Ecommerce website development is a fast booming territory. In today’s age where smart phones and tablets are being increasingly used to access the Internet having an online store accessible by only a PC or a laptop puts you into a disadvantageous position. The need of the hour is a robust ecommerce web design which support tablets, smart phones along with desktop and laptop computers. Your module should also allow social media interactions across these platforms to promote your products and services.
Developing a customized solution for each of these devices would result in huge development cost. Thus the core objective in modern ecommerce web development is to offer a solution which automatically works on multiple devices. This helps you in bringing down the cost of development substantially and offer better access to the users. In this article we shall talk about seven ecommerce functions which should work on multiple devices seamlessly.
1. User Login – This is one of the most important functions of ecommerce website development. The user should be able to access the store with the same login from all the devices. The different elements of user login – registration, forgotten user ID or password, security features need to be enabled for all the devices. Make sure you make the ecommerce solution modular so that it functions uniformly across all these devices.
2. Search – In any ecommerce website it is one of the most used functions. You should use a uniform search functions for all the devices as this will give users equal benefits across all devices. The presentation can be different where you can display the results sans images in the smart phones. Make sure the search history records from any of the devices used to perform search on the store. This multi-device search might require you to configure your backend to meet the demands.
3. Product/Service Catalog – Customers use the catalog to check the details of the products and services. If your catalog is functional in multiple devices this will help you cut costs compared to creating separate catalogs for different devices. Keep in mind the screen sizes of different devices as the catalog needs to be formatted accordingly. The catalog should be consistent across all devices and display pricing, product ratings and reviews and allow product comparisons.
4. Carting Solution – Shopping cart is the most vital part of ecommerce web development. The shopping cart should be available to the users from all the platforms allowing them to check what they have added to the cart. If you offer some promotion or redeemable codes they should appear uniformly across all the devices. It would be wise to integrate the physical and the online store to offer a better shopping experience to the customers.
5. Checkout Process – Like the shopping cart the checkout process should be shared across the platforms. This will allow your customers to make a selection and save it from one of the devices and purchase it from another. Features like entering shipping and billing addresses should appear same on all the devices.
6. Customer Service – Today’s business banks a lot on customer support and you should offer the same kind of customer support on smartphone and tablets as you offer on laptops and desktops. Giving priority to requests coming from mobile devices is advisable as many customers might actually be present in your physical store and trying to compare the prices of a product with those showcased in the online store.
7. User Experience – Last but not the least user experience is another key element of ecommerce website development. True you cannot offer the same kind of experience on a smartphone when compared with a laptop but it is important to offer similar functionality to users accessing your store from all kinds of devices.
These seven things should be kept in mind during your ecommerce website development as they will offer you a competitive advantage over your rivals.
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