Opening an online store involves more than just adding products, creating payment systems, and launching a site. A good eCommerce website development should have all the basic features such as usability, speed, security, compatibility with mobile devices, and ease of management.

It happens very often that a business fails in running its online store because of lack of attention to some crucial points in the process of development which can impact negatively on the performance of the website.

The positive thing about all these issues is that most of them can be easily avoided if planned right.

1. Choosing the Wrong eCommerce Platform

Selecting a particular eCommerce subscription platform just because it is popular may lead to issues in future. According to the ecommerce development company, every company has its own set of needs. The small online store requires a basic system, while a business that is growing would require advanced features such as inventory management, third party integrations, payment systems, large product listings etc.

Wrong choice of the platform may cause difficulties and become costly in future when changes will be needed.

How to avoid it

Firstly, make a list of all the needs of your business products, customer type, traffic levels, payment options, shipping options, budget etc. and then select the best platform for you.

2. Ignoring Mobile Users

The customers coming to online shops use their smartphones to browse. In case the website does not work well on a smaller screen, people will give up shopping.

The most common issues are small buttons, tricky menus, slow page loading, bad design of the forms, and checkout form difficulties.

How to avoid it

Create a responsive eCommerce website design from the start and test product pages, category pages, filters, shopping cart, and checkout on various screens.

The mobile app development should contain all key information just like the desktop site but without requiring any zooming or unnecessary scrolling by users.

3. Creating a Slow eCommerce Website

The speed of the website is directly related to the user experience since the consumers expect pages to be loaded quickly especially during product browsing and checkout process.

Big images, unwanted scripts, too many plugins, unsuitable hosting and ineffective code are some of the elements that can result in slow eCommerce website.

How to Avoid It

Optimize images before uploading them on the website. Unwanted scripts and plugins must be removed, correct hosting and caching needs to be used and the website’s code must be optimized.

Performance testing needs to be done as part of the eCommerce website development process.

4. Having the Checkout Process too Complicated

Complicated checkout might result in cart abandonment by customers.

Asking for irrelevant information, forcing customers to register, not disclosing shipping fees, and offering few options for payments is one way to discourage customers from completing the purchase.

How to avoid it

Ensure that you make the checkout process as easy as possible by requiring the customer to provide the necessary information to complete the order only.

If this applies to your case, include guest checkout, payment methods, shipping cost, shipping details, and order summary.

5. Poor Website Navigation

Website should allow customers to easily find products without wasting time looking through menus.

Ineffective category structure, ambiguous categories, poor filtering options, and complicated navigation could become an important problem for websites selling lots of different products.

How to prevent it

Develop an effective category structure with proper labels. Include filters, which will depend on your offered products: price, size, brand, color, availability or type of products.

6. Not Planning for Future Growth

An eCommerce website development services will function well if you have a small catalog and low traffic. But problems start appearing if you grow your number of products, customers, orders or visits.

A platform that is not capable of growing will need major technical adjustments in the future.

How to avoid it

Consider future requirements in the initial phase of development. Think about future growth of products, traffic, channels of sales, new markets, integrations and increased order quantity.

Scaling eCommerce web development is a way to facilitate future growth.

7. Installing Too Many Plugins

Plugins and extensions are useful additions to an online store. But adding too many of them will create technical problems.

Some extensions will slow down the website, some will be incompatible with other ones and will stop functioning after platform update.

How to avoid it

Only install those plugins and extensions which really benefit your business. Make sure that they are still supported by their developers and compatible with your platform.

Delete useless extensions and constantly monitor all installed plugins.

8. Treating Website Security as an Afterthought

Website security is an essential element in setting up an eCommerce website because it will likely interact with users' information, such as their accounts, addresses, order information, payment information, and business documentation.

Weak passwords, outdated software, poor access control, and weaknesses in integrations can increase risk.

How to avoid it

HTTPS encryption, authentication, roles-based access, software updates, API security, reputable payment providers, backups, and security monitoring are recommended.

Testing website security should be performed both during development and after the website launch.

