Building an eCommerce store is not just about building an online website, you need to learn about branding, web design, content management, marketing, and analytics and all the minute things that make it an estore.
And as ecommerce revenues are projected to account for 17.5 percent of retail revenues worldwide by 2021, making an eCommerce website has become imperative.
But wait!
Do you know how to get an eCommerce development for your business?
If no, don't worry!
This article will help you beat those ecommerce website development goliaths with a detailed explanation of the ecommerce stages.
1. Decide the niche of the ecommerce platform
Before developing an eCommerce website it's necessary to decide about the product/services that you will offer. The ongoing market trends, the target audience, and some insights into the trending products.
2. Select the right ecommerce development platform
In this stage, you need to choose the right platform for your ecommerce store. Suppose you're a startup company or have a small business and don't want to get into the coding stuff. Then you can decide to have your eCommerce website on ready to use platforms such as WordPress, Magento, WooCommerce or Shopify.
Or you can partner with a right ecommerce development company and get a custom built ecommerce store.
3. Choose the domain
Before publishing, you need to buy your website domain.
There are two options. You can either buy a new domain name or connect a domain name that you already own.
If you don’t have a domain name and you need to buy a new one, you do not have to do this directly through your ecommerce platform.
Instead, you can get a domain from one of the best domain registrars. Once purchased, you can simply follow the steps to connect a domain that you own.
4. Select the right ecommerce development partner
So, you're all set up to design your ecommerce store. Now, it's time to choose a right tech partner who can help you build a reliable and robust ecommerce store. For this, check out the company's profile, their expertise, work portfolio, etc. Interact with them and discuss every requirement of your business and not to forget, check out their clients' testimonials.
5. Set up the ecommerce store
After you select your tech partner, you need to set up the ecommerce functionality of your site. These are the components that will contribute to your sales jou.
- Products Page
- Shipping and Delivery
- Payment and Security
Products Page
Ensure that you can add/manage products, product details and other attributes related to it easily. Quick ordering with proper CTA buttons and swift navigation on the product page and the website are the basic functionalities of an ecommerce store.
Shipping and Delivery
Next, you’ll have to manage your shipping rules. Determine what regions you’re shipping to, what are the different shipping methods and how those rates are calculated. You can even provide free shipping on an order of certain amounts.
Payments and Security
These are the most important and crucial components of an eCommerce store. Multiple payment options is a feature that every eCommerce store must inhibit as it allows customers to buy the products by paying with their choice of payment type.
Ensure the payment processing and the customers' payment details are safe. Because something the feature that gives the power to grow is the one that can take away all the power of the store.
6. Quality Assurance and Testing
Rome was not built in a day and so is your ecommerce store. Even the ready to use Wix and WordPress sites need to be customized again and again until it gets finalized. That's actually a basic way of testing, if we say so.
In this phase, quality assurance and testers check the complete functionality of the ecommerce website before the launch. The testers would check:
- That all the functionalities and the entire website is performing smoothly.
- If the website meets all the standards of other popular sites.
- If the website runs smoothly on every device and platform.
- For loopholes, if any.
7. Launch the ecommerce store
It is the last stage of developing an eCommerce store. In this stage, you publish the website and make it public for the world to access it and reach out to you.
8. Market the business
The website is up but to attract customers and generate huge traffic, you need to market your business and products. For this you can start with:
- Social media marketing where you can share your products/services on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. and engage with the customers on a daily basis.
- Email marketing, where you can send out promotional emails, emails related to new offers and deals, about some upcoming events in order to keep them updated with your business.
- PPC advertising and paid marketing, where you can run sponsor ads to reach out to a larger audience.
- Offline marketing like organizing events, offering discounts and rewards to grab the attention of the customers and bring in the crowd
9. Sales and performance
The last step to every business development process, i.e. analyze the sales and profits in terms of numbers.
Use reports and stats to understand the overall business growth, whether your ecommerce store is churning out profits, the products that are high on demand and the ones that can be removed, etc.
Get the overall idea of each and every element and plan your business strategies accordingly.
Wrapping up…
The process of developing an ECommerce store is much similar to buying a product online from an ecommerce store.
It's like planning, knowing what kind of product you want to buy, then looking for the specifications, details, price and if it's the right one. Only on choosing the right product, you add it to cart and with proper payment processing, you buy it, use it and then review it.
Ecommerce development requires the same, choosing a right platform, tech partner, domain and then getting it done. Testing it for a hundred times and then reviewing the results.
So, don't rush to get an ecommerce store, follow the steps mentioned.
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