12 Features that Your E-commerce Website Must Have

While each website has a unique motto and features, it has been seen that websites follow some similar trends like 360-degree product previews, dynamic product search, and advanced filtration.

These trends alone, however, can not guarantee robust user experience or higher conversion rates but there surely are other important features or elements which decides the relevance of the website.

Here, we are mentioning 12 features which are actually responsible for making it a good E-commerce website.

1. Easy Accessibility
2. High-Resolution Photos and Video of the Products
3. Mobile-Friendly Website
4. User-Generated Reviews
5. Special Offers
6. Wish Lists
7. Find-in-Store Option
8. Related Item Feature
9. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
10. Security Features
11. Advanced Payment Options
12. Return Policy

1. Easy Accessibility:

A good and impressive design is one thing to entice the online customers  but easy accessibility would force them to visit back to your website and increase the conversion rates. Hence, a simple e-commerce website should possess ease of use feature.

The studies show 76% online customers admit that it is the most important characteristic of a website.

The aim is to aid online shoppers get what they are looking for, without facing any complexity.

In spite of troublesome experience, online shopping through E-commerce website should be smooth. Hence, focus on bettering the user experience. You can consider customer reviews and FAQs information to help shoppers make decisions efficiently.

2. High-Resolution Photos and Video of the Products

As we all know, images have more capability of selling a product than text!

Thus, it has been a trend in the E-commerce world to display product with pictures.

Earlier, the E-commerce websites used to post a picture or two of the products, that too of low resolution.

But, gone are those days, now with the increase in the competition, websites are putting a lot of effort in making their interface better day by day.

Hence, high resolution pictures along with  videos of the products are being uploaded on the websites these days. It enables the user to have a view of the product from all the angles.

Tip: Those high-resolution photos need to be optimised so that the loading time of your webpage shouldn’t increase.

3. Mobile-Friendly Website

Not only it is declared by Google, but for better SEO consequences E-commerce should have a mobile-friendly website.

If this reason is not enough then, one should think straight that maximum i.e. 1 out of 3 web surfers use hand-held devices like smart-phone, tabs, ipads, etc.

Adapting to the latest trends or carrying forward your online product according to the user/customer requirements definitely increases your sales and profit graph of both i.e. B2B E-Commerce or  B2C E-commerce.

4. User-Generated Reviews

As bitter as it may sound for your business but, users do read reviews, 92% at least. The star ratings and reviews matters a lot, especially to build consumer trust for your online product.

Shoppers prefer to invest in the product which is top rated or best reviewed because they think that this product has already been purchased and used by other customers.

You will have to take never to indulge fake positive reviews or negative reviews, this could be your sale killer.

In this case, negative reviews aren’t that bad as fake positive reviews.

Also, depending on the functionality of your website, plugins from the popular platforms such as Facebook, Yelp, and Foursquare to drive social proof and to build more fans can be used by the website.

5. Special Offers

Offers are the oldest way yet the best way to drive more sales. It makes the customers/shoppers and motivates them to  buy more. Hence, the most e-commerce sites use ‘special offers’ to lure more customers.

This option would reside in the header section of the website so as to reap the utmost benefits from overflowing sales. Most E-commerce websites use special offers as marketing practices through email, social, text, etc.

If e-commerce sites provides a unique web page displaying all the offers to drive more sales and to improve SEO by using ongoing promotions.

6. Wish Lists

Isn’t this concept great? You can create different wish list for different products and not only, it allows you to save and shop but share too!

This list is special because it lets customers bookmark the items and then sort the items that they would want to buy in the future.

The E-commerce sites which are not using wish lists are lagging behind in the revenue on the virtual desktop. Wish list increases the chance of sales and the sharing option lets you share your favourite brands and products with your friends and family.

7. Find-in-Store Option

It is not always necessary that E-commerce have the stores made up of brick and mortars. But, you will surely notice a find-in-store option.

This is because sometimes the customer wants the instant supply or instant gratification, they don’t want to wait for shipment period.

Another case to be considered is that sometimes the customer only wants to buy from a store and this feature is helpful to instantly know whether the product is available in the store or not!

8. Related Item Feature

Whenever you search an item online on a E-commerce website, you want a huge list of items which are either the same or related to your search results.

Even you might noticed these online selling websites related products under the phrase- “You Might Also Like This,” this actually triggers the excitement or curiosity of customers. And, if this excites the customer then it is most likely that visit might buy products.

Suppose, you saved a pressure cooker from Prestige to your shopping cart. A section pops up saying, “you might like this” with frying pans or other related items from prestige and other brand’s cookware.

So, here’s the simple logic behind this that whenever the related items concept is used by the online seller, this feature encourages to sell more.

Related items might also include similar products to compare- “people who bought this item also searched for,”etc.

9. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

When you plan to make a complex purchases, it normally requires a lot of research, detailed  information, and some confidence in seller.

For instance: Brand ABC, sells well crafted watches.

The buyer of the brand would need confirmation of watch authenticity and detailed information of the product prior to buying any product from the same online.

The buyers look for some additional information section for the details such as frequently asked information, which indeed ensure the credibility of the brand and develops a confidence in the buyer.

1o. Security Features

Lately, online transactions are an integral part of our lives. Which makes E-commerce industry a common yet a lucrative target for cybercrimes.

Hence , it is really very crucial to have your E-commerce portal protected with robust security technology and features

Here are some general security features for e-commerce websites:

SSL certificate: it builds a secure connection between the website and users. Before trusting an online store with your crucial information, this feature looks for HTTPS protocol and green lock in the address bar.

So, choose a recognized SSL certificate vendor. The famous SSL certificate vendor- Symantec is used by most e-commerce giants.

Two-factor authentication: This is the most common feature used to add an extra layer of security by demanding your username/password and with a system-generated code sent generally via email or text.

Use a firewall:  It act as a gateway or wall between two networks to permit authorized traffic and blocking all the malicious traffic.

Privacy Policy Link in Footer: It ensures that the customer data is not at all shared with third parties.

11. Advanced Payment Options

Since the day, PayPal and Apple Pay has come into the scene, E-commerce websites have introduce advanced payment options. It is important because it is a way to keep your website up-to-date with the latest technologies or features.

This encourages the ease of payment for the customers who have an account associated with advanced payment methods like these that too just in a click.

There are many other popular online payment options too. It is most likely that it’s website’s responsibility to answer why they haven’t included the modern payment methods.

For example: E-commerce site don’t offer Bitcoin as a payment option because the value of it determined as unreliable.

If the buyers are tech-savvy and if website adds up such modes of payment, it builds trust because they already know the benefits of that technology.

12. Return Policy

Only selling the products is not the sole purpose of the E-commerce website but to build a better client-customer relationship.

Hence, return policies are of much more importance than the selling.

Return policies should be well-written/illustrated and clearly visible.

Another trust-building factor of online selling which ensures that shoppers that if they are unhappy or just need a different size, the brand is there for them.

According to a survey:

• 30% of all products ordered online are returned.

• 92% of shoppers will buy again if the product is returned easily and successfully

• 67% of consumers check the returns page before buying.

Besides all other best features of E-commerce websites, return policies are persistent. It really defines the major purchase percentage from your business websites.

Conclusion:

A good E-commerce website is really important for a business to reach a global audience. And, it must surely possess certain features in order to build the trust of their customers and beat the cut-throat competition in the E-commerce industry.

So, do you have a business and thinking of making it online?

If yes then, check out the services of Orion eSolutions

Also Read: THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND BEFORE CHOOSING A WEB DEVELOPMENT COMPANY