The best firearm ecommerce integrations include many key features that meet the critical needs of firearms retailers. Below are 10 design considerations that are important to consider when launching or managing a firearm WordPress firearms ecommerce site:
1. Responsive and Mobile-Friendly Design
You cannot sell firearms from your firearms ecommerce site if customers cannot find you or easily browse your site. Mobile shopping now accounts for about 50% of all online transactions. It’s critical that your firearm ecommerce site has great search engine optimization and works well on all different screen sizes (full size screens, tablets, smartphones). The good news is that most modern firearms ecommerce site themes and frameworks for platforms such as WooCommerce are support effective SEO strategies amd are responsive so that the presentation of the design elements adjust for the screen size. But be sure to pick a platform and theme that provides the most user-friendly and responsive experience possible.
2. Integration with Distributor Catalogs
A popular sales strategy for a firearms ecommerce site is for online firearms retailer to offer all the products carried by its distributors, regardless of whether the retailer actually carries them in stock. If an item’s not in stock, the retailer can quickly special order it from its distributor without the customer even realizing that it was never held in stock. The challenge of this strategy is that it’s a huge task to load all these products and images into your WooCommerce site. Luckily there are several WooCommerce plugins that can do this for you.
These plugins have pre-existing connections with the major distributors, so installing the plugin will automatically pull the products of all the major distributors into your WooCommerce firearms ecommerce site. One option is the g-FFL Cockpit plug in from Garidian. This plugin has connections to most major firearm distributors.
3. Integration with POS/Inventory Management System
Many online firearm vendors also operate at least one physical store. As a result, it’s important to have some sort of sync or integration between your store management system and your firarms ecommerce site. This is particularly critical if you sell one of a kind used or vintage firearms online not available vis the standard distributor catalog feeds. An ecommerce integration will keep inventory levels in synch between store locations and your firearms ecommerce site to minimize the sale of items not in stock or unavailable from the vendor. The best firearm ecommerce integrations also capture the order information and customer data from online sales in the POS system. This helps with marketing and inventory management. For more information on the features of a top POS system for gun stores, click here.
4. ATF Compliance
At a minimum, you need to make sure that your website is ATF compliant. To avoid liability, your sales and fulfilment process needs to be compliant with all ATF and State requirements. There are also WordPress plugins to help with these requirements. For example, the g-FFL Checkout plugin provides a list of FFLs for fulfilment of a firearm sold online right in the shopping cart. The g-FFL Checkout plugin also has a one-click ATF ezCheck page load and a secure file system to upload and store FFL documents so that they are available to download during order fulfillment.
5. Drop Shipping Capabilities
To simplify the online sales and fulfilment process for firearms, many distributors offer the option to dropship an item bought online directly to an FFL selected by the buyer. In this arrangement, the distributor sends the firearm directly to the FFL or address designated by the buyer, and not to the FFL or retailer on record as the seller. This simplifies things for the selling FFL, as the selling FFL does not need to take physical possession of the firearm. Be sure to arrange drop shipping capability with your distributors early in the firearm ecommerce site building process.
6. Fast Performance
The firearm buying experience relies heavily on images of the firearms and related products. So, it’s critical to balance between providing compelling visual images without slowing download times by using large uncompressed high-resolution images. Slow page load speeds can hurt you in several ways. First the customer experience on your firearms ecommerce site will be impacted if the user must wait several seconds for images to load on their browser – or if images are not crisp. In addition, the Google search ranking algorithm will punish your site for slow download speeds on your site. Be sure to select the correct image sizes and compress your files.
7. Product Reviews
User-submitted product reviews are increasingly used by online shoppers in their purchase decisions. Studies show that 90%+ of shoppers read the reviews before they buy a product. Online shoppers like to see a mix of positive and negative reviews, as uniformly positive reviews can be viewed as curated or fakes. This is a common feature available on all popular ecommerce platforms, including WooCommerce, but be sure to include customer reviews in your design.
8. Firearm-friendly Payment Options
Firearms ecommerce sites require specialized payments. Traditional debit/credit cards processors such as Stripe and online wallets such as PayPal and Amazon Pay are not typically available for online firearm purchases. Firearm ecommerce sites generally require that payments be handled by ‘firearm friendly’ payments provides that are comfortable with the unique characteristics of the firearm industry. Popular firearm-friendly payment providers include Gearfire Payments and Payroc. You will need to make sure that your payment processors fully support firearms and related products.
9. Age Verification
You should build in some firearm-specific features into your firearm ecommerce site, including age verification of visitors. Be sure to research all federal and State requirements of selling online for your firearms ecommerce site business before starting to sell. For more information on the steps to open a gun store, click here.
10. FAQ Section
Online shoppers are frequently seeking answers to their questions outside of your standard store hours or have the same types of questions that are asked in-store during face-to-face purchases, but not generally available when purchasing online. An online FAQ section is a simple way to provide answers to frequently asked questions and other helpful information. This will reduce calls and emails to your gun store and give your firearms ecommerce site site more credibility.