This is something that I’m considering now because it seems that there are more possibilities than ever before for designing my eCommerce application.
There are AI recommendations, loyalty programs, social commerce, subscription models, personalization, one-click checkout and many other options that should supposedly enhance users’ level of engagement and increase sales.
However, it is quite obvious that not all of these features can be implemented at once. Whenever you start developing your app or updating it, there comes a time when you have to make some decisions and prioritize what matters the most now.
What fascinates me the most is that successful eCommerce applications don’t emerge due to following the same principles. First of all, one can see that sometimes success lies in having a really simple purchasing procedure and sometimes in understanding the needs of your customers very well.
In my opinion, being a customer, I would prefer that the basics were handled properly. I mean, having a good navigation menu, the option to quickly search through the app and make the purchasing process really convenient is quite enough for me.
Therefore, my question is:
If you had to design an eCommerce app now, what would be your most important concern?
Hi @stevejonas .
Every other feature is meaningless if the purchase process has friction.
Cart abandonment happens mostly at checkout. slow loading, too many steps.
Forced account creation. Fix that first, and everything performs better on top of it.
You make a great point about getting the basics right. But if I had to design an eCommerce app right now, my very first concern would actually be visibility.
Before you can wow customers with a fast checkout or smart AI recommendations, you have to get them to your store in the first place. If no one can find your website on Google, even the best shopping experience will not make any sales. Traffic must always come first.
That is why my top priority is always technical SEO and site speed. To handle this easily without needing a developer, I highly recommend using SearchPie: SEO, Speed & Schema. It automatically optimizes your SEO, improves your mobile page speed, and structures your data so search engines can rank your store faster.
Once a steady stream of people can actually find your store, then you can focus on making that checkout process perfect!
Both checkout and visibility are fair calls, but the lens I’d build from is a bit different: which job is the merchant doing manually over and over that the app could quietly take off their plate? AI recommendations and loyalty are nice-to-haves you bolt on later. The thing that earns daily use is owning a painful, repetitive task they’d otherwise do by hand.
For most stores I work with that’s the post-purchase and support load, the same questions and manual steps every single day. If your app removes real recurring work, merchants keep it through every redesign. If it’s just another feature in a crowded category, it’s the first thing they cut.
So my first priority wouldn’t be a feature at all. It’d be picking the one painful job to own completely and doing it better than anyone else. One thing done so well they can’t run the store without it beats five half-features.
Hello there @stevejonas
I think the priority should be the fast and reliable checkout flow first. If they can’t finish a purchase easily, no other feature really matters. Then I’d be looking at good product discovery i.e. search, filtering so people can find what they want quickly. AI recomendations, loyalty, or social features are all nice to have once the core buy journey is frictionless and stable. In most of the projects I’ve worked on I’ve found that just focusing on making the checkout and search process better is where you get the most bang for your buck in enhancing conversion before you start adding bells and whistles.
@stevejonas ,
For me the top priority would be a fast, friction-free checkout. You can have great AI recommendations and loyalty programs but if customers find it difficult to complete their purchase those features won’t matter much.
After that I will focus on good search and navigation so people can quickly find what they want. Once those fundamentals are working well I add personalization and loyalty features based on customer behavior.
I have found that getting the basics right usually has a bigger impact than adding lots of advanced features.