Building an E-commerce Website: Stay Ahead of the Ever-Changing Marketplace Curve
In today’s digital age, the demand for online shopping is just skyrocketing. Regarding this, many businesses are now realizing the importance of having an online store to build visibility among shoppers.
But for small business owners and entrepreneurs, it is another big challenge to just jump into this world. Many new entrepreneurs like you are stuck on how to build an e-commerce website that looks good, works well, and attracts customers.
Well, don’t worry! The process is quite simpler than you think!
- Having a conscious of your target audience
- Buy a domain and hosting
- Find a developer
- Pick your e-commerce theme.
- Add products, set up payment options
- Launch and done!
But obviously, that’s not enough to build a stable e-commerce business. In this guide, we’ll break down the process of building an online store into simple steps.
Demand For E-commerce Strategy to Increase Sales
The demand for e-commerce strategies to increase sales? Well to be clear, it plays the root role in boosting sales.
According to a study, online retail sales are expected to grow by an average of 14.6% every year between 2021 and 2028 with an expected sales growth rate of $58.74 Trillion by 2028.
It clearly shows that e-commerce marketing is thriving day and day but with the same rise of the competition.
So without a defined strategy, you will just get lost in the competition. A well-crafted strategy defines your efforts to attract your target audience and make you stand out.
That’s not even end here! Here are a few more sights, highlighting how a well-designed online presence leads to growth:
- While a physical store limits you to customers, an e-commerce website opens your doors and lets you access a much larger customer base.
- Through online, your customers can browse and purchase your products any time, day or night, increasing your sales rate even when you’re not there.
- Ensuring a personal experience for the customer is much easier through online.
Compared to a brick-and-mortar store, an e-commerce website eliminates the extra cost, saving you a lot of time and money.
How to Build an E-commerce Website? [Easy Step-by-step Guide To Follow!]
Now I am going to show you how you can transform your business idea into an actually visible online store. Follow our quick steps and create an e-commerce website on your own that’s professional, functional, and ready to help you start selling your products online.
Let’s get started!
1. Know Your Target Audience
Imagine, you want to open a restaurant business and certainly you never present meat to vegan customers or pork to Muslims. You need to ensure the right delights for the right audience. The same goes for your e-commerce business.
You should have a clear understanding of the target audience of your business and according to Zendesk report 2022, it is the root of establishing personalized experiences for your customers.
Target audience– this is the group of people who will buy your products or services. With better knowledge about them, you can make better business decisions starting from product development and pricing. Moreover, your valuable time and efforts also matter!
Now the question would be how you’ll get the right audience. –
To be very simple, go as three below:
- Research your competitor
- Go through the online forum
- Check out the surveys
2. Choose Your E-commerce Platform
Now that you know about your customers, the time has come to choose the right e-commerce platform for your business. This is essential as you will use it to make website design, improve your customer experience, and streamline your daily tasks.
For instance, here we’ve three best e-commerce platform suggestions for you that will suit any of your business needs:
- Open source
As the name suggests, an open-source platform is e-commerce software that is open to all users. That means it is self-hosted and you will have full control over the underlying code to customize and change.
This allows you to create a unique shopping experience for your customers. But as it is an open source-based platform, setting up and maintaining it requires some technical knowledge.
You are responsible for ensuring the security of your store. Thus you may need to hire a developer as well.
- SaaS
This is a cloud-based solution where you will essentially rent the software in the form of a subscription. Up to 53% of organizations rely on SaaS which is assumed to exceed 80% by 2025.
Why is it so popular?
Typically these platforms are user-friendly, scalable, and often come with a range of features and integrations.
Moreover, you are ensuring sturdy payment processes and good handling of all software updates, security patches, and server maintenance. The only factor you need to consider is its monthly subscription process.
- Headless commerce
It is a modern approach to e-commerce that separates the front-end presentation layer from the back-end functionality. Confusing?
Let’s say a traditional store is one unit where the storefront and the sales system are all connected.
But in headless commerce, you can find these two parts separate, allowing you to create a unique and customized shopping experience for your customers.
Over 20% of retail companies already use headless commerce and over 60% are planning to migrate here by 2024.
3. Purchase A Domain Name
Well, you now have an e-commerce platform where you will build up your complete business. But wait! What about the name of your business?
It will bring uniqueness, improve your online presence and more than that make your business stand out among competitors. It is also important to establish credibility and attract customers for your business.
Anyway, note down these major factors while considering a domain name for your ecommerce site:
- First off, choose a domain name that should be unique but reflects your brand name service, or products
- Keep your domain name short. It will make it easy to type for your customers.
- Avoid using numbers, hyphens, and other symbols as it is difficult to remember and have chances of typos.
