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The pandemic has forever changed consumer buying behavior. Despite the lifting of lockdowns, people prefer to shop online. Therefore, now is the best time to start your eCommerce website development business or set up an eCommerce store. With the right strategies and commitment to customer satisfaction, you can quickly find clients and customers.
One of the first things you must consider when setting up an e-commerce store is selecting the platform. Numerous e-commerce platforms exist, such as Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento), Shopify, and WordPress. Most e-commerce website development agencies recommend WordPress for its ease of use and cost-effectiveness.
According to statistics, almost 60% of the top 100,000 websites use WordPress. The best thing about WordPress is that it requires little 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 we love about WordPress is its themes. There is a theme for almost every eCommerce niche. Importing a theme and customizing it to your preferences saves considerable time and effort. Otherwise, if you start designing your store from scratch, it can take several months to get a design that attracts and retains customers.
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 most internet traffic now comes from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Previously, website owners ignored mobile responsiveness, as much traffic came from desktops. As is no longer the case today, your WordPress theme must be mobile responsive. One may think it is an essential feature and included in every theme, but this is not true. Therefore, before deploying the theme, check for mobile responsiveness.
2. Customization
You don’t want an eCommerce store designed similarly to your competitor. 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 customize their website, what quality are they offering their customers? To avoid such a situation, the best thing is to customize your theme. Not all themes allow customization. Therefore, customization should be considered when selecting a theme.
3. Plugin Support
You cannot run an eCommerce store without plugins. While most themes support all types of plugins, some 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 e-commerce store is invest in SEO. You are 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.’ SEO can help your website rank for such keywords, increasing organic traffic, which means more leads.
Some themes are automatically geared towards SEO, while others require considerable time and effort to make them SEO-friendly. Why waste your time and resources on making the theme SEO-friendly when countless are already in line with Google’s SEO instructions?
5. Loading Speed
The next thing to consider is the loading speed. Some websites take too long to load, while others load instantly. The hosting provider plays a critical role in loading times and does the theme. Many factors within the theme contribute 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.
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, due to the nature of the field, you will always face one issue or the other when it comes to eCommerce website development. Good support can help you overcome problems 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. Every top eCommerce store focuses on this 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, etc. If not, it can ruin the customer experience. 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 you can decide on your eCommerce WordPress theme. Please let us know in the comments section below if you have any queries or suggestions. Lastly, before setting up an eCommerce store, remember the importance of undertaking comprehensive research, such as market and product research.