Are you looking for a step-by-step guide to building an eCommerce website? If your answer is yes, this is the perfect blog.
In 2022, retail e-commerce sales covered approximately 5.5 trillion U.S. dollars globally. And experts assume that this graph can reach about 7.4 trillion USD by the upcoming year 2025.
With this great opportunity for sales profit, you need to become a faster mover to beat the competition and grab more customers. And to save time in the website development process, you need a detailed step-by-step guide that saves your time and resources.
In this blog, we will write every step of the eCommerce website building process with some tips so you can get your eCommerce website hassle free.
8 Steps for a Successful eCommerce Website Development
For ecommerce website development, there is lots of software available in the market that you can use to develop your online store. Here we will discuss the most cost-effective and easy method to build an eCommerce website. So, follow these steps to create a quality eCommerce website for your online business.
1. Purchased a Domain Name
When you search anything online, you might notice that every website has its unique name, for example, amazon.com, pixlogix.com, google.com, and so on. These impressive names are known as domain names of the website. It’s a virtual address of your eshop on the Internet. A good domain name can help ensure that people find you online and potentially contribute to your site’s Search Engine Optimization efforts. So, follow these tips and get your perfect ecommerce website address for more profit.
Tips:
- Use easy-to-remember and catchy names.
- Use names that are simple and define your brand. Shorter domains are easier to type, remember and lend themselves to marketing materials such as business cards.
- The ideal domain name should be 4 to 10 characters.
- Don’t use creative spelling, for example (reeeelesatate.com, sumootide.xyz, buzzzgraf.com, etc.) Creative spelling may be cute, but it can lead to consumers landing on your competitor’s page instead of yours.
2. Choose Your Suitable eCommerce Website Builder Platform
Selecting an eCommerce website builder is an essential step in eCommerce website development. However, it would be best if you also spent some time planning so you can connect with a perfect platform that matches your requirement and budget. There are so many eCommerce website builder platforms in the market, for example:
WooCommerce: It is a leading e-commerce platform that helps you create an online store using WordPress. WooCommerce has extensive plugins and themes that users can choose from when building their eCommerce website.
BigCommerce: This is an open SaaS platform that provides existing design tools and the opportunity for flexible creation and integration. This eCommerce website builder focuses on creating a user-friendly interface that reduces complexity and makes it easy to launch and grow an eCommerce Website.
Shopify: It’s a popular platform for dropshippers and other eCommerce startups. You can use existing templates to quickly launch relatively simple stores or hire a Shopify expert to add additional customization or marketing to your site.
Magento: This ecommerce website builder has two variants, the first is an open-source e-commerce platform written in PHP, and the second is Adobe’s e-commerce platform. In the first variant, you can develop your website without paying the cost of Software. And in the second variant, Magento integrates with Adobe’s full suite of marketing and content management tools. That supports many uses, although the learning curve is steep for non-developers.
Tips:
If you are a beginner and find it hard to pick a website builder platform out of these options, you can skip this step and move on to the next step. In our next step, you can get a professional adviser that guides you about the perfect ecommerce platform in depth.
3. Find a Developer
After selecting the domain name for your business, the next step you need to do is find a good eCommerce web developer. But if you want to do some DIY, then yes, you can also use some website builder that offers Initial eCommerce software. This software can provide you with a platform where you can build your site and set up your ecommerce website; however, if you don’t have the time to devote to learning how to solve all the problems that may arise during website development. In that case, you’ll want to hire a professional eCommerce developer.
While hiring a good ecommerce developer is the same as you would hiring any other professional service provider, such as a lawyer or marketing agency. Get references from other eCommerce companies, read reviews and ask questions to understand if the ecommerce developer is fit for your business requirement or not.
Tips:
Before hiring any ecommerce website developer you should ask about their skills and experience, their rates and charges, time to complete the eCommerce website and so on. Most professional developers will provide you with various web hosting options, pricing, website features, and ongoing maintenance so you can focus on running your business.
4. Select the Look for Your eCommerce Website
Whether doing it all yourself or working with a developer, starting with a theme is a good idea. Most eCommerce website builders provide at least some themes, so you don’t have to build or code features from scratch.
But don’t uses the theme design in their defaults status because there are hundreds of thousands of other brands that use the same themes, so you want to customize what you can to make sure you stand out from the crowd and that your website speaks about your brand.
