Steps to Build an Effective E-Commerce Website…
From start-ups to small businesses right through to huge brands, there are a huge number of companies that can benefit from their own E-Commerce website, where they can sell their own products or services.
E-commerce websites provide an immense scope of online transaction and sales. Irrespective to a normal website, which is generally used for searching and gaining information, e-commerce website services enable the user to purchase goods and services without going to a physical market.
Therefore, seeking the right e-commerce website development is a vital step required by the customers.
Your Planner for Making a Successful E-Commerce Website…
Now, if you want to develop an e-commerce website it’s obvious you should have the products that can be sold on the website. Once you decide the products range you can start working on your website with its design, font, categories, details, etc.
By simply following the given steps you can develop an effective e-commerce website:
- Decide on your product.
- Determine pricing for your online store.
- Figure out shipping options.
- Choose your eCommerce platform.
- Choose a domain name and brand.
- Develop your eCommerce website.
- Create your merchant account.
- Add the SSL certificate to your website.
1) Decide Your Product
If you want to set up an e-commerce website, then you may already know what all products you want to sell online. It can be any product or service that you want to offer to your customer through the online mode. Well as they say the first step of a successful e-commerce store is their product offering.
So, do some research about the products and services you will offer. Try to know the existing market for them, your competitor’s and their pricing strategy also is your product unique enough to stand out.
Get going with your product and market research.
2) Determine Pricing for Your Online Store
Running a new business faces lots of challenges, but the hardest among them is determining the right price of your products & services.
As you can understand that the pricing strategy of any business needs to be planned carefully and after a lot of brainstorming. If you set the price low you will incur the loss or would end up at the break-even point (no profit no loss situation) and if you set the price too high you may lose the sales and customers to your competitors. Either the situation loss is yours.
In order to determine the right price of the product and services, you need to figure out the expenses and the finances of your business. For example:
- Expenses on raw material
- Production Expenses
- Website Hosting charges for your site
- Taxes and shipping charges
- Marketing and advertisement charges etc
At last, after determining all these you need to set the desired profit margin on the product after sales. (Just a helpful suggestion: Always do study your competitor’s pricing and then set accordingly).
3) Figure Out Shipping Options
If you are selling the products, a question arises that how you would deliver it? Who would incur the expenses of it?
Generally, some of the e-commerce stores charge the shipping costs from the customer. But some researches show that people often to abandon the purchasing process due to high shipping charges. Which in the end would be a huge loss for your business.
In order to avoid it you can opt for the following options:
- Free Shipping
- Shipping Free (Rise your product price slightly to cover up the cost)
- Free shipping for a certain size of the order.
- Offer flat shipping rate
4) Choose Your E-Commerce Platform
Talking about E-Commerce platform you have two options: Use current marketplace like Amazon and Flipkart or build your own E-Commerce website and brand. Building your own website had become easier with many website hosting platforms (including MagicworksHost) providing you various compatible options for it.
Also, many E-Commerce software like Woo Commerce and Magento make it simpler for you to list your products & set their pricing, add shopping carts, etc. So that you can focus on sales.
5) Choose A Domain Name and Brand
Domain names are brand identity. Try to use words and phrases that say something about your product or the company. Avoid names that are already copyrighted by someone else. You can get various suggestions as well from domain providing companies. Always use the name that is easy to pronounce and remember.
6) Develop Your E-Commerce Website
Now you need to start writing website contents that can help you to persuade the visitors to buy the product. Also, you need to consider your website’s theme, design, e-commerce plugins and other aspects in building your online platform.
Your website should contain other pages as well besides the product page. For e.g.:
- A home page with different deals and offers.
- An about page giving a brief description of your work.
- A contact page with a helpline number and other details.
- A blog page providing the latest news about the industry and different useful information.
This all can be much easier with right website hosting platforms as you don’t need to build the website from scratch because they would provide the tools and software which will make your work simpler.
7) Create Your Merchant Account
A merchant account is necessary for e-commerce websites as it ensures that you receive money through various modes like a credit card, paytm, Paypal, etc.
8) Add the SSL Certificate to Your Website
After creating the website make sure that you install the SSL certificate to it. As these will provide a green lock next to your URL and will keep customer’s information safe resulting in customer trust and safety. An SSL certificate for your website encrypts all the sensitive information customers provide so that hackers won’t be able to grab that credit card information as it’s sent over the web.
“NOW it’s time for sales and start making money”
