11 Exclusive Features for Your eCommerce Store That Elevates Sales

Are you planning to launch a new online store? You should know about must-have features for eCommerce websites.

eCommerce business is an ever-growing industry. A large number of entrepreneurs are entering this industry every year.

The global eCommerce growth rate for 2023 is forecast at 9.7%, bringing global eCommerce sales worldwide to $5.7 trillion.

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In order to outpace your competitors and establish a unique brand identity, you need to do deep research and know your customers better. Remember, one strategy that works great for someone else may not work for your business. Considering your business goal, you have to decide on what feature to include or exclude.

Below we’ve listed 11 essential features you must implement on your eCommerce site to make your site stand out from the crowd.

1. Responsive Design 

Responsive design is one of the most important features of an eCommerce website. Your design needs to be responsive to ensure a seamless journey for your users across screens of all sizes.

Consumers today are constantly moving between devices and it is important that the browsing experience is consistent across all of them, especially for smartphones. A study about how many people prefer mobile phones to purchase online shows that,

61% of consumers are more likely to buy from mobile-friendly eCommerce websites.

That means by making your eCommerce website mobile-friendly, you can increase both traffic and conversions.

Responsive websites adjust to the screen on which someone views them, so your site looks great and works correctly on laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

2. User-Friendly Navigation

You may have heard about User Experience (UX). A better user experience ensures everything is in the right position for the visitors. Google recently announced user experience is a ranking factor for search engines.

Well-designed user-friendly navigation for an eCommerce website can improve the user experience significantly. Build them an easy-to-understand customer journey where they can navigate between different product categories and website sections and complete the desired journeys.

Eye-tracking research shows,

people spend 80% of their viewing time on the left portion of your website and only 20% on the right side.

So to maximize the attention of your audience, pay the most attention to the left-side portion of your site.

There is an unofficial rule among UX/UI developers known as the ‘3-click rule.’ According to this, you must reconsider any page that requires more than three clicks to navigate back to your homepage. Don’t complicate the user journey!

3. High-Quality Product Images and Videos

You may be selling the top quality products in your eCommerce store, but if the photos of your products look bad, people won’t even look at them. That’s why high-quality and eye-catching photos are one of the must-have features for eCommerce websites.

A study on the importance of high-quality images and videos shows that-

93% of online buyers agree that visual appearance is a key deciding factor in a purchasing decision. 

Make sure that your photos can be viewed from different angles, especially if you’re selling jewelry, watches, or customized items. 

Also, you can create short videos on your eCommerce products and then display them on your site. If you don’t want to directly upload videos on your site, you can upload them on your YouTube channel and then embed links on your product pages.

4. Site Search 

Site search is another crucial feature for an eCommerce website. Buyers don’t like to find out their preferred items by visiting every category and sub-category. Instead, they want to find their preferred items by searching for them on your site within seconds.

Site search allows customers to bypass the navigation and search for exactly what they want. It saves their time on a large scale and nudges them to come back to your site again.

5. Sort and Filter Option

The sort and filter option is a kind of advanced search for users on an eCommerce website. People don’t always search for the product name or variant only. When they are looking for the exact product with the exact features, you need to allow them to find that product with advanced sort and filter options.

People can search for like, A laptop with 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, a 13.6-inch liquid retina display, and a 30W USB-C adaptor under $1000 that can be delivered within 2 days.

You need to provide the customer with a neatly categorized sorting & filtering list that ensures they are spending their time making a purchase decision and not discovering products.

6. Review and Rating Option

Review and rating immensely influence users to make their buying decisions. With the inability to touch and feel products while purchasing them online, customers rely heavily on reviews and ratings from other customers to validate the information shared by brands.

A study on how many people like to check reviews and ratings before purchasing anything online shows,

95% of customers like to check reviews and ratings before making a purchase. And, more than 70% of users won’t make a purchase until they’ve read reviews.

So, allow your customers to put reviews and ratings about your products on your eCommerce site. It will not only help you to know which product people are liking or disliking, but also it will help your customers to make their buying decisions.

7. Add to Cart Option 

Add to cart is the most common feature of eCommerce websites. You won’t find an eCommerce website without this option.

