Oct 20, 2020 For your website to rank within the top search results, you need to keep track of your website performance metrics and consistently take measures to improve your eCommerce website’s speed. The load time and speed of a website plays a critical role in making the website rank higher on search engine results pages. Creating a direct ecommerce presence on a page early on is an important component. Businesses can integrate the option to purchase into their Facebook business pages, allowing customers to place an order without visiting the main ecommerce website of a business. Attracting followers to the page.
eCommerceJun 15, 2020
Main / Blog / How to create ecommerce website in 7 days in 2021
Pick your ecommerce theme. Customize your ecommerce template. Add your products. Set up payment options. Sort out your shipping settings. Preview, test and publish your online store.
The success of a retail business (or any business, for that matter) is an aggregate consisting of numerous summands. Business owners need to pay attention to finding a unique product with its own niche in the market, hiring a team of professionals, advertising their brand, providing prompt delivery and obliging service, monitoring financial documents, and doing dozens of other things necessary for a company to flourish.
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Request a quoteModern times have added to this list of must-haves. Today, as a company having big-time aspirations, you should keep abreast of the latest marketing trends and build your own retail website, becoming a part of the e-commerce industry.
E-commerce: From a Nascent Marvel to a Mainstream Tendency
In this millennium, you don’t need to leave your lodgings to have all the amenities and comforts of contemporary civilization delivered to your front door. All you have to do is make a couple of clicks on your laptop and enjoy your long-coveted things. E-commerce has manifested a prodigious annual upsurge of 23% in the recent decade.If you employ your smartphone to do the same, you become a party to m-commerce – a variety of e-commerce whose rate of expansion is twice as great. Typically used to buy something on the internet, e- and m-commerce cover a whole gamut of transactions. Thus, you can book football or railway tickets, reserve a hotel room, pay for public utilities, and even take part in an auction through e-commerce platforms.
Also read: How to Build an Auction Website
Given the astounding opportunities e-commerce has in store, it is quite natural that any company – be it an international corporation or a small retail business – can’t ignore the advantages this marketing technique can bring.
Benefits of E-Commerce
We offer you several reasons why you need to make a retail website for your company.
- Unlimited availability. Your site is accessible 24/7, which is convenient both for customers who can visit it at any time, and for you as a business owner, whose selling vistas broaden drastically.
- Global reach. Having decided to build a retail website, you will get the whole world as a market. Moreover, people from any corner of the world discover products they need not only from retail websites but via search engines as well, since Google indexes them so that they are shown in search results.
Image Source: searchengineland.com
- Comfortable shopping experience. The current hectic lifestyle leaves practically no time for a trip to the store. And if we remember traffic jams, searching for a parking space, selecting the item you need, and finally queuing to the cash register, the growing preference for online shopping becomes only too clear. Visiting a website is free from these inconveniences, pandering to both the busiest and the laziest consumers.
- Targeted marketing. Having a wealth of customer data at your disposal, you can leverage retail website best practices to keep track of the latest trends in your market niche and stay tuned to the changes in your consumers’ tastes. After all, what else can give you a chance to know and address thousands of your clients by their first name?
If you think that having an online shop is quite enough for quick success in sales, you are mistaken. Modern retail websites are to contain certain features that will facilitate your business and boost your revenues.
Small Business Retail Website Guidelines
There is no universal recipe for how to create retail website that would suit all types of businesses, since each industry has its own peculiarities. However, expert retail website developers claim that an efficient-working web page should inevitably include:
- Foolproof checkout procedure. Simplicity reigns supreme in website design. Shoppers should easily find the merchandise they need and make a purchase smoothly. To ensure this, your site must have such components as shopping categories, filters, and a Compare Products option. Other recommended features that are instrumental in clients’ decision-making are FAQs, Shipping and Return Policy, as well as Customer Reviews.
- Related items lists. Planning to buy something from you, consumers are likely to acquire some related products if you keep reminding them that you have those.
- Multiple payment gateways. This is what you should take care of when choosing among retail website platforms. Available payment gateways may differ from country to country.
- High loading speed. A survey conducted among major online retailers states that an increase in loading speed between 2 and 8 seconds translates into a three-fourths boost of conversion rates. Conversely, slow loading time causes half of the online shoppers to abandon the page.
Now you know the things of primary importance in the process of web site creation. Let’s see how you should go about it.
How to Start Your Own Retail Website
The comprehensive algorithm of creating a retail website includes several steps.
