Online presence is absolutely crucial for businesses of any type, regardless of the business nature. As long as an entity tries to sell a product or service to people in need, a professionally designed website is needed, no matter how their business model is.
As people look for what they need on the internet to find the best quality product with reasonable pricing, from small businesses such as a local restaurant or a finance company who provides financial services, all the way through mega ecommerce businesses with an unlimited number of products on display, they all need websites.
Depending on the business type, there are many different online platforms out there with a variety of features and facilities to attract more people and make their businesses grow as much as possible.
Given the fact that adding more features and facilities costs more money to the business owner, it is crucial to identify the required features for your business, depending on your business type and size to avoid wasting money on the features that are not required for your business.
Here in this article, we will take you through the differences between corporate websites and ecommerce websites.
After reading this article, you will be more familiar with what is needed and what is not, for both website types.
What is a corporate website?
A corporate website lies under the informational website category. It’s all about the businesses who intend to describe and display their services and products. However, the actual transactions and delivery are carried out offline. The purpose of having informational websites in general, and corporate websites in particular is to let users in need know that you provide services and products that might suit their needs. Furthermore, people in need will be able to get in contact with the company through the contact details provided in the corporate website.
What is an ecommerce website?
Ecommerce websites are designed to fulfill the audience’s needs, directly from the website. Ecommerce involves all required features for audiences in order to look and search, compare, make their choice and at last, buy the product that suits their needs best. Ecommerce websites include auction sites, retail stores, financial services and much more. The most important feature ecommerce provides for their audiences is the ability to make their purchases from the ecommerce website. Therefore, an ecommerce provide the purchasing ability as well as other required information.
Now that we have an initial understanding of what sort of services these two types of websites provide, we will compare these two types of websites.
Security
The most important difference between ecommerce and corporate websites is the security level requirements. As for corporate websites, no purchase is made through the website, so no bank details will be provided by visitors. However, for ecommerce, as the whole process, from finding a product to purchasing it, takes place through the website, debit/credit card details of the customer should be presented to the website as well as the customer’s delivery address. Therefore, for ecommerce, the highest level of security should be provided as if a security issue happens to even one customer, your business reputation and trustworthiness would be damaged. Obviously, that level of security is not needed for corporate websites as no sensitive information is provided by visitors.
Functionality
The functionality of an ecommerce website is far more than a corporate website. There are many features such as capacity to add new products, product comparison tool, wish list, shopping card ,payment gateway and much more features that are needed for an ecommerce but not for a corporate website. Furthermore, ecommerce website quality must be at the highest level in terms of loading speed, capability of adding animated videos and much more features to enhance the user experience and consequently website’s traffic and conversion rate.
Content
Ecommerce websites should be updated frequently in order to get maximum online attention. All pages should be SEO optimized on a regular basis and new and informative contents about the products and services should be provided on a daily basis. In contrast, the majority of ecommerce features are not needed for corporate websites. There is no need for a payment gateway, shopping cards, animated videos and other features for corporate websites. Furthermore, due to the nature of a corporate website, which basically presents information about the company’s business, there is no need to update the website contents in a short time frame.
By understanding the differences between corporate and ecommerce websites, you are now able to identify what is needed for your website and what is not. Having such information will save your time and money, as you will not waste your time and budget for unneeded features. However, you should bear in mind that selecting features for your website that suit your business perfectly, requires knowledge and experience. Hence, we would highly recommend working with a professional web design company in order to make the most out of the budget you have allocated to develop your business website. By working with a reputable web design company, you can rest assured that you will get the features that you need, based on your business type.
There are many professional web design companies in the Dubai market providing high quality web design services that you can work with. In order to make the best choice, you have to evaluate some factors such as company work history, their developer team and how ethical and professional they interact with their customers. In case of looking for a reputable company in Dubai and not having enough time to evaluate different companies, we recommend having a free consultation meeting with Websima DMCC as a professional multi-task company. Websima DMCC, has been providing a wide range of web design and digital marketing services in Dubai over the last ten years. They have delivered many successful projects over the last decade for both Corporate web design and Ecommerce web design.