The basics of a successful e-commerce site

An e-commerce site is not launched lightly. We want it to be effective, beautiful, with an exceptional interface, a number of sales to rival its competitors. In short, glory, happiness and beauty after long hours of work.
But let's be clear, all of these points mainly affect the design, marketing and strategic aspect of the beast, but one point that should not be overlooked is its performance. Why ? Performance is an indispensable part of the user experience.
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You should know that the performance of a site greatly affects the perception of a service and therefore the user experience offered. The performance also influences the transformation, the increase in turnover and therefore the profitability of the system..
And there, it is necessary to dig on the technical aspect of the problem.
Being a UX designer by profession, I will not claim to hold the absolute truth but I think it is necessary and important to understand at least this aspect and its impact on your e-commerce site. Know that this article is approved by one of our technical experts!
Performance has a key role. Unfortunately, this is a point that is often addressed too late (at the end of the project). However, it is wise to dwell on it at each stage. It should fit as follows:

  • Media (desktop and mobile, tablet)
  • Possible connections (wifi, 3G or at worst Edge)
  • Our environment (place, constrained time, stress condition, disability).

For example, Facebook offers several versions of its service to break through its adoption in emerging countries.
It is therefore necessary that each member of your team is made aware of its importance, its impact on the project. As for the “done” (done) of the agile method, you must define your performance characteristics upstream to apply them to the priority parts of your service / site.
But then what are the main criteria to be met? Here they are :

1/ The speed of response

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Nothing worse in 2017 than waiting more than 3 seconds on a page that does not load because of a request that is too long, html pages too loaded, images too heavy, or a design that is too complex…
You should know that the slowness of a site can have a big impact on indexing. Google may estimate your site below the acceptable threshold of 2 seconds maximum for correct indexing. It can therefore completely exclude you from search engines.

But no indexing, no visibility, no visibility, no customers…

Your site must not become a point of perdition. A fast site satisfies its customers and since it is more frequently consulted, it promotes its positioning in search engines..
An article by Nati Slalom specifies that every hundred milliseconds will lose up to almost 1% of sales. In any case, a split loading will allow you to show that your site is loading first before displaying the entire page.
Here is a small tutorial optimization of the pages offered by Google.
appearance_FNAC
 

2/ Service load withstand

dogWhat.. ? You wanted to order Rihanna's latest single at Christmas but the server crashed just after validating the order?
You should know that the calibration of a site both in its server infrastructure and its memory management must take into account an impressive number of connections and requests so as not to "crash" at certain key times of the year such as sales or holidays. The ESF e-Commerce platform had to adapt to meet the increasingly high power needs to reach load peaks of more than 3500 orders per day, or more than 1 million Euros. When designing your solution, you must limit the number of requests on your Databases as much as possible. Any loss of the server can potentially cause you to lose a large volume of turnover.
 

3/ Its availability

3bYou know the famous error 503: Service Unavailable, the one that really annoys you when you have to connect...
An e-commerce site is constantly evolving. The catalog is growing, it must be dressed in the colors of the season or current events. The management of improvement or maintenance work is essential and constant but must obey a methodology for updating in off-peak times or via failovers from one server to another (load balancing).
 

4) Its reliability.

maze2B
Shame on you site that still offers a search that skates, an answer beside the plate, and errors in the database...
Having an online offer is good, but if to achieve this your data must borrow an architecture worthy of the 12 works of Asterix, or even a labyrinth of verification systems with poorly optimized algorithms, you have a great chance. to lose track. The important thing is to constantly simplify, test and adjust your solution. In the case of a search engine or service that must calculate prices directly for you, the algorithm put in place must offer response times reduced as much as possible thanks in particular to parallel calculations or efficient indexing.
The performance of your site will therefore have to play on several parts:
– On the server side, we will start first: on the architecture of your solution, data management, the IS layer, your calculation algorithms, then the technical performance and server speeds, and finally the quality of optimization of your database.
– On the client side, you will ensure: the performance of the language used and the development frameworks, the minimal weight of the graphic elements, and finally, the optimization and simplification of the design to avoid too many requests and too complex html pages .
 

Let's dissect the most significant parts for a better performance...

The architecture
The architecture of your e-commerce solution plays a key role. If it is thought of badly, the site will suffer from a bad calibration of its traffic and will lose in number of consultations, will be unable to evolve and grow.
Generally, the architecture is divided into several pieces to specialize by type of task. In e-commerce, solutions are becoming more and more multi-channel. It is necessary to take into account the links with all the infrastructures, the different data and databases. Site, store, inventory, customer service and CRM data are still closed worlds that would be more efficient if they operated on a common base. The management of the data collected or to be managed according to the channels suffers from a lack of standardization.
To meet this need, we use a middleware commonly called PIM capable of grouping all the channels through a single coherent system. This still heavy system allows, once installed, the much sought-after unity between the different platforms and offers transversal, homogeneous and efficient management: the Holy Grail to be achieved for many brands. This data, when gathered, allows for easier and broader consumer analysis. Ultimately, you will then be better able to offer a quality user journey and experience through all your brand channels.
The IS layer
These are players offering software solutions developed according to the sectors of activity. These solutions make it possible to centralize information between departments to ensure better overall visibility, to increase productivity and better manage resources. It can be ERP (Enterprise resource planning), a cash payment system for example, a logistics and service solution, an after-sales service platform. The main publishers are: Sage, Cegid, Divalto, Ines, SAP…
Your e-commerce solution must be able to communicate with these platforms and therefore the chosen solution must be able to open up between your different information systems., your points of sale both real and virtual.
Platforms
These are the most widely used online trading platforms on the e-commerce market, but nothing prevents you from starting from scratch.

  • On the large accounts and multi-channel support side, we will turn to services like Hybris, Magento, Intershop, Demandware…
  • For smaller structures, we will lean more towards PrestaShop, Shopify, WooCommerce, VirtueMart.

They are generally distinguished according to the importance of their community of developers, the extension modules available, the technology used and their skills in supporting customer needs.
The choice is varied but crucial. Depending on the chosen solution, each brings its strengths and weaknesses. But we define the solution according to the e-commerce needs, the structure of the company and of course the allocated budget.
 

Conclusion

So if the launch of a service, an app or an e-commerce site tempts you, it is certainly necessary to respond to its commercial, marketing, design and experiential challenges, but the question of performance remains essential. It should be understood that the technical aspect of your platform will be calibrated according to its size, its evolution, the type of channels used, the budget and the available deployment time.
In any case, we advise you to carefully analyze your needs beforehand. Before embarking on such a project, carry out your project with rigor, by constantly communicating between your teams.
If you want a successful site, it should not suffer from a technical solution and rough project management. UX-Republic will be able to support you in these steps if you have to get started!
Happy online sales!
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Jerome Daburon, UX-Evangelist – UX-commerce Foundation @UX-Republic