How To Create An E-commerce Website For Your Business
Gone are the days when businesses focussed to stay within their pin codes and focus more on offline marketing, word of mouth. With the sudden advent of internet the demand for online products/service has increased drastically and so has the purchase.
A study shows that approximately 40% people prefer searching for their desired products online to compare and choose the best rather than wandering from stores to stores.
However, the major issue still remains that majority of the businesses are not aware of the fact how beneficial can the online branding prove to be for them. People have started shopping online from the smallest to the largest need and often tend to search through new websites to explore till they finally find their ideal product.
From small-end brand to a top notch one, a brand increases their visibility infinitely when they appear on the website. A tap on the screen has acted like a magnet to people, attracting them to their screens at all the time. Whether a person is travelling in a metro or strolling through different sites to kill boredom, selling and upselling has been a significant step during this process.
Creating your own website is not as easy as it sounds, there are a lot of work included and everything has to taken in consideration before giving a final touch up. Whether you’re a novice or a professional, website building process is same for everyone, so make sure to follow the blog and create an ecommerce website right away.
1. Conduct A Market Research About The Product
Before you finally get in the race, you must completely know about it. In order to build an ecommerce website, you must be ready with an idea of what is in demand and what is that you are planning to bring in the market.
If the same product or service already exists in the market, what will make you different and preferable over your competitors. It is advisable to look for products that align with your passion or something that you have been doing for a long time.
Building a brand has become a trend and indubitably a necessity. Brands as well as independent bloggers/fashion fanatics are releasing their inventories online and actually getting benefited by it in abundance.
Align the product with what the audience needs and what can drive a crazy economy to your business, it's also important to align the product with your likings and dislikings so that you are aware of handling the crisis situations.
2. Choose Your Business Platform
As an ecommerce business owner, you can decide to list your products on as many platforms as you like to drive economy and eventual conversions to your website. For instance, if a customer is browsing for products on Amazon and comes through your listed product which seems genuine to him/her, there is a chance that they would actually search for your website to check more discounts or sales.
You can either keep your products entirely website oriented or you can list them on various other platforms to drive money in.
3. Decide On A Domain Name
Now that you have successfully thought about the products that you are going to sell and the platform which you would be using to do so, its time to think about a domain name for your ecommerce website.
Remember that an ideal domain would always be closely related to the products you’re selling and would be easy to grasp and remember by your audience. In the beginning, almost all brands are unrecognisable until it has established its name in the market. Try to be creative while naming your brand, take some time, have some options and then go with what has the most votes.
A domain helps any business to carve its image in the industry, however getting a domain would prove to be very expensive for a startup with low funds or a small brand. Getting a shared domain with a huge brand is the best option if you want to go easy on your budget and create your website at the same time, try to tie up with well established brands in order to reach out to your target audience.
After a certain point when you think you have established your brand in the market and have enough economy, you can always have a dedicated domain when you feel you have brought enough economy in, it even helps the SEO part and makes you recognisable.
4. Choose An E-commerce Website Builder
This is the most important part of the entire process of setting up your store online. Creating a website might not be the hardest with all the new features that have come to make selling easier for you. However, even minute things can affect the conversion rate, eventually impacting your economy.
A Good website should-
- Always have easy navigation, probably at the top of the page
- Should have good text and background combination to make it appealing
- Must be light so that it does not take much time to load
- Must be mobile-friendly
There are many other things that have to be considered before actually building a website. Make sure that your products are listed nicely and have good descriptions to support the shopper’s view. Make sure that you provide the facility for customers to review the purchased product, user generated content always helps people in making up their minds about their purchase decision.
5. Set Up A Payment Gateway
Voila! Considering you're almost set and ready to make it big, you also need to take care of the payment gateways. Ideally, its better to provide as many options as possible so that the customer feels comfortable and does not have second thoughts about purchasing that particular product.
Try to include debit card, credit card, online payments via UPI, Netbanking but most importantly, COD. Majority of customers choose cash on delivery especially when they are experimenting with your brand so if you do not wish to get your cart abandoned, make sure to provide these facilities to your buyers.
6. Secure Your Website With A SSL Certificate
Customer’s data or information is very very personal, you would not want to lose or scatter it in the market at any cost. You should make sure that their information is safe and that you have secured your website with a security layer, SSL. Having a certificate would not only make your customers feel safe but it will also make you a well abiding brand in the eyes of your customers.
Having a SSL certificate is really easy these days, even Google recommends online brands to have a SSL.
7. Provide Good Customer Support
Clients are the most important people, it is due to them any brand is going viral, having recognition, building image and making money, hence it is very important to treat them that way. Make sure to provide exemplary customer service to your customers so that their doubts and queries are answered right away.
Customers do not like being hanged at so make sure to hire a professional with good communication skills who can solve the problem of your customers in the blink of an eye.
These were the 7 steps in which you can set up your e-commerce store, however it is very important to hire a professional with good experience to perk up your website and provide a good SEO ranking to it. Virtual assistants are the best way to get help from, while creating an e-commerce website, from writers to designs, web developers or inventory managers, you can hire a virtual assistant for your brand at your desired price, for a certain time. So what are you waiting for? Go create that website and make people go crazy.