The Internet has become part of every area of our lives. We use it for socializing, entertaining, working, and learning. We also use it to shop.
And as the Internet becomes more ingrained into our lives, the number of people shopping online will only increase. The growth of eCommerce, already astonishing, was further accelerated by the pandemic when businesses and people had to switch online. The result of this shift in consumer behavior was that online sales are now expected to reach $6 trillion in 2024.
As people get used to shopping online, having an eCommerce website becomes a must for businesses. Luckily, there are a plethora of tools, and a number of tried and tested strategies that you can use to go online easily.
To help you with that, in this article we are taking a look at everything you need to know to build a successful eCommerce website that can evolve with your business goals and customer needs.
Benefits of Building an eCommerce Website
It’s clear that the growth of eCommerce brings businesses a unique opportunity to grow their sales, there is much more to an eCommerce website than increased conversions. That’s why, before we get into the nitty-gritty of building an eCommerce website, let’s understand why exactly you need it.
Opening new markets — Reaching new audiences can be hard, especially for small businesses and new companies. A well-functioning eCommerce website eliminates this barrier and enables your business to reach new markets you couldn’t have only with physical locations.
Creates a unique shopping experience — You can impact the customer journey also by creating a unique shopping experience for your customers through explanatory texts, catchy videos, beautiful visuals, and more. After the checkout, you can then continue to engage with your customers through personalized emails or carefully-crafted social media texts.
Strengthens your brand — Having a website improves the trust towards your brand and strengthens it. While social media stores and online marketplaces like eBay and Amazon allow you to sell your products online without a website, having one significantly improves trust in your brand. Additionally, in the case of online marketplaces, customers may not even recognize that they are buying from you while shopping directly on your website allows your brand to shine.
How to Build Your eCommerce Website
The development of digital technologies has made the process of building eCommerce websites easier than you can imagine. There are many eCommerce solutions out there that do almost all the work for you. However, you still need to understand what is being offered and what your website does or doesn’t need. Otherwise, the process risks becoming too overwhelming for you, and the end results too over-the-top for the customer. The good news is, with enough research, you can create an eCommerce website for your business that’ll evolve with your business, and serve your needs for the years to come. In the sections below, we’ll take a look at the steps you need to take for this.
- Find the right platform;
- Purchase a domain name;
- Select your eCommerce theme;
- Add products to your website;
- Set up payment options;
- Preview and publish your online store.
Find the Right Platform
First and foremost, you need to find the right eCommerce platform for your website. You need to approach this step with all seriousness, as it will be the cornerstone of your digital presence. Here are a few things to consider during the process.
Types of eCommerce Platforms
Different eCommerce platforms can differ from each other significantly by design, functionality, target audience, and more. There are several types of eCommerce you can choose from, and the right option will depend mainly on your business type and needs.
- Open-source software — They are designed to handle the process of selling products and services online, and consist of 3 parts: hosting, software, and the domain name.
- Headless commerce — Headless commerce is a powerful software solution that is basically a fully working online store component like header, navigation bar, etc. It’s a good solution for larger businesses.
- SaaS — Online stores integrated with many digital tools/software services, mostly used by startups offering digital solutions.
Challenges of Choosing an eCommerce Platform
The main challenge of choosing an eCommerce platform, especially for non-tech-savvy users, is the vacuum between professional tools and online marketplaces.
There are many tools for building an eCommerce website, the most popular of which are Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, etc. These tools, although very powerful, come with one disadvantage: they are not very beginner-friendly. As a result, if someone is new to building websites, setting up a website in 15 minutes would be hard.
On the other end of the available tools are online marketplaces like AliBaba, eBay, and Amazon, which are much simpler to grasp. However, this simplicity comes at the expense of brand recognition: when buying on these platforms, chances are, people won’t check who they are buying from.
This being said, no matter which tool you choose, after initial complications pass, you’ll gradually get better at navigating your eCommerce website.
