In the past few years, the ecommerce business sector has been running steadily. But, the pandemic revved up the growth of ecommerce websites more than ever. The sales of ecommerce platforms more than doubled during the pandemic, and it doesn’t seem to slow down.
With travel limitations and safe social distancing becoming the new normal, ecommerce is the new thing adopted by the new and old gen. However, even if you own a small business with in-store sales, with changed working conditions, you have to step up and organize a functional ecommerce website to continue making sales and earning profits.
Steps to building an ecommerce website efficiently
Here is a guide on how to build an ecommerce website. The goal here is to make a developing, profitable business. You should know all it takes to build an ecommerce website and get the best returns on your investment.
1. Ecommerce business structures
Find out about the several business models present online and choose the one that works as per your requirement. For example, if you don’t want to make a big investment at the start, dropshipping would be the most suitable business model for you. Organizing a warehouse and wholesaling or warehouse model will be feasible if you are ready to invest.
You can also go for the subscription business model, where one product or a group of products selected for you will be delivered at periodic intervals to customers. You can also choose a business model that focuses on one product that you sell with affiliate marketing.
2. Choose the product that you plan to sell
When surfing the internet, you might have seen the presence of uncountable ecommerce websites selling all types of products and services. Some websites solely sell specific products or services like clothing, fashion accessories, household items, etc. At the same time, other websites sell all types of products such as household stuff, electrical items, sports items, and clothing in one place. It is more like a departmental store online.
Hence, it is important to choose the products or services you want to sell on your ecommerce platform. When you choose the item you wish to trade, you should estimate its local and global demand. Buyers always decide to purchase products from local vendors, offline or online. Local suppliers offer quicker deliveries, simpler payment terms, lower shipping costs, and faster replacements for defective shipments.
3. Select your platform
As an ecommerce business owner, it is now time to choose your business platform according to your goals and requirements. For example, you can make a store on marketplaces like Amazon, and Flipkart, build a complete website or use website-making platforms such as Shopify. In addition, you can choose to sell your products on multiple platforms simultaneously.
4. Select a business name and domain name
After choosing your product list and business model, the subsequent step is to select a business name and make a domain. A business name should relate to your product or services and should be simple to say and remember for your audience. A domain provides an identity and makes it simpler for your potential customers to recognize you.
However, you can go for a shared domain if you have a limited budget. Sharing a domain with a reputed name makes it simpler to reach your prospective buyers. With the growth of your business, you can opt for a dedicated domain as it helps better with ranking, recognition, and search engine optimization.
5. Choose an ecommerce website builder
Today, you have help available to create your ecommerce store from ecommerce website builders. There are several software programs to help you develop websites within seconds. You can also choose to hire a professional web developer and seek their help.
6. Ecommerce store designing
Look, your ecommerce website works as your store and has to be designed for the comfort and convenience of your customers. Your website should have all the details of the products and services you have put on sale. The photos, descriptions, prices, reviews, comments, ratings, and everything should be updated on your website to help potential buyers.
You should ensure that your website reveals your products efficiently to not mislead the buyers. It would help if you made your website and product pages appealing as they worked as your representative and helped you set a brand image for your targeted audience online.
7. The setting of the payment gateway
Currently, online businesses prefer to have several payment options for their customers, especially for an ecommerce website. You don’t want your customer to return because you don’t support their preferred payment method. Hence, it would be best to use all the common payment options such as credit card, debit card, net banking, Cash on Delivery, and other online wallets.
Make your ecommerce platform safe by installing an SSL certificate
This is an essential step when going for ecommerce web development. It will keep your website connection secure, help you win your customers’ trust, and boost your conversion rate. An SSL certificate aims to offer shoppers a secure online shopping environment by encrypting the in-transit communication between the web browser and the client-server. In addition, the secure padlock activated after installing the same helps engender consumer trust and create a good image of your platform in front of your targeted audience.
Secure Socket Layer Certificates remove any chances of a data breach, hacking, and theft while the data is transmitted between the customer and website servers. For your ecommerce website, you should buy RapidSSL or Comodo SSL certificate from reliable CAs because it safeguards customers’ data with 256-bit encryption. In addition, it offers a complete safety solution and increases traffic to your website, converting leads to sales. Customers like to do transactions on safe websites, and an SSL certification helps your website achieve that.
Choose your shipping partners
Once everything is set, the last thing you need to do is partner up with a shipping company to ship the products your customers’ order. There are several ecommerce logistic services available to choose from. In addition, they provide you with various courier agency options to help ship items at the lowest shipping costs so that you can enjoy the highest profits on your sale.
Conclusion
All in all, the market is huge, and the options are tremendous. Use these steps for ecommerce web development and start your website instantly.
Photo credit: The feature image has been done by iJeab.
