Paying attention to recent advances in web development and working out how they can be introduced to your e-commerce website is an invaluable exercise in boosting your business prospects.
Some of the most popular e-commerce websites attract such a large amount of happy customers because they are kept up-to-date with all the latest web development tricks and tools.
Playful applications and interactive elements including live chat, games, video features, polls, quizzes, blogs and comment boxes encourage the contribution of customers’ opinions and their cross-posting of content from the website.
Which kind of web development tools are going to be most appropriate and beneficial to your e-commerce business will depend on the nature of your store and products or services; however, there are some general applications that are relevant for just about any online retail platform.
The following list details five of the web development innovations that can be introduced to benefit the website of any e-commerce business:
1. Add Plugins:
Adding social media plugins to your e-commerce website features and product listings will make it a lot easier for your customers to share your exciting range of products and specials with their friends and contacts via the cross posting of links, pictures and information on products on social networking platforms such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, or in email and personal blog posts.
Social media plugins are one web development tool guaranteed to spread the word about your e-commerce site far and wide.
2. Add Videos:
YouTube is one of the most popular social media sharing sites for a reason – internet users love audio visual content that is funny, smart and informative.
You can invigorate the web development of your online store website by incorporating embedded video clips, pop-up slide shows and sound-tracked photo galleries that are all features made possible during web development.
Videos and other interactive media provide your customers with a three dimensional image of your products in context and this can increase their confidence in making purchases.
Video can be used to great advantage in fashion-based e-commerce sites where clips from catwalk fashion shows featuring stocked garments are included. You might also post your linked website videos on YouTube for some handy cross-promotion!
3. Add Live Chat:
The addition of a live chat application on an e-commerce website is one of the most recent and essential web development innovations to change the operation of online stores for the better.
Live chat applications have been found to significantly reduce the incidence of shopping cart abandonment by ensuring that each sale becomes more of a personalised transaction.
Live chat features are also a wonderful way of achieving direct and casual contact with customers and can be useful for notifying them of add-on product deals, new products and promotions.
4. Add Real-time Payment Processing:
Another web development tool that can enhance your customers’ experience of your e-commerce website is real-time payment processing systems.
By providing a system that displays real-time delivery charges, real-time payment processing and that accepts a variety of popular payment methods; you will be able to use web development to create a welcoming and trustworthy shopping environment.
5. Add Search Boxes:
As you begin to add some of these web development features to your e-commerce website, you’ll likely find that your profits improve and so too will the demand and capacity to stock new products increase.
To maintain a comfortable and practical shopping environment for your customers on a rapidly expanding e-commerce site, any web development should include the addition of search boxes.
Search boxes enable the differentiation of products according to category and sub category in a fast and convenient manner.
Search boxes will enable your customers to make their way through large product ranges in order to select just what they need quickly and efficiently.