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Impact of WordPress Themes on eCommerce Website Development

The pandemic has forever changed consumer buying behavior. Despite the lifting of lockdowns, people prefer to shop online. Therefore, if you are planning to start your own eCommerce website development business or set up an eCommerce store, now is the best time. With the right strategies and commitment to customer satisfaction, you can find clients and customers in little time.

One of the first things you must consider when setting up an eCommerce store is selecting the platform. There are numerous eCommerce platforms to choose from, such as Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento, Shopify, and WordPress. Most eCommerce website development agencies recommend WordPress due to its ease of use and cost-effectiveness.

According to different statistics, almost 60% of the top 100,000 websites are using WordPress. The best thing about WordPress is that it hardly requires any technical knowledge to manage. For instance, if you hired an eCommerce website development company to develop your online store, you don’t need them to manage it. Instead, you can do it yourself.

WordPress Themes

One thing that we love about WordPress is its themes. There is a theme for almost every eCommerce niche. It saves considerable time and effort as you can simply import the theme and customize it to your preferences. Otherwise, if you start designing your store from scratch, it can take several months to get a design that attracts and retains customers.

eCommerce Website Development

The above image is from a renowned website called themeforest.net. We searched for WordPress eCommerce themes, and the search returned numerous results. We can safely say that there is an eCommerce theme for every niche, requirement, and budget. Do not buy the first theme that you like. Instead, analyze it carefully, as there is a strong correlation between your eCommerce store’s success and the WordPress theme.

WordPress Theme & eCommerce Website Development

1. Responsiveness

You might not know it, but the bulk of internet traffic now comes from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Previously, website owners did not pay attention to mobile responsiveness, as much of the traffic came from desktops. As it is no longer the case today, your WordPress theme must be mobile responsive. One may think that it is a basic feature and included in every theme, it this is not the case. Therefore, before deploying the theme, check for mobile responsiveness.

2. Customization

You don’t want an eCommerce store that is similar to your competitor in design, right? Of course, not. The primary reason is that there is no differentiating factor between your store and theirs. The target market might think that if the store owner cannot even customize their website, what quality are they offering to their customers? To avoid such a situation, the best thing is to customize your theme. Not all themes allow customization. Therefore, consider customization when selecting a theme.

3. Plugin Support

You cannot run an eCommerce store without plugins. While most themes support all types of plugins, there are some which are incompatible. Therefore, before purchasing a theme, ensure it is compatible with search engine optimization (e.g., Yoast), marketing, inventory management, and other eCommerce plugins. Otherwise, you may need to change your theme or work thrice as hard without the plugins.

4. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

The first thing that you must do after setting up your eCommerce store is investing in SEO. We are sure that you are quite familiar with SEO. If not, no worries. It refers to a process where a website’s organic ranking is improved in Google (or any other search engine) result pages.

Suppose you set up a gym apparel store in the UAE. The most common keywords for this niche would be ‘gym shirts Dubai’ ‘gym shoes UAE,’ or ‘gym apparel Dubai.’ With the help of SEO, your website will rank for such keywords. It will result in increased organic traffic, meaning more leads.

Some themes are automatically geared towards SEO. Others require considerable time and effort to make them SEO-friendly. Why waste your time and resources on making the theme SEO-friendly when there are countless that are already in line with Google’s SEO instructions?

5. Loading Speed

The next thing to consider is the loading speed. You might notice that some websites take too long to load while others load instantly. No doubt that the hosting provider plays a critical role in the loading times but so does the theme. There are a lot of factors within the theme that contributes to the long loading times, such as excessive HTML, render-blocking JavaScript, and others. You can audit a website’s performance by using this free Google tool. We carried out a test run of a website, and this is what it showed.

wordpress ecommerce speed test

You can ask the developers to share the loading speed tests for their theme to get an idea of what to expect.

6. Support

The world of eCommerce and web development is ever-evolving. For example, there is an increasing trend towards ensuring that the website is voice search compatible and can show micro animations. Most WordPress theme developers offer six months of free support. How good is this support? Will they help you implement the latest trend or troubleshoot an issue?

Trust us when we say that you will always face one issue or the other when it comes to eCommerce website development due to the nature of the field. Good support can help you overcome issues promptly without leading to business downtime or poor customer experience.

7. Payment Gateway Integrations

The last point to consider is the integrations with notable payment gateways. It is one thing that every top eCommerce store focuses on for the ultimate customer experience. Your theme must be compatible with numerous payment gateways such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Stripe, Amazon Pay, Visa, Mastercard, and others. If not, it can ruin the customer experience. How? Customers have no other option but to close your website and go to the one where their desired payment method is supported.

Conclusion

After reading this informational blog post, we are confident that you can make the right decision when it comes to your eCommerce WordPress theme. If you still have any queries or even suggestions, don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments section below. Lastly, before setting up an eCommerce store, don’t forget about the importance of undertaking comprehensive research, such as market and product research.

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