Step 1. Conduct Preliminary Research
This step is performed offline to make sure it is worthwhile setting up a business. To determine it, you should come up with the product you want to sell and explore the respective niche. Modern internet facilities and tools, such as Google Trends, TrendHunter, Amazon bestseller list, and Ubersuggest will allow you to figure out trending products and discover the current bestsellers. Moreover, you should make sure the items you will sell are light and easy to ship.
However, if you already own a business, you have definitely gone through this stage, so you may skip it and move on to the next phase.
Step 2. List the Necessary Prerequisites
IT-wise, to create your own retail website you will need a domain, a hosting provider, a payment processor, and a web building platform. Among physical items, the must-have is packaging to ship the product to the client. And the last, but, in fact, the foremost is the initial capital. Here we will focus on the IT considerations.
Step 3. Decide on the Domain Name
It is an important move, since this is the URL your clients will be informed about and social media will promote. It consists of the domain name proper and the TLD – a kind of postfix that follows the name after the dot like .com or .net.
While the choice of the latter is typically limited by a few conventional options (although nonorthodox ones have become a kind of swank recently) the former gives you a free hand to ply your imagination. Ideally, it should be resounding and descriptive.
Even if you already have the name of your dream in mind, don’t get too excited over it yet. You must make sure no one with a similar mindset has already claimed it. Domain.com will help you to do it. Once you have verified the domain name availability, it’s time to purchase it via a company that registers domain names on your behalf. The most popular domain registrars are GoDaddy, Wix, and Web.com.
Step 4. Select a Web Host
Being a small business owner, you just can't afford hosting your own website, so you will have to choose a server where all your data will be accessible to the public at all times. Depending on your budget, you can either opt for a shared web host where your site will have other sites as its next-door neighbors or employ the services of dedicated hosting. The latter is pricier, but you can stop worrying about other sites stealing your speed. Whatever choice you make, don't forget to inquire about the host server location and its reliability.
Step 5. Choose a Proper E-commerce Platform
This is a crucial decision, so it is worth a detailed discussion (see below).
Step 6. Publish Your Website After Testing It
Even if the website is complete, don't rush to publish it. First, make sure it functions properly on all principal browsers with all links working and all images shown in the right format. It is likely to take some time, but once you have done it you won't have to react to visitors' complaints and mend it on short notice.
Step 7. Make Sure Your Website is Present in Social Media and Search Engines
In the age of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, the shortest way to reach out to your audience is through social media outlets. And do not ignore search engines either, since it is them who will eventually channel your prospective clients to your web page.
How to Choose the Best Retail Website Platform
To create a website, you need a platform also referred to as a Content Management System (CMS). This software tool is used for building and editing content with subsequent publishing it on the web. Thus, it consists of two elements. Content Management Application (CMA) is responsible for providing an intuitive user interface employed for building and modifying the content of a page, while Content Delivery Application (CDA) is a web publishing tool.
Today, there are a plethora of platforms available on the internet as installable applications. They can be either free or paid, some of them provide bonus add-ons and templates. How can you choose the one that will suit you to a tee without getting lost among numerous options?
The rule of thumb for starting the selection is to compile a list of requirements, stipulating the features you would like to see implemented in your website. Then you should find out what the available platforms have to offer. To spare you the long hours of reading, let’s compare the most popular CMSs.
Magento vs Shopware: A Head-to-Head Comparison
Both of these tools are open-source scalable platforms that are among the top CMSs in the market. Shopware has a longer history and most of its users hail from Germany. It is B2C oriented and is perfect for small and medium businesses working in fashion, art of lifestyles industries. Magento is a comparatively novel solution extremely popular in the USA in the B2B sphere, which made it one of the leaders among platforms leveraged by large businesses.
Image Source: eltrino.com
Let’s compare the basic parameters of both tools.
- User-friendliness. Shopware is simpler to use. It is compatible with any browser and features an intuitive administrative interface. With its drag-and-drop and double-click functions and parallel multiple-window opening, it is easy to operate, and you can constantly maintain a clear overview of all the data you are working with. Magento is a bit more challenging for a layman to learn, however its 2.x version has gone a significant way towards the simplification and streamlining of usage.
- SEO optimization and marketing software. With its out-of-the-box SEO settings, Magento reigns supreme in SEO-friendliness. However, its advanced tools require some effort to master, while in Shopware, SEO optimization is configured by default. The Storytelling feature available in Shopware allows website visitors to see detailed information about the product by clicking on its image, thus increasing customer engagement and brand loyalty.
- Business spheres for employment. As similartech.com claims, the most popular areas where Magento is employed are shopping, business and industry, and entertainment. Among its users are such big-time giants as Nike, Coca-Cola, and Burger King. Shopware is excellent for use in marketing, advertising, and consumer electronics. They cooperate with Philips, Lufthansa, and L'Oreal, to name a few clients.