Things to Consider When Choosing a Platform
The overall UI and the available templates are great, but they are not the main thing you should concentrate on when choosing a website builder tool for your business. Here are a few key features to consider.
- Website performance — 50% of visitors abandon a website that takes longer than 6 seconds to load. To avoid losing valuable customers, go with the platform that will ensure that your website works whenever your customers want to shop.
- Traffic capacity — How much traffic do you currently get, and how much traffic is your website able to hold? To avoid a crush during a big holiday sale or other peak times, you need to consider how much traffic your website can hold.
- Mobile optimization — We live in a mobile-first world, and Google is with us. That’s why mobile optimization is no longer a want, it’s a must. Look for ways to constantly enhance the experience of mobile users, and consider how well your eCommerce store can be optimized to mobile on any eCommerce platform you may choose.
- Security of data and payment gateways — Safety of your website and the security of the data of your customers is a critical factor that you should take into account. Many eCommerce and website builder platforms offer security solutions like SSL and PCI as part of their packages. If you are considering open source platforms or self hosted options, greater care should be given to safety, as they are more susceptible to online attacks.
Purchase A Domain Name
If you already have a domain name, you can transfer it to the platform you’ve chosen. If you don’t have a domain name yet and need to choose one, here are a few best practices to make sure to follow.
- Avoid creative spellings — Your domain name should be easy to remember and write. Avoiding numbers and hyphens is a good go-to rule, as they significantly complicate the domain name. Make sure what you end up choosing is easy to spell and pronounce.
- Avoid generic names — Instead of joining the crowd with a generic name, go with a brandable name. This way, you’ll be more brandable, and better searchable.
- The shorter, the better — Going back to simplicity, make sure to also make your domain as short as possible. Ideally, 6-14 characters is a good number to aim for.
Select Your eCommerce Theme
The platform you choose will probably come with ready-built templates that you can customize to match the looks and feel of your brand. To choose the right template, consider the following areas.
- Smooth navigation — Smooth navigation is essential for ensuring excellent customer experience. Make it easy for customers to find what they are looking for through a strategically-placed menu and a navigation bar.
- Style of the homepage — Does the template’s homepage reflect your brand? Does it have areas where you can include images, slideshows, or videos? Is there space for you to share your story with site visitors? A customer should be able to tell what type of business you are from first glance, so make sure the template communicates that clearly.
- Customization options — What parts of the template can be customized? Can the colors and the font be changed so that it matches your brand? Can you embed new elements (e.g. social media icons and contact buttons)? Consider all the features you need in your website, and look closely for the templates and builders that have them.
Add Products to Your Website
Next step towards building an effective eCommerce website is, of course, adding the products. You need to showcase what you are selling. Be it a physical product, an eBook, or an online course, when visiting your website, customers need to have access to all the information they need about your product or service to be able to make a decision. But simply adding images with the names won’t do; you need a much more strategic approach. Here’s what to pay attention to:
Product Descriptions
Product descriptions are a critical part of your eCommerce website. They allow you to describe your product in the smallest detail, and tell the visitors about the value they will gain from purchasing it. Apart from that, they are important from the SEO perspective as well, helping your website rank higher in search engines. To ensure you are writing a high-quality, strategic description for your product, answer the following questions:
- Who is the intended user?
- What are the key details and features of the product?
- When and where can it be used?
When you start writing, avoid long sentences, complex wording, dramatic exaggerations, and cliches. Keep your product description friendly, but clean and on-point.
Use Appealing Images
The saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” didn’t just come to be, and it holds especially true in the case of eCommerce. While having a catchy and detailed product description is important, ultimately, the images on your website are going to have the decisive say in whether your visitor makes a purchase or not. Here’s how to make sure you have appealing visuals on your website.
- Pay attention to the quality — The quality of your images transfers the perceived quality of your product, and low-quality images can give an idea of a low-quality product. Make sure your images are sharp. Incorporating bright colors and compositions can also liven up your visuals and keep the visitors interested.
