Ecommerce business is booming and the trend is expected to continue increasing for the next few years.
Prevailing online statistics predict that this will be the way to go for all growing companies.
If you already have a good business idea or a product you would like to sell, consider getting an ecommerce website.
The website will go a long way in strengthening the business reputation. It also assists in expanding the brand both nationally and internationally.
If you have just started to research how to design an ecommerce website, it is possible that you are finding the information to be overwhelming and complicated.
In the past, building a website required you to possess a dream and extensive technical expertise. But today, things have changed by a great deal.
With a little research, you can easily get your business online in no time. The following are steps to help you create an ecommerce website:
1. Start with a Strategy
To guarantee success, you will need to have a sound strategy before you start to design your own ecommerce website.
Regardless of how simple you want the platform to be, there are details that you will need to ensure everything is right for your business.
For example, all businesses claim to have the best customer service.
But with the introduction of this platform, you will be entering a world where the success of your business is entirely depending on the ecommerce website.
As such, you need to make sure that you have round the clock customer support.
Your personnel should be friendly. They should also be able to troubleshoot any problems that may arise on that particular platform.
As the business continues to grow, it will be important for you to be able to anticipate your greatest business challenges and needs.
If you will provide physical products to your clients, make a decision on how shipping will function.
For a business dealing with digital products, consider the amount of bandwidth you will require. Additionally, what delivery options will you need?
You need to prepare a list of everything that you intend to sell. In your list, note down the delivery options available to you. For each option, note the time or payment limitations you may encounter.
2. Select a Platform and Domain for the Ecommerce Website
Does your business need a custom domain for its ecommerce website? No, it doesn’t. Make sure that the domain you choose will cater to all your business needs.
A custom domain will come handy for a business that plans to sell a broad array of products. It also assists in extending the business brand.
Access to your own custom domain will provide the ecommerce store with:
- Search engine optimization benefits
- A professional email address that is linked to the domain you have chosen. Customers can use this email address to get in touch with your business
- A brand that is easily recognizable and which belongs to you
Once you have chosen your preferred domain, you should now proceed to select the correct platform for the ecommerce website.
Ideally, consider working with a platform that is easy to use and flexible enough to meet your growing needs.
There are not many business owners who will want to deal with having to hand code an ecommerce website from scratch.
Entrepreneurs and business owners require access to platforms that they can integrate with their websites easily.
For those that do not have websites at the moment, they could benefit from working with platforms that enable them to create their websites from scratch.
It is a feat that you can achieve in a few simple clicks.
But if you have already developed a website, you can easily transform it into an ecommerce website by adding widgets and buy buttons. You could also choose to embed a simplified store to the website.
If you encounter any issues or are not sure of how to proceed, consider consulting a digital marketing agency. The agency will help with SEO and other issues you may be facing.
3. Set Up Payments and Deciding on Pricing
When building an ecommerce website, you will need to look into 3 essential payment aspects:
- How to price your products
- How clients will pay for services rendered or products sold to them
- How to get these payments into your business account
It could be that you are planning to extend a local business to the web or starting from scratch.
Whichever option you are working with; you need to note that the internet world tends to have different expectations for how you will price all your products.
When considering products to sell online, there are a number of factors that you need to take into account including:
- Flexible pricing
- The cost of materials for each available product
- Percent per sale deductions and fees associated with working with various organizations, e.g., Credit Card companies and PayPal
- E-commerce web hosting
- Taxes
- Shipping
After looking into these factors, now sit down and make a decision on how the ecommerce website will accept payments.
Often, this requires you to find a payment processor from a third party. PayPal is one of the most popular options at the moment.
4. Design the Store and Start Adding Products
Start designing your store. The design phase requires you to think about everything that you will want to include, apart from the products.
At the very least, the e-commerce store will need to have a contact page and an about page.
The two pages are a must-have on a website as they make it easier for potential buyers to get in touch with the business.
You can also add text and video onto the pages. As you are designing the website, you will need to make sure that you have included:
- Payment logos and Trustmark. They assist the customers to feel comfortable shopping with the business
- Photograph. Your customers will want to know they are dealing with a real person
- Logo. For recognition and branding purposes
You will need to choose a theme that will provide the best representation of your business.
It should also make it easier for you to showcase the products on offer in the best possible manner.
The categories you will create on the website will all need to be logical to the customers.
5. Look After Analytics and SEO
SEO is another important part when building a website. Use this particular phase to also develop an SEO strategy that works for your website.
Remember that when you are done designing it, customers will need to be able to access it.
You, therefore, need to make use of acceptable SEO practices when linking content between the pages.
A great strategy will ensure that your website will be picked up by Google within no time. It also guarantees a better ranking in the search results.
Try and integrate the website with performance tracking tools like Google Analytics. It is a tool that will help you monitor the product pages and the website in general.
You can use the performance logs to make them more efficient, and improve their reach, and business sales.
Conclusion
Developing an ecommerce site is not a task for the faint-hearted. But it is an opportunity that will ensure that the business remains competitive.
It also assists in raising awareness of the incredible products that you are selling.
Follow the above five steps and within no time, you will have access to a fully functional ecommerce website.