To encourage conversions, make sure your “add to cart” button displays prominently on your site. When the user clicks into their cart, show them all the relevant details, such as the name, price, and quantity of each product in their cart.

Shoppers should also be able to remove items or change item quantity directly from their cart. Also, allow customers to save their cart so they can come back to it later.  

8. Multiple Payment Options 

The payment option should be on the checkout page of an eCommerce website. This is almost the last step for completing the purchase. This is where you should not disappoint your customers by offering only one payment option for them.

According to an article published by Axtrics on multiple payment options shows,

Providing multiple popular payment options on your website can help increase sales by as much as 71%.

You don’t know what payment option your customers will prefer, right? So, enable all the popular payment options like PayPal, Credit Card, Apple Pay, etc on your checkout page. If you can’t offer a specific payment option, be sure to explain to customers why.

9. Proactive Exchange and Return Policy

By showing a clear exchange and return policy on your eCommerce site, you can make comfortable your customers buy from your site. Make sure the exchange and return policies are easily findable. You can place it on your menu, footer, or even on the product page.

A research on eCommerce return policy shows that-

92% of consumers will buy again if the return process is easy. 

So, apart from showing a clear return policy on your website, you need to make sure the return process is hassle-free. This will surely lead you to a better conversion rate.

10. Order Tracking Opportunity 

Customers want to know their order status. It gives them confidence that their products are on the right track for shipment. Also, they can anticipate the delivery date through the order tracking feature.

Order tracking includes features like shipment tracking, estimated delivery dates, and frequent updates on the order status. Together, these things play a key role in the customer experience, letting buyers know what to expect for their delivery and be notified of any delays.

11. Chatbot – 24/7 Customer Support 

Since you are running an eCommerce website and it’s available for everyone, so, people from around the world could visit your site and make purchases. That means you have to be alert 24/7 to serve your customers. You can do that using a chatbot.

According to LivePerson’s survey of 5,000 consumers-

positive sentiment about the use of chatbots nearly doubled between 2020 and 2021, from 31% to 61%.

Many eCommerce stores use chatbots to assist online shoppers with basic questions and navigate them to a specific product or support page.

Apart from using a chatbot, you can also display your email address or WhatsApp number to contact you if there is anything else they need to know about. On top of that, a query form should be planned on the Contact Page to submit any kind of queries. To sum up, you should be available 24/7 to address your customers’ queries.

A Quick Recap on The Must Have Features for eCommerce Websites

Your eCommerce store got to be equipped with all the advanced features to attract customers. So, prepare your site with all these must-have features for eCommerce websites.

1. Responsive design to fit across all screens 
2. User-friendly navigation to ensure a better user experience
3. High-quality product images and videos to attrac customers
4. Site search to find anything instantly 
5. Sort and filter option for advanced searches
6. Review and rating option to gain customer credibility
7. Add to cart option for adding products to the cart 
8. Multiple payment options to enable customers to pay through their preferred gateway
9. Proactive Exchange and Return Policy
10. Order tracking opportunity to let customers know the status of their orders  
11. 24/7 customer support to make the customers feel that they are important  

FAQs on Must-Have Features for eCommerce Websites

Lots of people have searched for some of the common questions regarding eCommerce website features. We have collected those questions and tried to answer them here. Let’s check them now!

Launch Your eCommerce Website with These Must-Have Features Now

People nowadays feel more comfortable buying their necessary products online than offline. As a result, entrepreneurs around the world are coming up with new ideas for launching eCommerce businesses every day. So, the competition is fiercer than ever before.

To compete with your competitors and stick to the race, you must create and provide a stand-out eCommerce website for your customers. And these 11 must-have features that we have talked about in this blog can make your site stand out from the crowd.

Now you know what to include in your eCommerce site. So, there should be nothing that can hold you back to launch your dream business.

As an online site owner, you must know the commonly used words or phrases inside the eCommerce industry. Check eCommerce Glossary: 80+ Terms You Should Know.

Follow these 11 must-have features for eCommerce websites and create your website now. If you want to include any other features in this list, you can let us know in the comment box below. We’ll feature that point in our next update.