Tips:
You can also add functionality and convenience to your e-commerce website by embedding apps.
5. List Your Products On eCommerce Website
When you finish the first part of your ecommerce website development process, the next step is to list your products on your website. But you need to make sure you’re adding products in a way that helps your site perform well in search engines and makes it easy for consumers to find what they need.
Tips:
Product Text content: While writing a product description or title, you must keep these critical points in mind for better website performance.
- Use popular terms of the product for more reach.
- Always include keywords and relevant quality content in the title or description of the product.
- Avoid complex jargon that makes it difficult to understand the reason for buying your product.
- Don’t use clichés that can dilute the impact of your description.
- Use short paragraphs and valuable points in the description, especially on mobile devices.
Product Images: In the eCommerce Industry, a picture is worth many words about your product. And also, it is the only way to influence the potential customer for the product. So while posting a product image, keep this point in mind.
- Use high-quality images in your eCommerce website. (If you are going to build a platform that offers other sellers to list their product to sell, then give them proper guidelines and don’t use bad quality images like blurry, too small, or poorly cropped images.)
- Maintain the size of your products on your eCommerce website.
- Whenever possible, offer 360-degree images that allow people to view the product from different angles. Or you can post pictures that let people see the front and back of things like clothes or food.
- Add images of product variants. If available.
- Integrate image zoom features so people can look closely at certain product features.
Product categorization: Organizing products on your ecommerce website is very important. It also helps people to find them easily.
Give consumers as much flexibility as possible to browse product types without making your site cumbersome or too complex to use. Popular options for ranges and filters on category pages may include price, size, color, and materials. This allows customers to hide items they can’t afford or don’t meet their personal preferences.
6. Set Payment Methods
Once people find and select your products, they need a way to buy and pay for them. The great thing about a quality eCommerce platform is that shopping cart features are built in. However, you must set up payment methods based on your business preferences.
Two of the most popular ways to accept payments in your e-shop are:
Payment gateway packages: A payment gateway is the virtual equivalent of a credit card machine in a physical store. It allows customers to securely enter their credit or debit card information and make a payment. Payment gateway packages include everything needed to put this feature on your eCommerce website and accept payments. You can usually accept all payments supported by the gateway package and pay a fee to the package provider for this service.
Credit card processing: You can also use your credit card merchant accounts for processing, but you still need a secure way to get the consumer’s credit card into the process.
Tips:
If you are unsure which of these options is suitable for your eCommerce, talk to your ecommerce website developer, and they will suggest the best method for your business. You can also speak with your merchant account and payment gateway customer service representative to find out what options are supported to make the best decision for you and your customers.
7. Setup Your Shipping Partner
Once your customer places their order and pays you the amount, the next step is sending the product to them. To send the product, you need to add a shipping partner to deliver your product to the customer’s destination. You can hire any shipping company or build your shipping chain to deliver your product before the official launch of your eCommerce website.
Tips:
Before Selection: Before selecting a Shipping company, research the cost and plans of the different shipping companies in your country. This will help you choose your eCommerce website’s most suitable shipping partner.
After Adding Shipping Partner: While your customer places the order, you can ask basic questions about their address and contact information. This information helps you in sending the product to your customer.
Next, In the Invoice, you should add your shipping origin address and returning address.
8. Testing Trial Before Launching Your eCommerce Website
Congratulations, this is the final step of the eCommerce Business setup. After completing this step, you can sell your product to the audience. But before you start sending customers to your site, test every function and feature of the eCommerce website by yourself. For any word testing, the face is vital for your business because any error during the customer’s product exploration or checkout process damages your website’s credibility and user experience.
Tips:
- Make a few purchases to go through all the options and processes to make sure everything works.
- Check your website on Smartphone and tablets to ensure your responsive design looks clean and easy to use.
- Test your ecommerce website in different browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Opera, Firefox, Safari, etc.
- Set up your store settings. Ensure all the little details are taken care of, like setting languages and time zones for your store and adding contact details and customer support options.
Warping Up
You might think that ecommerce website development and launching are complicated, but when you follow a step-by-step process, you can simplify all the work very efficiently.
Whether you are going to any face of the ecommerce website development process, you can save your wastage of time, resources, and money by hiring a professional eCommerce website developer.
If you need assistance, Pixlogix Infotech Pvt. Ltd. has a robust network of Ecommerce Website Development Services that provide you with a professional solution for any ecommerce hitch.
