Building and maintaining an e-commerce website is not easy. In every project there are an awful lot of aspects to consider: from user experience, security to performance. PHPro has years of experience in building professional custom webshops. Below we give you 7 e-commerce development tips that can save you a lot of time, costs and problems.

1. RESPONSIVE DESIGN

The use of mobile devices to browse websites is constantly increasing. In the coming years, most e-commerce sales will come in via mobile devices. This means that a web shop should be optimized on all types of screens. In fact, every screen should be considered. How will my product appear on desktop? And on mobile? And what will my homepage look like?

Implementing a Responsive Design to make a website accessible on any device is important for the success of an online store. Whatever platform you use, you need to make sure your mobile users get the best experience from your webshop.

2.  SUPPORT GUEST CHECKOUTS

Most online platforms want users to create an account in order to make a purchase. Makes sense, because this creates a lot of opportunities for marketing and research. It is crucial information to encourage future sales and understand your customers better so. It is important to remember, however, that not everyone will want to create an account.

Returning customers will usually want to register and enjoy the benefits of an account:

• For storing information to facilitate future purchases;
• To receive notifications about upcoming sales;
• Extra discounts through a customer account.

It's still a good idea to offer a guest checkout option, though. This is how you convince customers who are previously suspicious to proceed with a purchase anyway.
 

3. A SEARCH FUNCTIONALITY ON A WEBSITE IS IMPORTANT

Statistics show that more than 30% of visitors use a search functionality to find products they are looking for. It is important to ensure that a search functionality is findable and convenient. Additional functionality such as an autofill or refined search will also help visitors find popular products or items related to their searches.
 

4. SECURITY IS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT

All web shops with sensitive information should support SSL to encrypt it securely. This is especially true for payment information, but also for all personal information such as addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and more. Customers expect personal information to be secure when they make a purchase online. Implementing SSL is not only a good idea, but absolutely essential to ensure that customers trust your e-commerce platform and rate it as secure.

Tip: Don't store credit card numbers in your online platform's database. While it may seem like a good idea to simplify purchases for customers, for example, storing this information on your server is a huge security risk. Your company will always be liable for leaking this data in the event of a break-in or security breach.
 

5. OPTIMIZE WEBSITE PERFORMANCE

If your website is slow, chances are you will lose customers. Statistics show that 40% of users leave a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. This is especially true for mobile users, who often multitask.

Some ways to make your website lightning fast:

• Combine JavaScript and CSS source files so that users only need to download one JavaScript file or stylesheet instead of five or 10.
• Compress images so that visuals are displayed at the smallest possible size.
• Make use of caching to reduce the time it takes to send data between the Web server and the database server.

6. MAKE USE OF USEFUL STATISTICS

An online platform also has a big advantage over physical sites: measurability.

You can measure almost everything on an e-commerce platform and view statistics:

• How many visitors, conversions, clicks, bounces does your shop have?
• Which categories are most visited?
• How many visitors create a customer account and why?

You can answer these questions by setting up the right measurements and dashboards. This allows you to work more data-driven and get results much faster. Also check out web analytics.

7. PRIORITIZE ONLY USEFUL FEATURES

There are countless plug-ins, apps and features to enhance your online platform. For example, there are tools to link a chat directly to a CRM or to do remarketing. It is important to know that these plug-ins have direct effects on the operation and speed of your website. Therefore, think carefully before installing any more scripts on the platform.

Some tips to help you with this:

• Review any scripts or apps you have installed, are they really useful?
• On Google Tag Manager, you can also always pause tags or scripts first. Do you notice over time that you don't use them anymore? Then feel free to remove them!
• Regularly measure the speed, results or KPIs of your online platform. Did your scripts or apps all contribute equally to the results? If not, consider removing them as well!