Creating an online business can be fun; however, if you want to build a successful online store, you must do more than just put products in the store. If you’re setting up your first-ever digital store or updating an existing online store, knowing what e-Commerce website features are essential will help you make your online store either a thriving business or one that can’t convert visitors into customers.

Today, customers shopping on the internet have many choices, and they expect to be able to shop easily. That means that they want to navigate your online store quickly, pay securely, and enjoy an easy shopping experience from the moment they arrive until the moment they complete their purchase. Thankfully, with a solid foundation of hosting services offered through ElySpace and the following ten essential features, you can provide your customers with an online shopping experience that exceeds their expectations.

1. Mobile-Responsive Design for E-Commerce Websites

As of October 2023, over 60% of all online sales now occur via mobile devices (either tablets or smartphones), so having a Mobile Responsive Design may now be considered a vital component of all e-commerce websites. An effective Mobile Responsive Design alters the size, orientation, layout, images, and navigation of a website based on the various sizes of the Mobile Device display. This means that each consumer shopping from a tablet or smartphone (during their lunch break or on their way home) will have the same positive shopping experience as anyone shopping from a laptop or desktop computer at their home or office.

If your website is not mobile-friendly, you could see a significant number of potential customers become frustrated when they attempt to access your site from a Mobile Device. They may be met with small font sizes, misaligned buttons, and navigation menus that are arduous to navigate; as a result, they will likely leave your website and continue shopping elsewhere. Mobile-friendly websites are prioritized by Google when performing their search engine rankings, and thus will have a significant effect on your overall visibility in the search engines. To further enhance your mobile-friendly website’s speed, reliability, and convenience, consider using a web host that provides the necessary server characteristics to support optimal Mobile Device page downloading speed. Mobile Page Load Time is extremely critical in the end-user experience when accessing websites via Mobile Devices.

2. Intuitive Navigation and Search Functionality

Picture yourself inside of an active, brick-and-mortar business where all of its products were thrown all across different areas of the room without any indication of where they might actually be located or even what they were actually being sold as. The likelihood you would walk straight back out of that establishment would be extremely high! A solid set of navigation options that provide the customer with clear and simple steps in which to follow so that they can easily locate all products that interest them is also one of the key characteristics of any successful e-commerce website.

The navigation menu for your e-commerce website should be easy to navigate and understand from the customer perspective (it should contain clear categories and subcategories that customers can easily identify and recognize), should contain an easy-to-locate search bar in the upper right-hand corner of the page at all times (it should return detailed results regardless of how the customer has spelled the product name or even if the customer is using a different name for it), and should provide customers with easy access to advanced search options (including the ability for customers to filter results based on price, size, color, etc.).

All of the above will create a positive experience for your customer when searching for and selecting products from your e-commerce website and, therefore, maximize the chances of them completing a purchase from your site.

3. High-Quality Product Images and Videos

Online shoppers are unable to handle or test out products before purchasing; they depend on visual information to make their decisions. Therefore, multiple views and professional product images are critical elements for every e-commerce website. In addition, you should display your goods in action; provide a zoom function so the customer can learn about every detail; and if the item is complicated, you may want to incorporate 360-degree views.

Videos allow you to take your presentation of the product to the next level, showing how the product functions, helping the buyer to gauge the size and proportion of the product in relation to themselves, and creating an emotional connection with the potential buyer. Research has shown that product pages containing videos generally convert at a much higher rate than product pages that do not include video. When you create quality visual content, you will reap the benefits through greater customer trust as well as a reduction in returns. Just make sure that your hosting can support the bandwidth necessary to deliver high-resolution images and videos quickly to every visitor you receive on your website.

4. Secure Payment Gateway Integration

The majority of online shoppers abandon their carts due to issues related to security concerns, making payment security one of the top five e-commerce website features. Customers want to feel confident that their personal and financial information is secure when making an online sale with your company. Therefore, ensure that your company integrates only reputable payment gateways and is compliant with PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). Also, provide the customer with multiple payment options, including credit and debit cards, digital wallets (such as PayPal or Apple Pay), and current options available, such as Buy Now Pay Later services. Displaying the security badge(s) and SSL certificate during the checkout process helps to instill confidence in your customers. Make sure that your hosting provider offers SSL certificates and provides hosting for secure servers, so all customer data is kept secure during every interaction with your business. When customers see the padlock icon on their browser and recognize reputable payment options, they will feel secure in completing their order.

5. User-Friendly Shopping Cart and Checkout Process

A complicated checkout process can kill your conversion rate in e-commerce, making it one of the biggest problems in e-commerce. For increasing sales through the e-commerce website, one of the most significant e-commerce website features is a streamlined shopping cart. The cart must clearly display product information, pricing, and quantities, and allow easy changes to the cart without returning to the product pages.

As much as possible, keep the checkout process short, ideally condensed into 2-3 simple steps. Provide a guest checkout option, so customers are not required to set up accounts before they can purchase from you. Provide a clear progress indicator so that shoppers know how far away from completion they are. Make sure that price breakdowns are included that show product prices, shipping charges, taxes, and total final amounts prior to asking customers for payment information. The fewer barriers you place between a customer and a completed transaction, the better your conversion rates will be.

6. Customer Reviews and Ratings System

Shopping online is common practice today for a majority of consumers, but most of them will check what others have said about your products before making their purchasing decisions. Therefore, an integral part of creating trust for potential buyers is providing a powerful review and rating system as part of an e-commerce website’s overall set of features. When consumers see authentic customer reviews, they can perceive the legitimacy of your company and know the product does what it says it will do.

