5 Steps to Success in eCommerce

If you are planning to build an ecommerce website for your business, then you must have a clear idea of what you’re going to do at the start. What is ecommerce? It is simply the process of transacting business, namely the buying and selling of goods over the internet. But with maddening competition and rising customer expectation you need to ensure you have the right strategy in place to take you to the top. So, what do you need to get right?

1. Unclutter The Sales Process 

 

When you design your website, look at how many clicks a customer has to make before he eventually makes the purchase. Study after study has found that the primary reason why people abandon a shopping cart before making a purchase is due to the number of stages that they need to pass before finally making a payment.

2. Are Your Customers Aware of Product Availability?

The customer needs to know beforehand whether the product he wants to buy is available or not. Customers get annoyed when they make the effort to order the product, add it to the catalog, and get until the ‘purchase’ button only to find that the product itself is unavailable. The customer will go, in this case never to return.

3. Make Your Site Compatible Across Browsers

Cross-browser compatibility is essential if your business is to reach customers across boundaries. Browser preferences vary across the world, and though Chrome has become the numero uno in that category, other browsers still hold sway over large populations and you need to ensure that your ecommerce website is perfectly viewable in them.

4. Use Graphics, But Make Them Simple

Images are better than words and Graphics do play a positive role in enriching the overall customer experience. But make sure you don't have too much of them so they take a toll on your website performance. Optimize your graphics for the web or otherwise your website may take too long to load and kill the very purpose of attracting more customers.

5. Move Towards a One-Step Checkout Process 

 

However responsive and well-designed your website may be, the customer will not make a purchase on your website without your payment system being secure and efficient. Host your website on a secure server and make sure your payment system is PCI-DSS compliant, has email and multi-payment options and is customized for your website.

5 Steps to Sucess in #eCommerce - http://t.co/Oujsaf8OgK

— Lydia Shah (@Lydia_shah) September 8, 2015

The Key Security Essentials For E-commerce Websites

Ecommerce security is one of the most important topics being discussed by programmers and business owners alike. Now as a business, you would definitely want your ecommerce website to be as secure and integrated as possible. But what is the modus operandi that you would adopt to make it happen? This question assumes all the more importance given the fact that cyber warfare and threats are increasing in their complexity and efficacy almost every day.

A great example of this is the latest security vulnerability of ecommerce websites that is being exploited by all and sundry, the ‘Poodle’. This is an SSL3 vulnerability that only requires you to disable SSL3 both on the client side and the server side. So, what is the way out? 

• Ensure SSL and PCI certification
   

If you’re a business owner, make sure that the solution that your service provider gives you has SSL encryption. The SSL (Secure sockets layer) encryption is a must if you want to ensure a secure communication channel between client and server. 

 

If it’s a payment portal or gateway, then a PCI-DSS (Payment card industry data security standard) certification is a must. Trusted solution providers will generally only provide solutions that are PCI-DSS certified as they know users won’t even look at making payments otherwise.

• Store only the customer data required 
   

Most payment websites today offer what is called the Storecard feature where the website’s database stores the customer’s card details, wanting the customer to enter nothing other than his CVV and password. But this also has a vulnerable side to it. You may end up storing details of customers who visited your portal ages ago making your site heavy and vulnerable to attacks.

This is why you must regularly purge your website of customer data that you no longer need. Store only a small amount of customer records, just the data you need to process the funds.

• Be updated about the latest security patches

 

The Security requirements of every web application change continuously. When new threats and vulnerabilities emerge, it also spawns newer and better responses in the form of security patches. This includes everything from Wordpress to Magento updates to PHP to SSL patches. 

 

Be on the lookout for any security updates that come up from any or every corner. You never know who or what could strike you next.