Whether you are just developing your e-commerce plans or have an existing strategy, you'll want to review other e-commerce sites, including your competitors, to discover what features work and don't work. Then you can decide what elements to add to the shopping process on your company's site to make your customers' experience seamless and more enjoyable.

Rate each feature under those categories on a scale of one to five -- with five being most desirable and one being the least. Then calculate a rating for each category by taking the average of your answers. Once you have rated each category, you can create an overall rating by adding the category ratings and dividing by seven. This overall rating is the effectiveness score for your website or the site you're evaluating.