Are you planning to create an eCommerce website? Before you hire a web developer for your website development, here are few web design topics that you must understand.
Call to action (CTA)
A call to action (CTA) is a phrase or button that prompts people to take a specific action, such as “Shop Now” or “Buy Now”.
In other words, a call to action is a page element designed to encourage your visitors to take a specific action, like buying a product or signing up for an email.
The CTA buttons are a great way to direct your visitors and convince them to take action. If you’re running an eCommerce store, then your CTA buttons should be strategically placed all over the site so that users don’t have to go far to find them.
A professional eCommerce web developer would always ensure to place the important call to action elements to the appropriate locations of the website.
Cross-selling
Cross-selling products in eCommerce is the practice of selling multiple products to customers who have already purchased one. Cross-selling is the art of encouraging people who are viewing one product to buy other products that they’re likely to be interested in as well.
Here are a few examples of cross-selling:
- “Customers who bought X also bought Y.”
- “Visitors who added this product to their wish list also added these items.”
- “People who bought this product also bought X, Y, and Z.
Up-Selling
Up-Selling is a sales technique used to increase the average transaction value or total sales of a company by encouraging consumers to purchase more expensive versions of products or services. An upsell is a secondary, often smaller product or service you offer to your customers after they’ve made their initial purchase.
For example, if you’re selling a pair of shoes, you could offer shoelaces, shoe polish, or a shoehorn.
Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a metric used to determine how much a company can expect to earn from an individual customer over the course of their lifetime. It is also sometimes referred to as customer equity or customer lifetime revenue and is calculated as the present value of all future cash flows attributable to the customer relationship.
In other words, the lifetime value (CLV) of an eCommerce customer is the amount of money that they will spend with you over the course of their lifetime.
Gateway (or payment gateway)
A payment gateway is a service that allows users to complete online transactions and make payments online. A payment gateway accepts the customer’s information, including billing address, credit card details, and other personal information, and passes it on to the merchant’s bank.
If you’re selling online and you want to accept payment via PayPal, Stripe, and 2Checkout are the most common options for your web developer to integrate with your eCommerce store.
Inventory
Inventory is the number of products available for sale in your eCommerce store. Your inventory is one of the most important statistics to monitor, as it directly impacts your sales. If you run out of stock, you won’t be able to make any sales. If you run an eCommerce site, you probably want to keep your inventory in check.
There are many CMSs that your web developer can use to build your eCommerce website because a CMS like WordPress makes it easier for the website owners to manage the inventory hassle-free.
Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance
PCI compliance refers to the standards set by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) for businesses that take, store, or process credit card information.
Shipping
Shipping is a vital part of any eCommerce business, especially if you’re selling physical products. You may or may not charge your customers the shipping charges according to their location of delivery. With the help of a CMS like WordPress, you can easily manage the shipping charges on your website.
Shopping cart
A shopping cart is a virtual basket that allows customers of an eCommerce website to collect products from multiple pages of the website and add them to their cart. Once the customer has added all the products they want to purchase, they can click a button that will take them to a checkout page where they can proceed to make payment for their products.
Stock keeping unit (SKU)
SKU stands for stock keeping unit. It’s an identifying number that distinguishes your products from one another. In eCommerce, SKUs are used to differentiate between different variations of the same product. For example, if you sell a shirt in different colors and sizes, then each color and size will have its own SKU.
Discount code (or coupon, or promo code)
A discount code is a special code you can give to your customers that gives them a percentage off of their order. This can be used right at the point of sale to give them an instant discount when they place their order. When your developer uses a CMS to build your website, you can easily create or manage discount codes for your eCommerce store.
Cart abandonment rate
Cart abandonment rate is the percentage of shoppers who add a product to their cart but don’t end up checking out. According to research, the average shopping cart abandonment rate is about 68%, which means that about 2 out of 3 people who add an item to their shopping cart don’t complete their purchase.
If you are using WordPress for your eCommerce website, your web developer can help to integrate a plugin like “https://woocommerce.com/products/abandoned-cart-recovery/” to recover the abandoned orders on your website.
Conversion funnel
A conversion funnel is a process of how your website visitors become customers and eventually buyers. You can think of your conversion funnel as a process that starts with someone landing on your website and ends with them purchasing something from you.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of getting traffic from search engines like Google and Bing. You can do this by “optimizing” or improving your website or landing pages so that they’re more likely to appear on the first page of search engine results. Your website developer can also help you to optimize your website for search engines. It’s always advisable to hire only experienced web developers who can create an SEO-friendly store for you.
Web analytics
Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage. Web analytics can help you to improve the way you market your products and services.
