There are already 2.14 billion people shopping online worldwide in 2021, spiking up from 1.66 billion in 2016. From the big leagues witnessing surges in their numbers – like Walmart’s sales increasing by 97% in a quarter and the profits in Amazon’s 2020 second-quarter results growing by 40%, too small businesses that have seen their revenues from online sales grow especially with the pandemic – the trend is set to continue.
Build A High-Performance Ecommerce Website
Whether you’re basing its platform on open source, SaaS or headless commerce, the website should give visitors a seamless experience. What’s the difference? SaaS platforms give you designs that you basically drag and drop to put together your website in a few hours. It’s fast but limits you on customization. With open-source, you get a blank slate where the entire site is built from the ground up by your coder and web designer. Headless commerce separates the front-end presentation and back end which holds the e-commerce functionality, which aims at giving you more agility.
Customers are also not limited to the traditional web platforms. With people increasingly interacting with content through different touchpoints from mobile and IoT to progressive web apps (PWA), your business needs to keep up with the developments or lose out to the competition. There are plenty of options to work with, from Open SaaS and headless commerce platforms like BigCommerce; Shopify that’s majorly a SaaS platform, but also has headless commerce whose API call per second limits tends to be rigid; all through to Magento and their open-source platform, and plugins like WooCommerce – picking the right one for your particular needs will need a comprehensive analysis of your business, its niche, and your goals. Whichever the case, some features need to cut across the board as part of the e-commerce web development process:
- Mobile-responsiveness
According to Google, 46% of consumers use their phones for the entire purchase process, right from the very start when researching about their desired product. Smartphones actually accounted for 69% of all retail website visits worldwide in Q1 2021. Without a mobile-friendly website, you’re doing your online store a disservice.
- Customized to your business
Looking all bland turns consumers off. From the visuals, icons, and placement of the different on-site design elements, you want a look that is unique to your store, and aesthetically pleasing at the same time – not just using the same templates that other businesses in your niche are relying on. So, engage an ecommerce web development services Ireland team that has proven its skill and result delivery.
- Smooth navigation
Using your navigation menu, sifting through the different product category pages, using the filters and search tools of your site should be a breeze. A beautiful but malfunctioning site won’t do your numbers any good.
- UX-friendly
How are the basic UI elements like the website layout and design? What about the performance of the website, like with the page load time? Glitches and slow loading product pages and videos result in a poor user experience. Contact our Ireland ecommerce web development team to give your site a comprehensive audit, improve its performance and conversions, or build your business a new online store.