Gone are the days when sellers relied on word of mouth or walk-in customers to buy their goods. Nowadays, you can operate an online store in the comfort of your home or your physical shop. Online stores or virtual stores have come to play a huge role in the trading industry.
Once you have an eCommerce store, you are assured of reaching a wider audience based on your marketing strategies. Also, you can restrict the sale of your goods or services to only your country or even globally. Take a look at successful eCommerce websites like eBay and Amazon. They accommodate various sellers who sell unique goods in different countries.
They even offer shipping opportunities for people who are further away. This has led to the platform’s growth and the sellers’ exposure. Therefore, you can opt for an online store to sell your goods or be a merchant in another marketplace. Luckily, you can consider both options.
You can choose how to showcase your products when you have full control of your website and its performance. However, being a merchant in big online stores like Amazon improves your possibility of selling goods to more people.
If that interests you, let’s dive in:
What is an eCommerce Website?
If you are new to the term, it is basically like a normal website. An eCommerce website is a platform that allows people to buy and sell physical goods, services, and downloadable products over the internet.
Just the same way in an ordinary purchase, you check an item, decide that you want to purchase it, and then make payments. You can do the same for an eCommerce website.
On an eCommerce website, you can browse through the various goods and services, make payments, and get your item shipped or delivered to you. For the seller, they get the chance to upload the items they have, accept payments, manage to ship, and provide customer service. It is just like a normal business.
E-commerce simply means selling goods or services on the internet by electronically transferring funds and data between two parties. This has made life easier as people order food, clothes, furniture, and other online services. Additionally, the increase in the use of mobile phones has led to the growth of e-commerce websites.
Building a High-class eCommerce Website
Whether you are selling physical goods, services, or digital products, having an online store can boost your sales. The kind of eCommerce website depends on the type of goods you will be selling:
Step 1: Purchase a Domain.
A domain name is the web address that will be used to access your website. For example https://spdload.com/ – spdload is the domain name.
Therefore, a domain name should represent your brand. Preferably use a domain name related to your business name. However, if the domain name is not available you can choose a different one. Just ensure it relates to your niche.
When consulting a developer, make sure you have a domain name in mind. Certain guidelines need to be followed when purchasing a domain name:
Choose a domain name that is easy to remember.
Avoid using slang.
Use a short domain name.
Ensure it resonates with your brand.
Avoid using special characters like hyphens.
Consider not using numbers.
Look at the domain names being used by your competitors.
The domain name needs to represent your brand perfectly. Once you have your domain name, you can consult a reliable web development team. There is certain domain name registrar that you can consider such as Namecheap, Domain.com, Bluehost, Network Solutions, Hostgator, GoDaddy, and DreamHost.
Before choosing one consider their pricing, registration policy, domain transfer policies, domain expiration policies, and add-on services. Therefore, shop around to find the most ideal one.
If you are not sure, you can request the web development team to purchase a domain and design an eCommerce website for you.
Step 2: Consult Reliable Ecommerce Developers.
You can then opt to consult an eCommerce developer to help you with the custom WordPress website development of your online store. There are a wide variety of eCommerce developers who can help you meet your online store goals.
Working with developers can help make it easier to meet your marketing and online store goals. You just need to outline your needs, the kind of platform to be used, the kind of products that you sell, and your brand. Provide a web scope of what you need.
Step 3: Select Hosting Platform
Once you get the .com domain name, your website will need to be hosted. Web hosting is where your website data is stored.
There are different categories of eCommerce hosting such as: 1. Cloud hosting – This is where eCommerce sites are hosted off-site. 2. On-premise hosting – This is where the online stores are hosted on servers owned by the business and are found in open source solutions.
There are certain hosting platforms that you can consider:
Namecheap
GreenGeeks
A2 Hosting
HostGator
DreamHost
SiteGround
Godaddy
BlueHost
WP Engine
InMotion
Additionally, when choosing a web host, you need to consider the needs of your website, server reliability, server upgrade, renewal price, essential features, backup capability, quick server responsiveness, and security. Therefore, ensure you do thorough research before settling on a hosting plan.
Step 4: Customization
Your eCommerce website needs to look impressive, elegant, and attractive. That’s why it is important to choose an appropriate theme and template for it. When choosing an eCommerce solution, you need to consider website performance, traffic capacity, mobile responsiveness, and payment security.
Some of the most common eCommerce website builders include
BigCommerce
Shopify
Magento
WooCommerce
Wix
How To Customize The Ecommerce Website
Easy Website Navigation
The website builder theme or template you choose should ensure easy customer navigation on your website. Therefore, the add-to-card option and checkout call-to-action button needs to be visible.
Also, ensure the login or sign-up buttons are easy to locate to make it easier for new or returning customers to make purchases.
