Optimize your website for future ecommerce

Written by Lauren Hill

Sales companies based online have had an interesting and tumultuous history. Most of the largest online companies have only existed a little over a decade. The majority of people who are interested in finance have heard of the dot-com boom, or dot-com bubble. When the internet was first becoming a viable means of communication, connection speeds were switching from dial-up to cable or DSL, and a huge number of online retailers opened up for business on the stock market.

The dot-coms, as these businesses were known, ranged widely in product and one thing they all shared in common was that their customers could order goods through the internet. The speculation boom that investors facilitated with these companies was enormous, but the problem was these online companies were not backed by solid business plans. Investors bought up their shares thinking it was the dawning of a new age. Those investors were right after a fashion. Around the year 2000, the bubble burst and nearly every single one of the dot-coms’ share values collapsed on the market.

One of the reasons so many of these companies failed is that they tried to do too much too quickly. The public had not embraced online shopping yet, and trying to turn what is in effect a small business into a publicly traded company overnight did not make the business strategy of those companies any better.

Lessons learned from successful ecommerce

After reading that, you may wonder how any online retailer was successful let alone become a household name. The jumping off point for success is making sure your business can handle the addition of online ordering. The dot-coms sought to expand their consumer base more quickly than they could actually handle it. The result was large expenses and no foreseeable profit. Some of the most successful small online retailers have chosen to focus on providing good service for their current customers before they think about expanding excessively.

It is also important to make sure your website can handle the demands of online shopping. This means you need to have a system in place that people can navigate easily. One of the most successful features of ecommerce is the invention of the online “shopping cart.” As most internet shoppers are aware, the shopping cart allows first time visitors to a website to start compiling a shopping list right away. Whether or not you choose to have some sort of registration before the actual purchase, the shopping cart makes browsers into buyers.

If your business is looking to expand its online services, ecommerce is a logical next step if you sell some sort of good or service. Since the fall of the dot-coms at the turn of the millennium, customers are very familiar with online shopping, and many embrace all of the new shopping opportunities.

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How to design your website for ecommerce

Programming an easy-to-use and reliable online store takes knowhow of coding processes. You can attempt to learn as you go, but it is often much easier to hire an outside website developer to install a program onto your website, with very little inconvenience to you. For people who have gone through the process of learning how to create the kind of website consumers expect, they will have undoubtedly run into coding errors, site crashes, and unhappy customers. To avoid the majority of those issues, hiring an expert in web development is a good option.

One of the benefits of hiring a professional ecommerce developer is you can tap into their experience in customizing countless other successful buying interfaces. Online marketing and development is not a one size fits all industry and the professionals know this. Using creativity and in-depth knowledge of coding, they can design a user interface that is perfect for your needs. You can have as much or as little ecommerce on your website as you desire.

If you want a quick and easy click-and-buy option, they can make a system that is hassle free for your users. If you would like a subscription based system, with paid membership opening up other areas of your website, the developers can make it happen. Some of the most popular requests are the ability to save certain items in a wish list, so that they can be purchased at a later date. That makes it much easier for your customers to remember what items that they wanted, especially if your website has a large selection of goods.

Since so many people are familiar with the ease and convenience of ordering online, it is expected that businesses that sell goods should have a well developed online store that is as well appointed as their physical locations. It is endlessly frustrating to have to deal with an online checkout that is confusing, too long, and in the end does not work anyway. When you are asking people to put their major credit card information on the web you need to be able to assure your customers that the buying process will work, and that their information is secure.

The odds are in your favor that if you have a good clientele, the transition to online marketing and ecommerce will be a smooth one—as long as you take the appropriate steps to make sure the online ordering system works. Going with the pros is a way that your business can make sure your new online store has the best chance of success.

Other benefits of hiring a developer

Depending on how much traffic your website sees, you may want to hire a developer to maintain your website in addition to creating your online retail section. Making sure each aspect of a website functions correctly is a full time job for business with large and complex websites. The job is no less important for small businesses, but can be done in less time. If you think that you may not have the expertise and technical knowledge to keep your website working in tip-top shape, you can try hiring the same developer who built your ecommerce section to maintain your site. Some web developers also offer safeguarding services, database management, and graphic design. You can have your website retooled, or just have your current website maintained.