It’s no secret that selling products online is a booming business. In fact, ecommerce sales have increased by almost 20% just in the last year and over 80% of income gains in retail are from online purchases. What’s more, there are an estimated 12-25 million ecommerce websites online today. These statistics reveal a lot about the rising trend of consumer shopping, and many small businesses are copping the clue by harnessing the power of ecommerce and selling products on their own websites.
If you are one among many companies that are switching from brick-and-mortar to ecommerce, then you might be doing research on how to make that transition as seamless as possible. That’s why we’ve curated this list of things to double check before launching your ecommerce website.
It’s important to take certain factors into consideration before opening your website up for business online. Ultimately, the more forewarned you are before going live with your ecommerce endeavors, the more forearmed you are. What’s more, when you take precautions before going online, you are apt to avoid a lot of costly mistakes. That said, here is a list of details to double check before launching your ecommerce business.
Audit Your Website
This may seem like a no-brainer, but you might be surprised how many new ecommerce website owners launch their site without being 100% sure everything is working. Most ecommerce content management systems have something called a “sandbox” where you can test all the functions before launching online.
Whether you have this sandbox test feature or not, your entire site should be deeply scrutinized. From navigation, image display and spell checking – the more you audit for functionality, the less problems you and your customers will encounter on the big launch day.
Double Check Your Shopping Cart and Payment Security
When auditing your website, perhaps the most important feature to run through trials is your shopping cart. There’s nothing worse than losing sales because of a clunky, or dysfunctional payment transaction. While we’re talking about payments, you should also check with your PCI DSS compliance services to ensure your customer’s credit card transactions are private, protected and secured. PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance is crucial to protect your ecommerce business and customers against credit card theft or fraud. Therefore, it’s imperative to check the security of your shopping cart and payment transactions.
After you’ve confirmed the shopping cart works and payments are secure, you should also check the follow up functions on your site after the purchase. This means making sure the “thank you” page functions properly. It may also mean affirming that your inventory and shipping systems are working as they should after purchases are made.
You may also want to make a few test purchases yourself to be absolutely certain transactions go through without a hitch. You might even go a step further and have a “soft opening” where you invite only friends and family to make purchases on your website. In this way, you can iron out any possible wrinkles among people you know before selling to strangers online.
Test on Multiple Devices and Browsers
Most ecommerce platforms come out of the installation file mobile-friendly, but it never hurts to double check. Continue validating your ecommerce site by testing it on different mobile phones to see how it works, and confirm that everything is functioning seamlessly. This is particularly important because today, around 79% of all online purchases are made on smartphones. While you’re at it, don’t stop at just smartphones – also check your ecommerce website on other mobile devices such as tablets like iPads.
Furthermore, run your website on different browsers such as Bing, Mozilla Firefox, etc. You might be shocked to see how your site might look completely different on Microsoft Edge versus Google. If this is the case, you may need to tweak your code, or hire a developer to render a more consistent look on all browsers.
Get Another Pair of Eyes
You might be the best ecommerce website developer in your own right, but there’s nothing wrong with getting a second opinion. This may entail hiring a professional website developer to audit and test your website – even after you’ve already gone through it yourself. Hiring a pro, or having a trusted colleague who knows how ecommerce sites should function can go a long way towards avoiding costly mistakes once your site goes live.
All this cross checking might seem overkill, but you’ll thank yourself for doing so when your customers have a flawless experience on your ecommerce website. Ultimately, a bug-free, fluid shopping experience online is what keeps your customers coming back to your site. Therefore, it’s essential to take every precaution so you can have peace of mind that your customers can shop with confidence on your site.