- Before getting attached to a name, make sure the corresponding domain name (e.g., “.com”, “.net”) is available for registration.
4. Select Ecommerce Hosting
Imagine you’ve built a beautiful online store that is filled with amazing products and is ready to give service to your customers.
But there is a twist. You find your store is locked up in a dusty basement with no way for people to find it.
So what are the solutions? Hosting takes your online store out of the basement and makes it accessible to everyone. This is important if you want to keep your store up and running 24/7 and let your customers get into it from anywhere in the world, even while you sleep!
However, with so many options for hosting services, four most common hosting types you should know about:
Hosting Type | Description | Best For |
Shared Hosting | It will provide you with a single server to host multiple sites. | Best for beginners |
VPS Hosting | It uses virtualization technology to create Virtual Private Servers each with its own dedicated sources- CPU, RAM, and storage | If you want more flexibility than shared hosting |
Cloud Hosting | Cloud hosting is highly scalable. It stores your website and its data on a network of interconnected servers instead of a single physical server. | To build a larger website with high-volume traffic. |
WordPress Hosting | This is applicable if you want to build a WordPress website with different optimization features. | If you’re planning for a WordPress website |
5. Choose A Website Builder
This is the step when you will start setting up your website. This would act as the foundation of your website. Even this is a great option to go with if you are not tech-savvy and build up your comprehensive website without the hassle of coding.
The drag-and-drop interfaces and pre-made templates of these platforms allow you to launch the website in a matter of hours or days. While looking for the best website builder for 2024, here are a few options to consider:
- WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin that is specially designed for the WordPress website owner. To simplify, if you have an exciting website for content, the vast functionality of Woocommerce is enough to transform it into a visually appealing online store.
This is highly known for its user-friendly interface, significant customization options, and many more features in the same row.
- Shopify
Unlike WooCommerce Shopify stands out as a leading all-in-one ecommerce platform that is specially designed for businesses of all sizes. This effective platform allows the owner to set up and manage their online stores even without the need for precise coding knowledge.
Just head over to their user-friendly drag-and-drop builder to create a professional-looking online store and customize it as your own.
- BigCommerce
BigCommerce -the most popular name among retailers, holding large online businesses. This SaaS-based platform is highly renowned for its robust and scalable architecture.
It can easily handle high volumes of traffic and any complex product catalogs that make it a go-on for the business owner who has high growth plans.
Beyond just product listing, you will get a bunch of exclusive e-commerce features. That includes built-in SEO tools, advanced product filtering, quick search functionalities, and so on.
- Magento
This is another popular open-source e-commerce platform that ensures full flexibility to the business owner to set up their online store.
All you need to have is a little coding knowledge to get a better grip on this field. Other than that, you can get the full functionality to set up an e-commerce website here starting from high scalability to advanced SEO tools.
6. Find a Website Developer
Well in the stage, when you have almost all setup done, you may wonder if you really need a developer. I would recommend YES.
Even this is the big “YES” if you are a beginner and you want a highly customized and unique online store design that doesn’t fit readily available templates.
They have all the technical knowledge to create a custom design that goes beyond pre-made templates. But when considering a developer, here are a few things to ask them-.
- About the experience developing e-commerce websites
- Ask them to share examples of their past work on similar projects.
- Is he familiar with the latest trends and best practices in e-commerce development?
- About the estimated costs for their services?
7. Build Your E-commerce Website
Now the time comes to set up your e-commerce website as your customer preference. This is the most crucial step you need to ensure precisely as you are delivering your brand message to your audience.
For instance, here are a few major steps you need to follow:
i) Pick Your Website Theme
Website templates and themes are customization options that give a complete structure to your website. Whether you are using WordPress, Shopify, Wix, or anything else, you will get a bunch of ready-made templates and themes to choose from.
As it is interchangeable thus you can easily edit and customize your website design as your service and brand message.
The best part is you don’t have to worry about the coding to do so and you don’t even need any technical web design skills. Just use the drag-and-drop tools and customize them to suit your brand.
ii) Adding Products
When choosing the template and theme, you need to add the products to your online store. This is the most critical part of your site as your visitor will come here actually for it.
Your product listings should be done in a way that makes them easy for customers to find and for you to manage.
This listing typically includes details like-
- Product name,
- Product Description
- High-quality images
- Pricing details,
- Variations (size, color)
- And other relevant information that your customer should know.
All you need to concentrate on is the product catalog with clear categorization. Take note that a well-organized catalog will allow your customers to browse and find the products they’re looking for quickly and efficiently. This overall improves your customer experience as well.
iii) Set Up Payment Options
he next step is setting up effective and easily accessible payment options for your customers. Make sure to make it simple and easy to understand for your customers.
