Ecommerce Web Development - Top 5 Tips For Supporting Expansion With Technology

By: Daljeet Sidhu

The e-commerce market is extremely competitive. Marketers are so focused on getting more traffic to the website that they forget the technical side of e-commerce website design and administration. Experienced online retailers are aware that technical limitations can hamper business growth unless steps are taken at the right time to shore up the underlying technology.

A marketer's promotional efforts can be completely ruined by an e-commerce website's crashing under unexpected traffic. There is a good chance of losing sales even if the load makes the website slow. Customer's online patience is limited, and the choice of e-commerce websites is large. If technology cannot support immediacy, an essential element of internet shopping, promotional ventures are doomed to fail.

Internet marketers are unwittingly the cause of e-commerce website crashes and failures. Their demands for flashy design elements coupled with increased traffic strains the underlying technology of the websites. If marketers want promotional schemes to show good results, they need to give due attention to the technical development of the e-commerce applications.

Five ways marketers can help e-commerce website developers create more robust applications are:

1. Discuss Growth Expectations

Marketers should communicate the growth expectations to the e-commerce website developers. They should also inform them of the possibility of the traffic increasing during promotions and the expected degree of the increase. This way the developers can ensure that the underlying technology is equipped to handle the growth without disrupting or deteriorating the website's performance.

2. Account for Volume Spikes

A steady growth in traffic is usually handled by the website developers. It is the sudden spike in traffic that can make an e-commerce website breakdown. Marketers should prepare website developers for this eventuality during promotions and holiday seasons. The developers can ensure they have the necessary infrastructure to support the extra load. Platform outsourcing is successful because it makes it easy to manage volume spikes without investing in infrastructure.

3. Prioritize Website Design Elements

Marketers should consider the effect of multimedia and dynamic features on website performance and load time. The speed and capacity of ecommerce applications is severely impacted by an overuse of heavy design elements.

4. Design the Interface According to Users

The e-commerce website design should be in accordance to the target audience. Techno-savvy users can use technologically advanced features, equipment and navigational controls while others cannot. The website design should help the audience not hinder them.

5. Develop a Service Policy

Marketers should come up with a service policy to mitigate the effect of technical problems in the e-commerce website. Examples are communicating with customers and explaining the loss of service, and offering some incentive to make up for the inconvenience caused to the customer. This ensures that customers share goodwill with your business and come to your website again.

Business marketers are caught up in their own tasks and do not give sufficient time and thought to the underlying technology of the e-commerce application, and the efforts of the development team. As the success of any marketing venture needs the backing up of technology, marketers would be wise to pay attention to this aspect. They should ensure the development team has adequate resources, in-house or outsourced, to meet the expectations of marketers.