A Complete Ecommerce Website Checklist For Entrepreneurs

So, you have decided to take your business online and are looking for the best ecommerce website checklist for creating the online store. Congratulations, you are on your way to bigger profits. That's because according to Digital Commerce 360, ecommerce sales hit $231.35 billion in Q1 2022, up a modest 6.7% from $216.74 billion for the same period the prior year.

Ecommerce websites empower businesses to set foot in new markets, achieve flexibility, and increase discoverability by allowing them to sell their products to a global audience. But creating one is not a piece of cake because there are so many critical details that entrepreneurs, especially those who are completely new to the world of ecommerce, are unaware of those details.

Fret not, we are here to help you out! In this blog, Techosquare - the leading ecommerce website development company in India - will share ecommerce website checklist that will help entrepreneurs master the key capabilities required to create a super online store.

Are you ready to go through our ecommerce store checklist? Let's go!

#1 Formulate Standard Webpages

If you want your ecommerce website to engage the target audience, you need to work on your web pages. That’s because those pages are where your customers will visit to learn about your business, products, and USPs. Those web pages are where shopping will happen.

Formulating standard web pages for your ecommerce website will help you create a smooth user experience and let your business climb the success ladder. One shouldn't ignore these imperative web pages when developing an online store:

Home page: A large amount of traffic will enter your online store via the homepage. Develop a homepage that tells your visitors what your business is all about and makes it easy for them to find what they want on your online store. Include a search bar, include critical product categories, and share USP through content or video.

Product page: This second-most important web page of an ecommerce website. Product pages are where shoppers decide whether to buy the products or not. Add the right information, images, videos, price tag, delivery, and returns information to your product pages.

Category pages: Product category pages are really crucial for Google ranking and product discovery. We decided to include this webpage recommendation in our e-commerce website checklist because it gives customers insights into the range of products offered by your business as well. Create an excellent category page that features products and their major highlights. Include trust elements like testimonials, badges, and business partners to demonstrate your ecommerce website legitimacy.

Contact: A Contact page will provide your customers with all the ways to connect with your business. While developing this webpage, add your phone number, email, and physical address of your office. Adding the same will tell visitors how they can get in touch with your business and confirm its authenticity.

Terms of Service and Privacy Policy: This page of your ecommerce website will cover legal aspects, what's included, and what's not in your online business services. A privacy policy is a document on your online store that tells customers how and why you're collecting their information. It will help you flesh out how you use your customers' data, why you use it, and whether you share it with others.

Shipping, return, and refund policies: Some standard pages that we recommend including in your ecommerce website. A lot of consumers read shipping, return, and refund policies before making a purchase from a specific website. Adding this webpage to your online store will help you build trust with your potential customers.

72 online store features to build an amazing ecommerce platform in 2022

#2 Work on Ecommerce Website Design and Layout

Creating web pages for your ecommerce website isn't enough. You also need to work on its design and layout. Why, you ask? According to a study by My Technology, 94% of internet users don't trust websites with a bad design. Ecommerce websites that are designed well help businesses form a positive image on their anticipated visitors. And that's not it! It will also help them cultivate leads and boost conversions.

Here is the checklist of best ecommerce website design tips and ideas:

Add convenient navigation, filtering, and search bar
Maintain the visual hierarchy maintaining while considering the structure and flow of your online store
Stick to simplicity. Don't add unnecessary elements and keep the design clean.
Redress the balance between aesthetics and usefulness.
Add images that are relatable to users and create an emotional connection.
Consider the logo, slogan, fonts, and colors of your online business and use the same for general design patterns of your website.
Keep consistency and branding.

#3 Create ace product descriptions

Will you buy a $1500 PC without learning about its processor, RAM, storage capacity, GPU, motherboard, and cabinet? Maybe a few of you can but for others, the answer will be NO! Similarly, your customers won't buy your products without learning about specifications. A study suggests that 87% of consumers consider product details extremely important when deciding to buy.

