(2) You need to take the first step as soon as possible. Yes, the sales are increasing, but what that also means is that competition is increasing as well, so you must act quickly if you want to have an impact. Don’t wait, choose your ecommerce website builder today!
(3) Your builder has to have good SEO structure in place and allow your store website to take full advantage of it. If your store is not SEO-friendly from day one, it’s going to be hard to retrofit SEO on top of it later on.
What else is going on that could affect your decision with a website builder?
Well, it turns out, Americans are more likely to buy from a company if they follow said company on any form of social media [4]. That certainly gets merchants thinking about building a social platform. Going back to your builder of choice, it should allow you to integrate your store with social media easily – the possibility to share and advertise your products on social is a must-have feature.
Also, the past few years have been the era of the consumer expecting more because of an onslaught of information. When someone comes to your site, regardless of the ecommerce website builder you use, they have the internet on their side. Because of that, people are more likely to turn away if they see that your site runs slowly. Shoppers expect to see options for free shipping, free returns and expedited shipping.
Oh yeah, and if your products fail to offer ratings and reviews, it makes it look like you’re far less credible. Trust issues are peaking, particularly because online fraud and identity theft is still booming. But these trust issues also tie into buying. If a customer feels like they aren’t getting proper support, all the blame falls on that company. The same goes for slow shipping, product problems and a lack of transparency with items and payments. A good ecommerce website builder will help you solve at least a couple of these problems.
At the very least, you want to be able to set up shipping zones (different rates and options depending on the delivery location), and enable customer reviews/ratings on your products. All of the top ecommerce website builders out there have these features available.
Major trends to expect for 2020 and beyond
Quite a few trends may occur as the ecommerce market lunges forward. For example, according to latest data, 79% of smartphone users have made a purchase via their mobile device in the last six months [5]. Okay, this isn’t the most mind-blowing news, but it’s important to remember that the trend of mobile commerce is most likely going to continue.
Another trend to look at is the lessening reliance on Google. The search engine has made it more difficult for small to mid-size brands to move up the ranks over the past few years, and many merchants are finding that it’s more plausible to find customers through different outlets like Amazon (considering most Google results show Amazon anyways), social media and email marketing.
What this means for your ecommerce website builder of choice is that you need features that allow for some integration with those third-party tools, marketplaces and social media platforms.
Fair enough… The trends may change. Some will stick, while others we’ll never hear about again. However, looking at these things provides good indication of the types of actions you should take with your store.
Now that you’ve had a chance to think about your own needs and the needs of the market, keep reading to learn about the ultimate online shop creation tools:
