January 15, 2021

According to statistics compiled by Shopify Plus for their Global E-Commerce Guide, e-commerce sales are expected to grow to $4.8 trillion dollars by the end of 2021. Mind you, that $4.8 trillion dollar estimate was forecast back in February 2019, before a global pandemic turned the retail industry (and basically life itself) upside down. That’s why it’s no surprise that in 2020 I developed more e-commerce websites for small businesses in Windsor than I did in both 2018 and 2019 combined.

With consumers becoming more and more comfortable with online shopping it’s important that small businesses not only have an online presence but also have a robust, easy-to-use and most importantly safe, e-commerce experience. I keep all this in mind when developing e-commerce sites for my clients while also ensuring consistency in branding, engaging design and seamless mobile functionality.

Let’s take a look at the 4 most recent e-commerce websites I’ve put together using the content management system WordPress and highlight one or two important aspects of each website.

For Your Fur Kids

Website navigation is crucial in any web design regardless whether the website is e-commerce or not. It becomes that much more important when the e-commerce website has the number of products that For Your Fur Kids – Pet Food Store carries. With over 40 brands and 1000’s of products, it was important that consumers could quickly and easily find what they needed in the navigation menu. That’s why with this website, it made the most sense to use a “two-tiered” menu where the main tier included all e-commerce links, and the secondary (or top tier) included links less likely to be used on a regular basis such as: “My Account”, “About Us” and “Wishlist”.

What’s Poppin Popcorn Factory

When Jeff and the team at What’s Poppin’ Popcorn Factory reached out to me in June to discuss a new e-commerce website, their biggest challenge was overcoming issues with payment processing. Even though they were using a well-known payment processor they would get complaints from customers about failed orders. We decided the best way forward would be to overhaul the entire website – new design, new navigation menu, new everything – but use a different form of integration for the payment processing. The angle we took for the integration worked flawlessly and I’m happy to report, they had one of their most successful years ever.

Vape Vibes

While the vast majority of e-commerce WordPress websites are built using WooCommerce, there are certain situations where the shopping cart functionality comes from another source. That was the case with Tecumseh vape shop Vape Vibes. The POS (point of sale) software they chose to use in-store required a specific e-commerce platform called Ecwid which integrates with WordPress but not as seamlessly as WooCommerce. With Ecwid, there was a bit more “hard-coding” involved to add basic functionality such as: site-wide search, popular products and featured categories. Nonetheless, the website includes a smooth customer experience, quick and easy checkout and secure payment processing by Authorize.net.

Our Pool Store

Similar to For Your Fur Kids, the e-commerce website for Canadian pool supply store Our Pool Store included a ton of products and product variations, that’s why the website was built with an even more robust “mega drop down” menu. The design includes a “three-tiered” navigation highlighting a “Google-like” search which auto-populates with products as you type your search query. Allowing customers to easily select various product colours, sizes and shapes was also a key aspect which needed to be simple and clear cut. For example, when a customer selects a “Pool Liner” they’re able not only to select the style, but they can also select the colour, size and shape with 3 easy clicks.