In case it is too complicated, chances are that your customer product purchasing journey will end here with a bad experience and there will never be back.
For instance here are a few major things to consider:
- Choose a trustworthy payment gateway that prioritizes security and fraud prevention.
- Better if you look for certifications like PCI DSS compliance to ensure they meet industry security standards.
- Try to include a variety of popular payment methods on your website like credit cards, debit cards, or digital wallets.
- Ensure your checkout process is optimized for all types of devices including mobiles
- Add a tax calculator to make transparency on the final cost of an order, including taxes and any other fees.
iv) Publish Your Online Store
Last, this is the time to present your online store to your customers. Before launching make sure all the added features of your site are working properly and without any distractions.
Remember bugs or broken features can frustrate potential customers and lead to lost sales. To prevent this:
- Perform a test order to inspect the checkout process, payment process, and access to other devices.
- Click every button and link on your site to ensure they all work as intended.
- Test your website on different popular web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge.
8. This Is Time For Marketing
Well, your website is now in front of the world, now you may ask how to grow my e-commerce business. The one and quick answer- Through effective marketing.
Without marketing, your potential customers won’t even know your online store exists. Marketing helps you create awareness and improve your presence in the online marketplace. By doing so, you can easily drive sales in your online store leading to a higher ROI.
Anyway, while you are on the road to marketing, here are a few major things to consider:
i) Focus On Niche
First, you will have to be on track with your niche. By focusing on your niche, you can optimize your marketing efforts and reach out your service and products to that specific group who are more likely to be interested in it or need it.
The best part is niche markets often have less competition compared to mass markets. This will make it easier for you to stand out and attract customers.
ii) SEO for Niche Marketing
SEO, or search engine optimization is an essential part of online marketing. It helps your business profile to rank higher in the crowd, driving more traffic and sales. What actually will SEO do here?
- Optimize your website with high-quality content related to your niche
- Establish your expertise
- Attract organic traffic.
- Build brand credibility
- Improved user experience
- Sustainable growth
According to a recent survey, up to 53% of eCommerce website traffic comes from organic search, and SEO makes a clear path to ensure this here.
iii) Utilize Social Media
Social media is a powerful digital marketing tool that can raise your business revenue growth to the next level. It plays a strategic role in driving your sales.
Even a study shows that 90% of social marketers believe investing in social media has a direct effect on revenue. Most of them have witnessed an increase in consumers’ brand awareness and connected more customers to their service.
You can even use social media as a good source of getting feedback about your service which you can use to customize your sales strategy according to their preference.
iv) Offer Upsells and Cross-Sells
Upselling and cross-selling are effective techniques that you can utilize to increase the overall value of a customer’s purchase in your online store.
Upselling– It’d be like you are encouraging your customers to purchase a higher-quality, more expensive product they’re already considering.
Cross-selling- Through this tactic, you can offer complementary or related products to a customer’s initial purchase to increase your sales rate.
Now the question would be how can you use these two:
- Showcase the additional features or side-by-side comparisons for the expensive upsell product to justify the price tag.
- For cross-selling, you can use product recommendations on your website and suggest complementary items based on your customer’s viewing history.
9. Provide Excellent Customer Service
According to Forbes, up to 83% of online shoppers need guidance to complete their purchase from a website. Leading to this, up to 89% of online shoppers stop purchasing only due to they don’t understand the proper method.
So from these two surveys, you can understand how essential it is to ensure strong and stable customer service with the creation of your e-commerce website.
However here are a few effective strategies you can follow in this instance:
- Prioritize creating personal experiences for your customers that may include having their own account with past punching records, offering products according to their wish list, live chat conversations, and so on.
- Consider offering extended support hours or even 24/7 availability if your business model allows it.
- Make a section to request and gather feedback and identify areas for improvement.
Along with all the above, make your return policies easier as 15 to 30% of online shoppers get just due to this.
10. Consider Influencer Marketing
When the fact is about e-commerce marketing, influencer marketing can be a powerful strategy to reach new customers, improve your brand visibility, and increase website traffic and sales overall.
For example: you own a fashion e-commerce business. Now partnering with fashion bloggers or social media personalities will help you showcase your clothing and accessories far more easily than you do on your own.
They will create outfit posts, reviews, or styling tips featuring your products through which new customers can easily influence.
Concluding Remarks
The world of e-commerce is thriving day and day and building your own website is a fantastic way to enter into this growing world. All you need is a strategic approach to create a successful online store that attracts customers and drives sales for the upcoming long year.
Well follow our provided guidelines on how you build an e-commerce website and make your e-commerce business through easier and manageable ways.