Customize your homepage
The homepage should speak better about your brand. When a customer accesses your website they need to get the urge to make a purchase. Therefore, you need to make the website as appealing as possible.
The customer needs to tell what your business is about at first glance. Therefore, ensure the homepage is easy to look at without too many ads. Also, the search feature should be easy to use.
Consistent Theme
The website needs to have a consistent theme and color scheme. Furthermore, know the number of products that will be represented on each of the pages, and the product image size.
Just ensure your eCommerce website spells our professionalism. You can also use some built-in extensions or add-ons to make it more functional.
Insert analytics code
While you are at customization and tweaking the code, you should install an independent analytics code to later measure the overall performance and growth of your website. Analytics later helps with understanding the behavioral patterns of visitors.
Step 5: Make it eCommerce
Once you have decided on the website builder to use, color theme, and functionalities needed on the website. It is now high time to add the products, product categories, payment methods, and shipping methods.
1.Add Products to your eCommerce Website
You need to upload the commodities you want to sell on your eCommerce site. The product pages are critical to show your buyers what you are selling.
Therefore, you need to show the products in the best way possible using customized product descriptions, high-quality images, and easy-to-navigate categories. The product descriptions need to be elaborative enough about the product.
Ensure you include what the product is for, some basic ideas, the importance of using the product, how to use the product, and when it is appropriate to use the product.
2.Integrate Payment Methods
What kind of payment methods will you accept and do you think your customers will be ready to use? In some instances, customers fear using their credit cards due to security reasons. Therefore, ensure your website is secure to reduce such instances.
Additionally, you can have PayPal as a payment method for more flexibility. The payment method should be acceptable in the country or your target marketplace. There are different types of payment gateways such as:
“Redirects mode” take the customer to a separate site to process the payment. For example PayPal.
There is also “checkout on-site mode” in which you pay on the site using your preferred payment method, but payment is done offsite.
There is also the “on-site” payment done on the platform without any redirection. In everything keep your customers in mind.
3. Add the Delivery details
Most web builders allow a buyer to choose specific delivery options. Also, as a seller, you can restrict the regions where product deliveries can be made.
Therefore, ensure you include all relevant shipping details and fees. It is also important to provide a refund policy for all the products. Also, ensure you choose delivery options that your customers will prefer.
Step 6: Make your Website Live
Before the website goes live, you need to check whether all the options are working.
Is the payment method working?
Is it easy to add products to the cart?
How do people preview the products?
Which other functions are there?
It is also important to ensure that the website loads fast. Therefore, you can optimize the images to ensure that the website content is not too heavy to prevent your customers from leaving the website.
All the buttons need to be working well, try the website on different browsers, and your mobile devices.
Market your eCommerce Website.
Now that the website is working perfectly, the next thing is to promote your website and the products that you were selling.
Partner with the Right Brands
Your customer’s needs should always come first when it comes to marketing. That’s why it is always important to get feedback from them to see what’s working and what isn’t. Customers require their needs to be met and not exploited.
Therefore, ensure you collaborate with famous brands to ensure you give your customers high-quality products. They will even trust the authenticity of the products. Also, ensure that the process is easy for anyone so that people don’t get stranded when they access the website.
High-quality products will ensure you get more customers and returning customers. This is the best form of relationship marketing.
Use Influencers to Market your Products
Another mode of marketing is through the use of Instagram influencers to market your products Therefore, do thorough research to know influencers in your niche and collaborate with them to market your products.
Your next customer could be among their followers on social media or any other platform. Also, you can consider paying for advertising on different social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other places
Use Email Marketing to Promote your Products
Once a customer signs up to your website there can be an option that asks whether they want to be getting discounts or special offers regarding the products.
Also, you can use email marketing to inform customers about discounts, and special offers, and even wish them happy holidays. The main thing is to ensure that you form a bond with them.
Consider Social Media Marketing
In addition to email marketing, it is important to consider Social media marketing. That’s where you can promote your new products, seek feedback, and also engage with your customers.
Therefore, it can help promote your online store hugely. You can even consider affiliate marketing and have affiliates promoting your products on their site.
Localization
Your region of operation also plays a key role in your marketing. What platforms do more people use? What social media platforms do they readily use?
This is because some apps are banned in some countries. Also, remember to sell appropriate goods in your area. This will even make it easier to know how to promote your products.
Build a Functional e-Commerce Website
In the real world, it is important to build your network to expand the business, but in the online world, an eCommerce website can help your business to acquire new customers, create unique shopping experiences, and strengthen your business brand. Therefore, if you ensure that all the guidelines are met, you are assured that you will get the right amount of clients and customers.
Your online and physical stores will continue to thrive. Even with the invention of the metaverse, it will be easier to have a virtual store there. Therefore, ensure you make the right investment in your eCommerce website.
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