Here is the checklist for creating ace product descriptions for your ecommerce website:

Get hold of your buyer persona in order to understand which features are worth mentioning in a description
Focus on product benefits
Tell a mini-story about your product. Pack it with an emotional punch
Use natural language and tone
Use power words that sell
Make the description easy to scan
Use specific keywords to optimize product description for SEO

Adding descriptions to your product will help you influence buyers' decisions and improve conversion rates and sales. They will also help you improve visibility and SEO on organic as well as paid channels.

#4 Optimize Checkout Flow

Imagine standing in a queue to buy a movie ticket for 30 minutes only to find out that your favorite spots are gone. You will feel frustrated, right? Customers also feel the same when they have to go through a long process to place their order. They may become impatient, get out of line, and leave your ecommerce website. Don't believe us?

According to Baymard, around 30% of online consumers abandon their shopping cart either because of complexity, errors, or length. Therefore, our next tip for ecommerce website checklist is to create a clear checkout flow that is seamless and frictionless for users.

Consider these tips to optimize the checkout flow of your ecommerce shop:

Use POS integrated payment solutions
Accommodate different forms of payment and checkout preferences
Email payment receipts
Upgrade your hosting connection
Snip off unwanted fields in the checkout form
Include credit card logos, seals or badges of authenticity, and privacy and return policy
Use address autofill plugin

The aforementioned tips will help you dial down friction, create lightning-fast checkouts, and make certain your customers finish their shopping journey with a BIG smile on their faces.

#5 Design Shopping Cart Page

One of the important tips on our ecommerce website checklist. Do you want to know what else makes or breaks your conversion? It's your shopping cart web page design! It works as a footbridge between the product page and the checkout page. Now some of our readers might think, “Isn't it just a shopping cart?”

Yes, you are right. The primary objective of a shopping cart is obvious - to help customers complete a purchase. However, a lot of ecommerce studies indicate that the usability and design of your online shopping cart impact your conversion rates firsthand. So, it's better to get a good idea of what you'd like to accomplish with it.

Identify your shopping cart goals and start working on its design afterward. Consider this checklist of tips to design the best shopping cart for your ecommerce website:

Place the shopping cart icon in the upper right corner of all pages
Display the number of items that a buyer has added to the cart
Confirm which items are added to the cart
Use a mini-cart pop-up to display the most important cart details
Provide information about shipping charges
Add options like see the order, change quantities, remove items, and return to the product page

#6 Create a Mobile-Friendly Design

Another important tip of our ecommerce site checklist. Make responsive design a core part of your online store development. It's 2022 and if your online store isn't mobile-friendly, you are going to miss out on a lot of sales and profits.

Why? According to Statista, there are over 4.32 billion mobile internet users as of 2021. Meaning, over 90% of the global population browse the internet using smartphones. And given that more and more people are still turning to mobile to make purchases or complete ecommerce actions, mobile-friendly design can no longer be ignored in 2022.

If you are thinking of doing an online store redesign or building from ground zero, this checklist of best mobile-friendly ecommerce website design practices will help you along the way:

Pay attention to navigation
Optimize images for smaller screens
Place Call to Action (CTA) buttons in the right positions
Review interactive elements like buttons and hyperlinks for mobile enhancements.

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#7 Set Up Ecommerce Inventory Management

Our ecommerce website checklist will be incomplete without talking about this. Ecommerce retailers need to have a few things to make their business a huge success - a highly functional and eye-pleasing website, a solid shipping strategy, and most importantly, a good range of vision into their inventory counts and locations.

Having a solid ecommerce inventory management system will help entrepreneurs succeed in every aspect of their online business. Choose a robust ecommerce inventory management software to make it easy for you to streamline warehousing operations and make smarter financial decisions.

Trunk, inFlow, NetSuite ERP, Cin7, Wasp, and Zoho Inventory are some of the best inventory management tools for keeping track of stock on the online shop.

Ecommerce Website Checklist: End Note

Above are some best tips and ideas of our ecommerce website checklist that represent a roadmap for entrepreneurs looking to start an online store from scratch! We know launching an e-shop is not easy but with some patience, research, and smart decisions, you will be able to avoid all troubles and create an online store that is a profit-making machine.

Got any queries to ask? Send them to info@techosquare.com and have them answered by our ecommerce website developers.