What features are there to choose from in a Web store, and why would you want each of them? As e-commerce becomes more sophisticated, there are more and more choices for a merchant to make. And of course, each choice comes with a price tag. Here is a list of some web store pointers and features to evaluate. Consider which ones are necessary to your business and which ones you can do without before deciding on a software package.

• Ensure your web site contains 80-90% of the data a customer is looking for. Eliminate confusing ads and navigation links.
• Design the page layout so the potential customer can find the information easily without too much scrolling.
• Design colors that are supported by standard web browswers into the web pages. Also, use standard colors for links (blue for links, violet for visited links, and red for active links).
• Use versions of HTML that are supported by the standard web browsers. Avoid beta-level versions.
• Minimize the time to download your web pages. Web usability studies still show that portential customers lose interest in your page if not downloaded within 10 seconds, no matter how interested they were in the topic.
• Let your customer begin the checkout process or continue shopping at any time.
• Let your customers buy without registering. If possible, make registration optional. Registration creates an unnecessary barrier for first-time and one-time customers. Instead, provide incentives to register.
• Allow users to change quantities and remove items from the shopping cart.
• Provide a visual cue or confirmation when adding items to the cart. Shoppers want to know that the action they take works.
• Provide links to information the user may wish to see before purchasing (return policy, guarantees, shipping and delivery information, product details).
• Explain/show each step of the checkout process. Make the button navigating to the next step visually prominent and distinct from all other page elements. Preserve entered information. If a customer decides to change an entry during the order process and navigates to an earlier page, don’t make him enter everything again. A more advanced site will even allow a customer to leave the process in the middle and come back at a later time to complete the order.
• Provide an order summary before completing a purchase. Display all entered information and ask the user to review and confirm the entries.
• Show shipping charges early. Many people don’t feel comfortable providing personal information before they fully commit to a purchase – which they can only do after knowing all costs and details. Ask for minimal information necessary to show shipping/tax: e.g. Postal code or Province/State.
• Provide clear feedback on entry errors in forms. Prominently display a message that a problem exists, explain clearly which field(s) had the problem and what information was expected or how to fix the error.
• When evaluating a shopping cart (custom-made, off-the-shelf, or online), order several items yourself to test usability. Ask your mother or neighbor to do the same. Notice where they hesitate, and what questions they ask. Look at the shopping cart functions that your competition has in place.

Number of Products : Some e-commerce solutions limit the number of products that you can sell in your store. Make sure the solution you choose can handle not only the number of products you have today, but the capacity for expanding your product lines tomorrow.

Related Products/Cross selling : A good way to increase conversion rates is to suggest additional products to your customers. This might include accessories, similar products, warranties, etc. If this fits your business, see that your software makes it easy to do.

Featured Products : Highlighting a product on your homepage can really help promote it. Some e-commerce systems make it easy to feature one or more products by just checking off a box in the product description.

Product Import and Update : Adding one product at a time to your e-commerce solution is inefficient and slow – especially if you already have the product data in electronic format. If you do, and especially if you plan to sell hundreds or thousands of products, choose a solution that can import your data from either a database or spreadsheet.

Inventory Tracking : As products are ordered, an inventory feature will decrease inventory levels for the relevant SKUs . When levels reach a pre-defined quantity, the product status changes and you are notified of the product level deficiency.

Copy Product : If you have products that are very similar to one another, a copy function is useful. With the click of a button, similar products can be quickly added to the online store using the copy product feature.

Hide Products : Hide your products from being viewed online when they are not in stock. This reduces the burden of manually removing or hiding the product from your catalog every time it runs out of stock.

Product Attributes : Consumer goods can often be complex, with a product coming in different sizes, shapes, or colors. Moreover, each attribute (such as color) can have a number of options (such as green, blue, red, etc). Better software will allow an unlimited number of attributes and allow a merchant to define a SKU for each combination.

Pricing and Pictures per SKU : A merchant may define different prices and assign different images to products that have attributes. When a customer selects a specific combination of options for such a product, the screen will change to show the merchant defined price and image for that specific SKU.

Taxable/Non Taxable Products : For merchants that sell food items and non-food items, it is important to tax the order accordingly. Some software allows the merchant to define a product as either taxable or non-taxable and will calculate the total sales tax per order accordingly.

Write-In-Attributes : Write-In-Attributes are particularly useful for merchants that sell custom products. An example of would be a company selling shirts with monograms. The customer could enter his or her monogram using the write-in-attribute.

Categorization : For the merchant selling hundreds to thousands of products, intuitive categorization of the product line is a must. Some software allows for an unlimited product hierarchy – others limit the number of subcategories.

Assign Products to Multiple Categories : Merchants should make their products as easy as possible to find. Often this means putting one product in multiple categories.

Volume Based Pricing : Do you offer volume or quantity based discounting for your products? A volume-based pricing feature will allow the product’s unit price to change according to the quantity selected.