To create an easy pathway for your customers to leave reviews, follow up with your customers via email after they have purchased the item, and include direct links to the review form. The star rating should be clearly displayed, and shoppers should be able to filter by rating as well to make better-informed decisions on what products to buy. Regardless of whether they were good or bad, always respond to customer reviews (positive and negative) in a professional tone to show you respect your customers’ opinions and stand by your products. User-generated content helps improve the search engine optimisation (SEO) of your website, as search engines believe it to be valuable and relevant; therefore, having authentic consumer reviews on your site will also boost your SEO ranking. Never avoid responding to negative comments; how you respond to them often outweighs the importance of the criticism itself for would-be buyers.

7. Fast Loading Speed and Reliable Performance

When it comes to e-commerce sites and making sales, it’s all about how quickly a webpage loads. Research shows that if your site takes 1 additional second to load, statisticians agree, you will lose 7% of sales conversions – that’s a staggering number! Therefore, fast website load times have now become one of the most important features of an e-Commerce website that affects both your profits and your rankings on search engines.

Your website’s loading speed is determined primarily by the quality of the web hosting company’s infrastructure that supports it. The right hosting provider, such as ElySpace, will allow for quick page loads, even during extreme traffic and peak shopping times. Other great tips for managing your site’s load speeds include optimizing the quality of your images without a reduction in resolution; reducing the amount of unnecessary code on your webpages through proper HTML markup practices; enabling browser caching; and using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to distribute content from the closest server to your customers. Keeping customers interested in your product by providing fast and reliable website-loading speeds results in lower bounce rates and signals search engines that your site is providing an excellent user experience that warrants being indexed higher in search results.

8. Comprehensive Product Information and Descriptions

A well-structured e-Commerce Product Page contains a detailed and accurate product description of each item offered for sale within your online store. This allows Buyers, who cannot physically touch products prior to purchase, to have accurate information about each item, enabling them to make informed purchases with confidence.

Accurately describe all relevant specifications: dimensions, materials, weight, colour/s, size(s), and compatibility. Provide a description that emphasizes the advantages of the item(s) and how they will positively affect the lives of your customers; speak on how the items will help solve the customer’s problem or improve the purchasing experience of the customer.

Include bullet points that provide key details in a clear, concise manner. In addition to the bullet points, provide a narrative description of each product that will engage readers, incorporate relevant keywords to help with SEO, and address common questions. By providing customers with as much information as possible before they make their purchase, the likelihood of customers having any “surprises” after receiving their order and the overall level of customer satisfaction (and thus a smaller number of returns) will be significantly increased.

9. Inventory Management and Stock Notifications

The online shopping experience can be disheartening when a customer finds a product they want, only to find out that it is out of stock after they have already spent hours researching and browsing.

In order to improve the shopping experience and keep the business moving in a positive direction, e-commerce websites need to utilise modern-day inventory management systems.

Real-time stock status should be visible for products on product pages so that customers know what is available to add to their cart at any given time. For products with low inventory, show messages on the product page such as “Only 3 left in stock!” This will create a sense of urgency for the consumer. When a product is temporarily out of stock, offer options for consumers to receive email notifications when products become available again. This will keep customers engaged with your business and prevent them from purchasing from competitors. Furthermore, an inventory management system will allow the e-commerce website to track stock levels, automatically reorder, and prevent overselling through all sales channels.

10. Customer Support and Communication Features

The manner in which e-commerce businesses provide customer service support greatly impacts a customer’s opinion of that website during their shopping experience. The ability to communicate with customer service via many methods provides the opportunity for businesses to build trust and confidence with customers; it also enables them to resolve problems before they result in abandoned shopping carts or negative reviews. One method of providing immediate responses to customers while they are in the process of purchasing is to implement live chat on your website. In addition to live chat, you should include an FAQ page containing answers to frequently asked questions regarding shipping, returns, sizing, and product usage. You should have your telephone number, email address, and hours of operation listed prominently on your site for potential customers to contact you easily. Additionally, consider implementing a chatbot for after-hours questions; chatbots will be able to answer basic questions and can forward more complex queries to a live agent as necessary. Also, integrating your website with social media platforms creates additional opportunities for customers to contact your company, thereby making it easier for them to ask questions about your products and feel comfortable making larger purchases from you.

Building Your E-Commerce Success

The basic e-commerce website features discussed in this article are just the beginning. Your online

An e-commerce website’s success will depend heavily on the reliability of your hosting service. The website features we talked about – fast load times, secure payment processing, etc – will be only as good as the performance you receive from your hosting company. If your hosting company does not provide high uptime, high performance, and secure services, shipping and payment processing are useless.

ElySpace offers an array of features and options to create a reliable and fast-performing e-commerce website. ElySpace E-commerce Hosting features high-speed connectivity, advanced security, and the ability to easily add new functionalities to your existing e-commerce store. You can rely on ElySpace and their hosting solutions to give you everything you need to build your e-commerce store from its inception or as an upgrade to your growing e-commerce business.

Set aside time to check your existing e-commerce website against the checklist above and determine what features are lacking, what features can be improved, and what features are required for your current business purpose and based on customer input. It is important to remember that the most successful online retailers continue to adapt and modify their websites by testing new features and improving the existing ones, to remain competitive and to respond to an evolving customer base.

The launch of a website is only one step in a business’s e-commerce journey, and e-commerce companies should be continually refining and improving their e-commerce vehicle. By having ten necessary features and a reliable hosting company, you will be prepared to attract customers, turn sales into a growing online business, and compete in the overcrowded e-commerce marketplace.

e-commerce journey, and e-commerce companies should be continually refining and improving their e-commerce vehicle. By having ten necessary features and a reliable hosting company, you will be prepared to attract customers, turn sales into a growing online business, and compete in the overcrowded e-commerce marketplace.

Ready to launch or upgrade your e-commerce store? Explore ElySpace’s hosting plans designed specifically for online businesses that need speed, security, and reliability.