- Make images the same size — When your images are the same size, they will align well in the gallery, and ensure a better viewing experience for the customers.
- Show product variation — Instead of 1-2 shots from the same angle, include several photos done from various sides. Additionally, try to include images of the product being used, to give a better idea about how the product looks and feels.
Product Categories
You can simplify the navigation process by adding categories (clothes, books, shoes, accessories, etc.) and assemble your products based on them. You can also include brands, price ranges, availability by location, and discounts as categories, to help people browse through the products interesting to them easier.
Include Return and Refund Information
Adding return and refund information to your product page is an efficient way to build customer trust. Fear of fraud is one of the main reasons people may avoid shopping online, or shopping somewhere else. By including information about what will happen if they won’t receive the purchased product, you make them trust your store more.
Make sure to have as detailed information as possible, including cases like late delivery, defective or damaged product, wrong size, and more, depending on the type of your product. Be ready to provide solutions and offer alternatives. This information should be accessible to everyone visiting your website: include it both in the product pages, in the FAQ, and in overall policies.
Ensuring smooth refunds and returns is part of providing excellent customer support, and even if you lose a sale, it’ll create a trusting relationship with the customer, who’ll then come back.
Set Up Payment Options
After you’ve chosen a template of your future eCommerce website, customized it, and added products, it’s time to add payment options. The right payment option is essential for finalizing the sale process, and choosing it should be approached with great care and consideration.
Types of Payment Gateways
There are three types of payment gateways that you can choose from for your eCommerce website. Each has its pros and cons, and the right option will depend solely on your brand needs. Here are the three types:
- Redirects — As the name suggests, redirect the customer to another website to complete the payment. PayPal is the most commonly used example of redirect, but far from being the only one. If you are living in a region where PayPal is not available, for example, you can choose to go with another option, or even pick a local solution.
- On-site checkouts, off-site payments — With this gateway type, people add their information on the site. However, similar to redirects, the credit card information of the customer is handled by a third-party tool. This is good in terms of safety, as you’ll avoid the risk of data breach, but requires the customer to take a few extra steps.
- On-site payments — With on-site payments, you take charge of the entire checkout process. Customers add their personal information, shipping address, and card data to your website, and you handle the payment process.
Tips for Choosing the Right Payment Option
As the payment gateway you choose will be the essential part of your eCommerce store, its functionalities and your needs should match. Make sure to spend some time researching and understanding the available options.
- The process of integration — When comparing payment gateways, consider the ease of integration with your website. The easier you can add it to your website and get your store going, the better.
- Keep fees in mind — Payment gateways are tools and they come at a cost. You want to consider your budget and the fees charged by your gateway provider (such as processing costs) to not be surprised later.
- PCI compliant — It goes without saying that your payment gateway needs to be secure since they or you (depending on the method you choose) will be handling the personal information and card data of the buyers. Make sure that the provider you choose is PCI compliant to avoid any issues down the road.
Remember that you are not limited to choosing only one payment gateway. Many platforms go both with on-site payments via cards and redirects like PayPal.
Preview and Publish Your Online Store
For your eCommerce website launch to be successful, everything needs to work properly. After you’ve sorted out everything from choosing a platform to mobile experience to managing the payments, you need to test everything before the launch.
Check the payment gateways, test mobile performance, try to use different browsers to check if there are any differences, and adjust the settings to how you need them.
No matter how hyped you are to finally launch your eCommerce website, send it to live only after you’ve checked and double-checked everything on your website, and are sure that there is nothing that can hinder the shopping process.
Final Thoughts
A good eCommerce website is not just a platform where you can sell your products. It’s a place where you can meet your customers, allow them to experience your brand, and build trusting relationships with them. There are many steps involved in creating an effective and converting online store, but choosing the right eCommerce platform is one of the more critical steps, as it can give you a headstart towards success. If you are lost about how to start crafting your online store, the recommendations and tips above are a good place to begin. Good luck!
