subject: Basic Features Of A Shopping Website [print this page] Customers are not always aware of their requirements; it is the responsibility of the web design and development company to identify the requirements of their clients and come up with the best possible solution.
Gone are the days when people used to go to a local store to buy things. This is the age of online shopping whether it is cell phone, cosmetics, groceries or gift modern people buy it online. That is the reason shop owners have started setting up online stores. The objective is to establish their presence on the web.
Here comes the question: how an online shopping website is different? What are the features without which a shopping website cannot run? After doing some research, I have come up with a short and brief list. These are the basic features of a shopping website or online store; these are the compulsory fields that a shopping website must have.
Product Gallery: This is must. Whether you are selling garments, footwear, dog food, watches, gadgets, books or anything else you have to set up an impressive and easy-to-browse product gallery so that online buyers can check the products, read the details, see the images, watch videos if any before they buy.
Help Desk: For any business help desk is a must. If you are selling products online, your buyers may have some queries about the product, payment process etc. So, it will be better if you offer them an easy interface to get in touch with you online. Live chat, forum and contact form are the main ways to offer customer care and support. Some of the shop owners are now communicating with their customers through social media channels such as twitter also.
Shopping Cart and Payment Gateway: This can be compared with the counter of a local store. Buyers will move through your online store, add whatever they want to buy to the shopping cart and at the end of the buying session, they will make payment to buy the products.
If the website owner is not aware of a payment gateway, the web design company should inform them about it and integrate a reliable payment gateway with the shopping site so that the buyers can pay online via credit card, paypal or any other tool.
Feedback: There should be an option for the users to submit their feedback. Positive feedbacks will help the shop owner set up a convincing testimonial section and if there is a negative feedback, it will help them to improve their service.
If you are a web developer, make sure the shopping website you are developing has, at least, these features. If you are a shop owner going to set up your own online store, make sure the design and development company you are working with creates a shopping website with these features; otherwise you will not be able to recognize the power of online shopping and the potential of web.
There are more advanced features as well; news, educational articles, podcasts for the buyers and many more. The features mentioned above are the basic ones and almost mandatory for a shopping website.
