Project Inquiry
- Send us your idea and get a free quote.
- We want to hear from you!
Contact Us
The following are the typical components of an eCommerce store. Some of these components are mandatory while, others are optional depending on your situation.
Your customers will need to sign-up / register with your site before conducting business online. Keep user registration as simple a process as possible - users are turned off if they are asked to fill-in long registration forms. They are generally wary of creating and remembering multiple passwords for each site. Offering alternate login options such as Facebook Connect and OpenID is a good idea.
If you plan to sell multiple products you need a product catalog. Your products should be tagged by search-friendly keywords and also organized into categories and sub-categories. A user-friendly menu system for navigating through your products is essential. The menu will point to product listing pages and each item in the list will point to a product page. Providing detailed specifications and clear images of your products help customers take quick and informed decisions when buying. A good product catalog will have a powerful search feature that will take the user directly to the product they are looking for.
A shopping cart contains items that the user intends to buy. It should be easy to add items to the shopping cart from the product listing as well as product detail pages. The shopping cart should be easily accessible from any page as long as the user is logged in. It should be easy to add new items, delete selected items or change the quantity. The shopping cart should show applicable discounts, taxes and bonus/loyalty points. The user should be able to save the cart for later use.
If you plan to accept credit card payments, you need to open a merchant account with a bank and integrate a payment gateway with your eCommerce website. When your customer enters their credit card details in your checkout or payment page, these details are sent to the credit card processing company through the payment gateway. The credit card processing company will verify the credit card details and then accepts or rejects it. If the transaction is approved, money will be deposited into your merchant account.
Not everyone is comfortable with providing their credit card details on the Internet when ordering. Since the primary goal of your online store is to make sales, providing alternative online payment options can help draw all types of customers to your site. Some of the third party online payment methods that you could include are PayPal, e-checks, Google Checkout and Bill Me Later.
To draw more customers to your eCommerce site, you could also include offline ordering methods such as a toll-free telephone, email, fax, cod and/or person-to-person. You can also provide a customer support number so that customers can reach you if they need help - this will build a sense of security.
If you are selling physical goods, provide multiple shipping options. These options include standard shipping, international shipping, next-day shipping and so on. You can select one of these as the default option to let customers see the shipping costs calculated based on the default method. Shipping service companies such as Fedex provide APIs that help you calculate shipping costs based on package weight and distance.
Customers should be able to track their purchase orders and get invoices for their purchases. You should send invoices by email too.
If you are into international selling, the prices for products should be viewable in different currencies. If the customer can see the price in their currency, that makes their purchase decision easier. You can get conversion rates from exchange rate feeds; however, you have to carefully plan this as banks may charge currency conversion fees.
You need to ensure that your shopping cart software has a built-in sales tax calculator that automatically calculates the tax amount based on your customer’s or your address.
Online buying is based on trust and customers will be naturally concerned about the security of their personal data. A privacy policy on your website will explain to them what you plan to do with the information you collect from your customers. If you plan to use cookies, don’ forget to cover this aspect in your privacy policy.
It is important that the sensitive data provided by your customers do not fall into wrong hands. You should use a secure protocol for transactions. SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is the de facto standard in eCommerce. For implementing SSL, you will need digital certificates, which can be purchased from agencies like Verisign. This will assure your customers that you are really concerned about the security of their personal information.
This back-end panel is for you and your employees. Typically, you will be able to view and manage product details, customer details, sales orders, and fulfillment status here.
Now that you’ve covered the basic components needed for an eCommerce website, let us see how to Make your Online Store More Effective.