E-commerce is on everyone's ears, and interest in it is growing every year. But this is not surprising, because selling, buying and advertising on the Internet is much more convenient, easier and often cheaper than offline. Are you agree?
The main thing is to understand how it all works, what you need to do to be successful in your e-Commerce niche. So let's discuss this in more details...

Online trade without geographical barriers

Today, online trade accounts for more than 5% of the world trade volume. Owners of large, medium and small businesses are involved in the process of e-commerce and understand that the development of trading platforms and complex online stores takes the first place in business scaling. Creating marketplaces helps businesses sell products to their customers around the world. Web sites break the barrier of geographic business location and offer a wide range of audiences and, therefore, the opportunity to increase sales.

Types of e-commerce:

• Online stores are probably one of the main types of e-Commerce in the world. In recent years, you can buy and sell almost anything on the Internet.
• Advertisement services/sites - all kinds of sites such as OLX, servico.work, etc.
• Sites with discounts and promotional codes are a very popular direction. Such platforms become real aggregators of bonuses from various companies.
• Internet auctions - eBay and its analogues. This buying/selling format is quite interesting for both the buyer and the seller.
• Online payment systems are services with which you can easily make all kinds of payments. For example, pay utilities, fines, etc.

Development of e-commerce projects in modern realities

Competition is constantly growing, and standing out from the crowd is not only important, but necessary for the survival of your business. At the same time, just a beautiful bright design is not enough. Your site should be more interesting and user-friendly than your competitors' sites. But this is a really difficult task.
Designing an online store is a fundamental stage of the entire project. It is during this period that the foundation is laid and the architecture of the entire project is developed. There is a huge difference between creating informational portals, business card sites and online stores.

First of all, it consists in the logic of construction:

- the principle "from the main page to the internal ones", which are based on its similarity, is not suitable, since the customer gets to the product page immediately, and only then goes to the cart or to continue shopping, views similar products, delivery conditions, etc. Therefore, the design sequence is from the product card to the main page;
- special attention is paid to the design of the basket to achieve two main goals: to motivate the user to make a purchase and purchase an additional product (cross-selling);
- creation of e-commerce sites means parallel design of smartphone and desktop versions. Prioritizing the mobile version means abandoning everything "extra" (at the same time, it is necessary to find out what is really important for users), simplifying all steps of placing an order, using appropriate interfaces and filters. Also, all versions should be designed in parallel;
- the mobile version must take into account UI patterns of operating systems (tap, swipe, etc.) and technical features of the platform.

What kind of UX do modern users of e-Commerce sites need

The UX of a modern e-commerce site should have a well-constructed logic, system, and focus on predicting consumer behavior. It is also necessary to make room for the implementation of changes that will take place in the near future - this is important, because trends change quickly, user requests grow, and changing the UI design should not disrupt the structure of your resource.
Previously, it was normal for the user to take a long time to understand the shopping cart or the features of the purchase process. He doesn't have time for that now. Unless your product is unique (and even if it is, competitors will appear on the market very quickly), and the user will have to make even the slightest effort to buy - he will leave.
    Users do not want to wait, think and complicate their lives by searching for buttons. They want to solve their problem here and now.
Every additional second while the site is loading is a minus to the number of users and your potential conversions. If the site does not load in 3 seconds, you can lose 50% of users.

Choose payment gateway

A payment gateway helps your business securely accept payments online. When a customer gets to your checkout page, the payment gateway sends their transaction details to the payment processor (an intermediary between your business's bank and the customer's bank). The gateway then notifies the customer whether their payment is approved or declined. It's always important to choose a payment gateway that accepts the cards and other payment modes your customers generally prefer. PayPal, Authorize.net, and Stripe are examples of popular payment gateways.

Good online security is must have

The security of your ecommerce store and any data it processes and/or stores is paramount. You are handling customers’ sensitive financial information, including credit card numbers and mailing addresses. Best practices for ecommerce customer security include adequately password protecting your site and all other sensitive accounts (don’t use easy-to-guess passwords); employing “transport layer security” (TLS), “secure sockets layers” (SSL), and HTTPS authentication—programs that authenticate and encrypt links between customer computers and your site. You can also ensure all company devices are outfitted with antivirus and anti-malware software.

CMS or Framework for your E-commerce

The most popular frameworks for e-commerce and not only - Symfony and Laravel. But if you want to use others - no problem, the main thing is to correctly analyze your needs and pass them on to the development team (an experienced team will be able to recommend the best solution for your needs). Nevertheless, today the market offers many ready-made CMS solutions for business. But let's briefly consider the advantages

Choose CMS if you have:
  -  small budget and/or tight deadline;
  -  classic online store - the basic functions of the CMS and its extensions are sufficient for the project.

You need the Framework if your online store:
 -   unconventional business logic and unusual functions;
 -   very large number of users and/or other significant load on the site;
 -   there is a need for free scaling of the project.

Some conclusion

Developing a successful ecommerce website, one of the most integral aspects of developing your ecommerce business, is not a task to be taken lightly. It’s critical you evaluate all of your business’s needs and goals before sitting down to sketch out a design and launch plan - because virtually every decision you make, from your domain name, to whether or not you choose to hire a third-party developer, will depend on these benchmarks.

Stages of development of full-cycle E-commerce development with Redentu team:

01. During the briefing, we discuss with the customer his wishes regarding the site/app, choose the most effective solution for business, identify hidden needs and offer options for creating an E-commerce project.

02. We create a prototype of the site structure, draw page layouts, collect existing content and analyze it. After that, we agree the preliminary prototypes with the customer.

03. We develop an individual and stylish design, taking into account the wishes and needs of the customer, the specifics of the business. Next, we create the design of all pages, call-to-action mechanisms.

04. We develop and adapt the layout, functionality of all pages of the online store, create an individual admin panel, integrate the site with external systems, automate processes.

05. We test the functionality of all pages, adjust cross-browser compatibility, adaptability for all devices. After verification, we launch and place the project on the customer's hosting.

06. We launch the site and hand over the project. We conduct training on the use of the admin panel, the site, advise the customer on the further development and promotion of the online store.

Please contact us if you are looking for E-commerce development team. We will provide you free consulting