of the engaging contents in place (images, themes, fonts, chatbots and products), the website needs to have a fast page loading time.
Anything within 3 seconds is reasonable, whereas a loading time of 6 – 7 seconds will repel users.
4. Safe and Seamless Payment Gateway
The payment gateway needs to have a high encryption system, on top of being fast and seamless. There also needs to be proper invoicing which allows the user to keep track of their purchase history.