For a long time, purchasing medical equipment was “tied” to the capabilities of local suppliers. However, given the consistently large number of counterfeit products and high markups, healthcare organizations would certainly like to receive a more convenient, reliable, and cheap solution to their needs for such equipment – actually, this is why eCommerce solutions can be of great value to them. Below, we will consider the key aspects of developing an eCommerce platform for the e Commerce healthcare industry and also share our own relevant experience.
Key Components of E-commerce Website Architecture
There are three types of eCommerce website architecture: two-tier, three-tier, and microservice. Let's examine each type in more detail to help you understand which one is best suited to your needs and tasks.
Two-tier architecture
This architecture implies division into a client and a database domain, between which developers organize interaction in a certain way. Since the rules of such interaction are often static, this both reduces the cost/simplifies the development process and imposes certain limitations (unsuitability for implementing frequent changes in business logic, poor scaling, low level of control and redistribution, as well as difficulties in updates due to dependencies in monolithic code).
Three-tier architecture
This type of architecture, in addition to the two levels described above, also has an additional one located on the server side. Thus, all medical product online platform processes are carried out either at the presentation level, at the application level, or the database level. This approach allows developers to achieve high independence of levels from each other, so support and updates, despite the initially higher investment in development (due to the complexity of communication between levels), become simpler and cheaper. In general, this type of architecture is ideal for scaling and ensuring a high level of performance and security (since in such an architecture, there is no direct interaction with data from the database).
Microservice architecture
Microservice architecture is considered an ideal choice for constantly updated and expanding solutions, as it virtually eliminates dependencies between individual components. On the one hand, it is quite difficult and expensive to maintain and implement; on the other hand, it is characterized by increased fault tolerance and flexibility in the choice of technologies for implementation and also opens up opportunities for quick and automatic deployment of new components.
User Experience (UX) in Health E-commerce
Creating a smooth user experience is critical in healthcare eCommerce – although such websites are not intended to solve urgent problems when someone’s life or health is at stake, depending on the target audience, their users may be people with disabilities – which is why it is so important to ensure simplicity and clarity of navigation, regardless of the number of product items.
In particular, the most detailed aspects of web accessibility are covered in the WCAG 2.0 guidelines. In short, they describe how to make an eCommerce website easy to use, intuitive, and generally minimize the cognitive load on the end user. They also describe the need to ensure compatibility with third-party assistive technologies, such as screen readers or speech recognition software.
Essential E-commerce Features for Health Products
If we try to distinguish the key features of solutions for the electronic commerce healthcare sector, they will be as follows:
- Navigation (logically structured catalog of products, brands, etc.);
- Convenient search system and filters/sorting of products (so that users can bypass navigation that usually takes more time);
- Product cards with technical specifications, images, video reviews (optional);
- A user account with personal data, order history, the ability to pay for products online (it is desirable to provide several options) and track/cancel orders;
- FAQ section and chatbot for fast and effective customer service;
- Section with transparent policies for the operation of your eCommerce solution;
- High performance regardless of the Internet connection quality;
- Mobile friendliness;
- Integration with social networks and e-mail services for quick user authorization and authentication;
- Blog (it can significantly improve your eCommerce solution’s position in search results).
Ultimately, this is just a basic set of attributes for your future eCommerce solution, and it is up to you to decide what their final list should be.
Leveraging SEO for Health E-commerce Success
Generally speaking, since eCommerce solutions are becoming a new full-fledged sales channel for many medical equipment vendors (regardless of their established collaborations with offline resellers), they need to make these solutions visible in search engines. This is what SEO is for.
Of course, many people know that SEO is about creating high-quality, relevant, up-to-date, and expert content – for this, SEO specialists build a semantic core, create meta tags, select topics for blog articles, come up with link-building strategies, and generally create a content plan aimed at attracting organic traffic (we will talk about all this in more detail in the next paragraph).
At the same time, no less important for SEO is the correct (consistent and understandable) structure of the website, the high loading speed of its pages, correct designations for URLs (they should not be a random set of characters – instead, you will need to include the names of specific products/sections of your website), optimization for mobile devices, and a convenient and intuitive interface that will not slow down your users on the way to performing target actions.
Only the combination of all these measures will ensure your eCommerce healthcare business consistently high positions in search results.
The Role of Content Marketing in Health E-commerce
As you may have already understood, content marketing is an integral part of effective SEO. If your medical selling platform has clear and simple navigation, its pages load quickly, and in general, the technical team has done a great job, but the positions in search results remain low – the problem is probably that you do not regularly fill it with new, relevant content.
Think about what topics would be most interesting to potential visitors to your platform: perhaps these are comparisons of similar models of medical equipment from different manufacturers or an overview of innovative technologies in this area. Whatever the case, you should remember that from Google's point of view, your content must comply with the E-E-A-T rules – that is, reflect such characteristics as Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
That is why it makes sense to involve copywriters who have experience writing expert articles in your business niche to create it.
