These days, consumers on the Web are savvier than ever. Large eCommerce websites such as Amazon and eBay set a certain standard in design, responsiveness, and the look-and-feel of the interface. Users have come to expect that standard, and you need to provide a similar experience to earn their trust.

Think about it like going into a supermarket: When you step into a large chain store, there are certain things you automatically expect. Wide aisles, modern checkout counters, clear signage, and dozens of other tiny signals that combine to let you know you're in good hands. Now let's see what some of those signals are when it comes to eCommerce sites.

When you walk into a store, you usually know roughly what you're looking for. For example, one of our demo stores is a store for infant apparel. Let's say you were looking to buy something for a baby shower or for your own family: You would know if you want clothes or bath products, if it's for a child or a baby, and so on. You would also have some sort of a budget.

If you go to the infant apparel store, you will see that Shift4Shop lets you easily set up just that sort of sensible navigation. You can see a category menu with entries for baby bath, clothes , and gear, as well as a section for older children. You can also filter by price range, such as $25-$49.99, or $50 and above.

Being able to offer this sort of navigation, and taking the time to split up your offerings into sensible categories, can really pay off and show your customers you know what you're selling.

When a customer is looking at one of your products, you need to show them you know what you are talking about -- and on the Web, writing is "talking". That means your product descriptions need to be accurate and include plenty of information.

You can do away with most of the empty marketing text. Nobody wants to read that your product is "amazing" or "best in class". Inserting a buzzword here and there might be nice, but substance is what matters here. Make sure to include a lot of information about the product.

For example, if you're selling a radio controlled car, your description should say exactly what motor it has, what's the gear ratio, the exact type of tires and wheels, and more. Customers who are looking for RC parts will appreciate the information and use it to make informed buying decisions. Other customers will learn from it, thereby making you an authority. For an example of a product page full of hard technical data, look at our demo page for this toy car.

On the Web, you can't touch the products you're thinking of buying (yet). Images are the next best thing, and customers want to see those images as clearly as possible. This means that the images need to be great to begin with, and that you need to offer them in high-enough resolution.

Products should generally be shown on a white background, in a style graphics professionals call "isolated" -- meaning, only the product is there, nothing else. A good example is this Back to the Future car: You can see that the car is almost "hovering" on the page, with no discernible background.

Speaking of hovering, Shift4Shop offers a great feature for showing off your hi-res photos: When a customer hovers their mouse over an image, you can show a section of the image in full resolution -- like a magnifying glass. This is very useful for focusing on specific details and really getting a feel for the product before deciding to buy.