9. Ignoring SEO During Development

SEO optimization should not happen several months after the eCommerce website launch.

The problems like duplicate URLs, improper structuring of the web pages, lack of metadata, poor page loading speed, internal linking issues, and problems in getting indexed by search engines.

How to avoid it

The application of SEO should be considered while creating your eCommerce site. SEO can be done using the following: clean URLs, heading structure, internal linking, canonical URLs, XML Sitemaps, detailed description of products, and structured data.

SEO can enable search engines to know more about your website.

10. Creating Weak Product Pages

Product pages have an impact on decision making. Customers require sufficient information to understand what they are purchasing.

Poor images, short descriptions, lack of product specifications, unclear prices, and poor product information can decrease confidence.

How to avoid it

Make sure that you use images, content, specifications, pricing details, availability, delivery details, and customer feedback where available.

Important purchasing information must be easily found on desktop and mobile devices.

11. Failing to Test Appropriately

Website could be complete but at the same time have technical issues.

Broken links, payment issues, shipping issues, email issues, browser issues, and mobile issues may arise after the website goes live due to insufficient testing.

How to avoid it

Make a test checklist prior to the launch of the website. Test:

* Product search

* Product filters

* Shopping cart

* Checkout

* Payment processing

* Shipping calculations

* Order confirmation

* Customer registration

* Login/password recovery

* Email notifications

* Mobile responsiveness

* Major browsers

* Website performance

* Security

Real customer experience test is very useful since it can show some issues which won’t be detected by technical testing only.

12. Incorrect Stock Management

Poor stock information management could negatively impact the buyer as well as the workers of the company.

For instance, the buyer will place an order for a product that is out of stock because of the incorrect information provided by the eCommerce site about the stock levels.

How to avoid it

Link up the online store with the inventory or ERP systems in case it is needed. Formulate rules for stock limits, back orders, product availability, and stock management.

It also goes for businesses that sell their products in several sales channels at once.

13. Providing Too Limited Options for Payments

Not all buyers want the same method of payment. The limitation of the options of payments might make some of the customers quit shopping at your eCommerce site.

How to avoid it

Select the right options of payments according to your target audience. Depending on the business and its location, it might vary from credit cards, debit cards, digital wallets, bank transfers to other payment services.

14. Ignoring Analytics and Conversion Tracking

Without any website statistics, it is hard to see how users navigate through an online store.

You might know how many orders have been placed but you won’t know where the customers are dropping out from the order process.

How to avoid it

Set up the analytics and conversion tracking ahead of time. Watch the most important user actions like:

* Product views

* Searches

* Adding products to cart

* Starting checkout process

* Ordering products

* Leaving cart page

* Source of traffic

Such data will help you to detect pages that require improvement.

15. Ignoring the Website Maintenance

Setting up an online store is not the last step of eCommerce website creation process.

The technologies used, payment services, browsers, and security requirements change. If you won’t maintain your website, it will have some performance, compatibility, and security issues.

How to avoid it

Arrange the website maintenance process. The regular tasks may be software updates, security check, backups, performance checking, bug fixing, database maintenance, and compatibility testing.

How to Prevent eCommerce Development Errors

All the mentioned errors may be decreased with the help of proper planning before development.

The actual process of eCommerce development is the following:

1. Analysis of business requirements.

2. Selection of the eCommerce platform.

3. Planning of the website structure and user experience.

4. Design and development.

5. Integration with third-party services.

6. Implementation of security.

7. Setup of SEO.

8. Testing of performance.

9. User acceptance testing.

10. Launch and monitoring of the website.

11. Ongoing maintenance of the website.

This process ensures that the development team understands the tasks of the website.

Conclusion

In order to build a successful eCommerce website, it is necessary not only to develop good design. Such aspects as performance, security, navigation, checkout, SEO, inventory, payment processing, and ongoing maintenance are also essential.

Prevention of mistakes in eCommerce website development starts with the analysis of business requirements and expectations of customers.

When developing a website, both for new online store and for the website that already exists, think about developing a customer-friendly and practical site.