Integrating Social Proof in Health E-commerce
Social proof usually means reviews and ratings left by real buyers of your products – for this, when developing a med commerce platform, you will need to leave a corresponding requirement to your development team. However, along with this, you can also ask them to integrate reviews about your company from third-party web resources, such as Trustpilot – this will add additional transparency and objectivity to the image of your brand.
Mobile Optimization for Health E-commerce Sites
Statistics for 2023 claim that the number of desktop shoppers exceeds the number of mobile shoppers by only 3%. Isn't this a reason to ensure that your eCommerce solution is compatible with mobile platforms?
In fact, today there are many approaches to eCommerce development (from creating responsive designs to the mobile-first approach) that allow you to reach as large a target audience as possible with minimal resource costs. And it is simply impossible to ignore this need in the current year, 2024.
Navigating Regulations in Health E-commerce
It is important to note here that the healthcare e Commerce sector is subject to much more stringent regulatory requirements than many others. In particular, companies that sell medical products or services must follow the standards set by health regulators (depending on the region, these may be the FDA (USA), EMA (European Union), MHRA (UK), etc.). All of these standards have common goals:
- Guarantee the safety and effectiveness of products;
- Ensure compliance of labels and advertising materials (for example, false or inflated claims about the therapeutic effect can lead to fines);
- Demonstrate permission to sell medical products (we mean the presence of appropriate licenses).
In addition, you must take care of the standard e-commerce guarantees of privacy and protection of user data – they are reflected in detail in the GDPR (EU) and HIPAA (USA).
Another important aspect of the online trade of medical devices is compliance with online advertising and marketing requirements (in particular, your advertising campaigns and product descriptions should not be misleading, ensure the accuracy of information through relevant scientific research, and inform buyers about possible risks and side effects).
Next, you will need to take care of the security of transactions carried out within your online medical device store platform – the requirements for this are transparently described in the PCI DSS standards.
Finally, you have to pay attention to supply chain management and logistics to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements for the transportation and storage of goods (including their storage in certified warehouses, transportation in specially equipped trucks, accounting and tracking of shipments in real time, etc.).
Our Experience in Developing eCommerce Solutions for Medical Devices
Now, let's turn to our personal experience and find out how the WEZOM team implemented a full-fledged B2B web portal for a manufacturer of medical equipment for rehabilitation.
In particular, the client (the medical device seller) approached WEZOM with the goal of creating a multifunctional eCommerce platform for the B2B segment, which would become a more convenient and easy-to-use alternative to the Telegram messenger, in which the process of ordering medical equipment previously took place. The usual way of interacting with clients required optimization due to the large amount of manual work assigned to the company's managers. Therefore, the new solution had to automate all stages of the sales funnel.
After a detailed discussion of the requirements for the new solution, we came to the conclusion that we were faced with a global task: to build a B2B portal from scratch where buyers could get instant access to the product catalog (with the ability to filter and sort goods), place an order (with the ability to choose from several payment options), view their order history, check the status of current ones, and also receive all the accompanying documentation. The client also needed integration with the already-used accounting system to display the current balance of goods.
To implement the project, we chose development tools such as Laravel (backend), React (frontend), and CRM – all of them provided our team with the necessary flexibility in the development process. As for the development methodology, we settled on Agile, which allowed us to perform work iteratively and instantly adapt to new client requirements. Thanks to this, all edits and updates were implemented in real time, which became a key advantage in the process of integrating this web portal with OpenERP and CRM.
As for the difficulties we encountered while working on this health care e Commerce project, these include complex integration with the accounting system (due to the peculiarities of its architecture), the need to implement a multi-level access system for individual user groups, as well as a large number of UX tests and subsequent optimizations (due to the need to provide end users with the most seamless experience of interacting with the portal).
As a result of the deployment of the new B2B eCommerce health portal, the client noted the following improvements:
- Full automation of processes related to inventory management and customer interaction;
- Minimization of paperwork;
- Reduction in the workload of managers;
- Reduction in the time for processing orders by 40%;
- Increase in order accuracy by 34% (and, accordingly, a decrease in product return rates);
- Increase in customer satisfaction by 25% due to a more convenient and simple process of finding the right product and placing orders.
Overall, this health e Commerce project gave us new experiences, which we will gladly transfer to new projects for this business niche.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, if you are considering selling medical equipment online, you should definitely consider the possibility of custom development of your digital marketplace – otherwise, when using template platforms, you risk exposing your business to fines and penalties due to non-compliance with the strict legislation that applies in this business niche. If this option suits you, you can contact us, and we will bring your idea to life with the lowest possible budget.