Tips To Launch an Ecommerce Website in 2021
As the time we spend online increases, so do the digital opportunities available. The online experience is constantly evolving thanks to content creators, businesses, and app developers who can find new and innovative ways to help us shop, learn, and connect. So whether you own a business yourself or would like to work for one, let’s see how you can get involved in the digital world.
Weekly Newsletter
Subscribe
Every Product or Service store has a purpose to deliver to customers. And to deliver such products and services, It is necessary for the customer to enter inside that particular store to visualize products and services. The same goes with a website for products and services so that customers can necessary information regarding their products and services they are seeking. The information which is provided by the Website about products or services should be specific and to the point. Detailed information about products and services helps customers to solve their problems. But a website is a Digital platform and has complications compared to a physical store. It needs to be updated accordingly with the latest software to maintain uptime for the website. Making sure the website has zero downtime and any broken links which cause the visitor to reach a different location. To avoid Website needs to be tested regularly and before making it live on the website.
Before you launch any website, it’s a good idea to test it first.
This is even more important with e-commerce. There are a lot of moving pieces with an e-commerce site.You have to make sure that your product reviews are displaying correctly, that you’re getting live shipping quotes and that they’re accurate. You have to make sure you can accept payment, and you have to make sure that your site is still secure. The most important part of an e-commerce site is the checkout process.
So for us, that means that we want to make sure that the cart and checkout page work. Some hosts that help their customers with caching can accidentally cache too much.
If they accidentally cache cart data, more than one user of your site could see the same cart. That’s obviously not a good thing. To test this, try logging in to your site from a few different web browsers. Make sure that parts of the cart are working correctly. Then make sure to test each payment gateway. If you offer PayPal and Stripe, make sure to test both gateways.
Gateways almost always have a test mode that you can enable to make test transactions. If the checkout itself works great, let’s make sure that shipping methods are coming through correctly. You’ll want to make sure to test each shipping option that you offer. And if possible, try testing every single product. It’s pretty common to see someone forget to add weight or a dimension to one of their products. That will prevent those live shipping quotes from working. Once the checkout and cart pages are both working, you should spend some time testing other functionality.
You can test any functionality unique to your site. If you’re running a membership site, log out of your admin role and make sure that the content is protected. Then make sure that it works for a dummy account. If you do wholesale pricing, the test that discounts are being added up correctly.
If you have a newsletter, test the sign-up process to make sure that new customers will actually be added. If using marketing automation with your newsletter, make sure those emails are sending correctly, too.
Lastly, test each service you’re connected to. If you’re importing orders into QuickBooks, for example, make sure that those orders are actually being imported.
So for us, that means that we want to make sure that the cart and checkout page work. Some hosts that help their customers with caching can accidentally cache too much.
If they accidentally cache cart data, more than one user of your site could see the same cart. That’s obviously not a good thing. To test this, try logging in to your site from a few different web browsers. Make sure that parts of the cart are working correctly. Then make sure to test each payment gateway. If you offer PayPal and Stripe, make sure to test both gateways.
Gateways almost always have a test mode that you can enable to make test transactions. If the checkout itself works great, let’s make sure that shipping methods are coming through correctly. You’ll want to make sure to test each shipping option that you offer. And if possible, try testing every single product. It’s pretty common to see someone forget to add weight or a dimension to one of their products. That will prevent those live shipping quotes from working. Once the checkout and cart pages are both working, you should spend some time testing other functionality.
You can test any functionality unique to your site. If you’re running a membership site, log out of your admin role and make sure that the content is protected. Then make sure that it works for a dummy account. If you do wholesale pricing, the test that discounts are being added up correctly.
If you have a newsletter, test the sign-up process to make sure that new customers will actually be added. If using marketing automation with your newsletter, make sure those emails are sending correctly, too.
Lastly, test each service you’re connected to. If you’re importing orders into QuickBooks, for example, make sure that those orders are actually being imported.
There are some automated testing tools out there. Robot Ninja works with WooCommerce to automatically test your checkout.
Their pricing is incredibly generous. They have a freemium model so that basic service is totally free. And you can get premium features for $9 a month. I hope more of these services come out and work with other platforms. If you’re using WooCommerce, this is definitely worth investigating.
Errors in your store, even small ones, can cause major headaches down the road. So make sure to check. Check a second time, and then once you’re confident everything is correct, check one more time to make sure that your store, and especially the checkout, is functioning correctly.
Their pricing is incredibly generous. They have a freemium model so that basic service is totally free. And you can get premium features for $9 a month. I hope more of these services come out and work with other platforms. If you’re using WooCommerce, this is definitely worth investigating.
Errors in your store, even small ones, can cause major headaches down the road. So make sure to check. Check a second time, and then once you’re confident everything is correct, check one more time to make sure that your store, and especially the checkout, is functioning correctly.
Thanks for sticking with me for so long. Find it useful please follow and share us on social media platforms. Cheers to life and hope for this Corona pandemic end soon.
