Top Must-Have eCommerce Features
Being an online merchant, it’s important to have an eCommerce shopping cart that is reliable, safe and has all the features that you want. There are many to choose from but it’s important to know what the must-have features for the shopping cart technology you’d want to have in your online store.
Top Must-Have eCommerce Features
eCommerce solutions provide a wide range of features. Below, we list some of the more important features that every shopping cart eCommerce website needs to have.
- Compliance with PCI – The environment in your online store must be compliant with that of the Payment Card Industry. Since you’d want to accept payments online, this is a must. The council has set up standards for data security. Once your site meets all these requirements, PCI will give you a certification of compliance and you can inform your online visitors about it. This will give your site the credibility knowing that customers making an online purchase from you can safely make the transaction. This is why you must find an eCommerce host that will guarantee to give your website this kind of environment.
- Product Images – You must think like an online buyer, what do you think is the first thing they’d want to see before wanting to make an online purchase? The product images. That’s because this is the only way they can actually see the actual item and this must stand out, be impressive, accurate, and clear for customers to be willing to make the purchase. If your online eCommerce solution is not offering functional product images for your site that lets you adjust to make it bigger, it can be a major disadvantage. Image zooming is also a great advantage to have.
- Product Reviews – Customers like to read product reviews especially from former customers who already bought the item. An eCommerce site will be able to generate higher revenues when there are product reviews that they can read about.
- Site Search – Find an eCommerce platform that has the search box situated on every page. This makes it easier for the customer to search for the item they are only interested in. It must be situated where they can easily see it, usually on the upper right side of the page or in the top center.
- Search Engine Optimization – Online merchants would want to optimize their sites for search engines. This is the best way to get the most target visitors to visit your site. By finding an eCommerce solution that gives you the control on your Meta descriptions, tags and keywords then you can optimize your pages to rank up in search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Ask.
- Quick and Secure Checkout – If you’re a buyer who wants to make a purchase, you want to avoid all the long forms that many online eCommerce sites have. They can get annoying and can shoo customers away. You wouldn’t want that for your own online shop. You already got this far in getting customers to want to make a purchase and you wouldn’t want this last method to be the reason why they won’t finalize the sale. Avoid having your checkout go from one page to the next just to fill out the forms. You are giving the opportunity for glitches to happen (mostly not because of your fault but their internet service provider) and once the consumer receives an error and must start all over again, some would frown about it and look for other online stores who also sell the product. Make sure to get the checkout page limited to just one with just a few important fields that the customer must fill out. This makes it more convenient for your customers and after one click and page load, you make a sale.
- Shipping Integration – Integrated shipping solution is a great must-have feature for eCommerce. You’d want your eCommerce solution to already have the shipping integration with major shipping lines such as Fedex to make it more convenient for you, the seller, while the buyer can get a shipping rate quotation before they make a purchase so they can choose what type of shipping they’d want.
- Sales Reporting – It is important that you are able to track the product sales from your site. A reliable shopping card has this feature and it’s also a must-have. This is important so you’ll know the activities on your site whether you are getting good sales or not and to know which product items are the most sought after and which ones are not so popular.
In Summary
There are many other features for eCommerce that you’d really want to have. Make sure that you make a lot of research on the shopping carts available so you can make the best choice possible. Remember, your choice of shopping cart can make or break your online business. Don’t be in haste when you make your choice. Take time as this is one of the important decisions you’d be making for your online shop that will save you many headaches down the road. Find the top eCommerce services to help make a better decision.