- Used technology. Magento’s impressive software list includes some top names in the field. Default support of Nginx, extensive use of Apache, PHP, MySQL, and its stunning Elasticsearch engine excellent for handling long catalogs make it the current leader among e-commerce platforms. Shopware is not much behind and can also boast some fortes. Among such strong suits are PHP7.2.17 facilitating coding routine and an open-source API, which Magento lacks. This feature enables customization and an easy connection to any third-party solution.
- Community and support. In this category, Magento definitely has an edge. More than 150,000 active users can provide advice and offer help whenever you need it. The access to user guides and documentation of all kinds is also important for any rookie developer. Shopware has a forum and WIKI, but unfortunately, they are in German only. Both platforms have support service, but this option is paid.
How To Create A Strong Ecommerce Website For Your Business Cards
Read our full review: Magento 2 vs Shopware 6
As you see, each platform has its own attractions. However, if neither appeals to you or you want to have the best of both, you can consider custom development as a viable option.
Pros and Cons of Custom Retail Website Building
As a small business owner, you may find standard CMSs dissatisfactory on some points. Perhaps you want some advanced features not offered by conventional platforms, or you have in mind an interface design that can’t be achieved through using them. You may also have security concerns that are at odds with the standard CMSs’ policies. If that is the case with you, opt for custom website development. Yet, before ultimately deciding on it, you should be aware of potential pitfalls you may encounter.
If your time is limited, custom development won’t suit you. Preset templates used in a standard CMS make project development much faster which results in lower retail website cost. But in other aspects, custom website development has a considerable advantage.
- Higher ROI and conversion. When a site is designed with a specific audience in mind and particular objectives to accomplish, it earns a higher ROI, which increases conversions and sales.
- Better SEO positioning. Building a custom website from scratch, developers take into consideration search engine preferences and design it correspondingly.
Image Source: freepik.com
- Better user experience. Anticipating users’ expectations, custom website creators can impart it with all the visual appeal your imagination will come up with. They can make sure it is easy to use and efficient.
- Cleaner coding and improved performance. Standard platforms tend to install lots of redundant coding that can ultimately impair the smooth performance of the site. Custom developers see to it that only the clean code (that is foolproof in understanding and changing) is utilized, which drastically enhances the performance.
- Unlimited scalability and extensions. Tailored to your specific needs, custom websites are extremely scalable with none of the restrictions standard CMSs have. Consequently, you can introduce improvements or use third-party libraries and plugins not limited by security measures standard platforms maintain.
- Greater security. Since custom site developers use unique code, it is more hacker-resistant than the standard CMS. Moreover, you can always provide additional security levels to fully protect your data.
Custom development is more expensive than acquiring a standard CMS. However, if you want to receive a top-notch website fine-tuned to all your requirements and even whims, it is wise to address a team of experts who within a reasonable time will deliver a customized product at an affordable price. After all, a cheapskate pays twice, and in the case of site development, it is only too true.
Conclusion
With the contemporary world rapidly going digital, it is hard to imagine a successful company (even a small one) without its own website. Developing a high-quality customized web page is never a bargain price deal, but by hiring a professional developer you can be sure to get a product that will give your business a prodigious boost.
Dinarys has significant experience in developing e-commerce websites for various small businesses. If you have doubts, questions or need advice, contact us at any time, and we’ll get back to you with the optimal solution.
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Do you know that 40% of worldwide internet users have bought products/goods online from an eCommerce business or eCommerce store?
People are increasingly looking to shop online for an easier customer experience. And, they’re even shopping from the smaller screen, because of better mobile networks and bigger mobile sizes.
Still not convinced about the small business opportunity that a digital marketing strategy presents?
Then look at the findings of this 2016 report by Forrester Research:
- Online sales from commerce platforms are expected to rise at an average rate of 9.32% annually over the next five years. US consumer spending will reach $523 billion online by 2020.
- The number of consumers browsing eCommerce businesses and eCommerce stores, and buying online is expected to hit 270 million (mainly driven by mobile).
The eCommerce website boom is already upon us.
If you have always wanted to sell your own products online and build a successful eCommerce business, then now is the time to hone that marketing strategy.
The best part is that there are numerous online business tools that will take care of the technology. So, you’ll only need to focus on building a brand and taking care of the real business aspects.
Let’s start with the obvious options for starting an eCommerce business or eCommerce store:
Becoming a seller on shopping experience sites like eBay and Amazon.
While you can earn a lucrative income from these huge e-Commerce platform brands, it’s tough to market for sales on these commerce platforms. You’ll face problems with differentiating yourself among the plethora of sellers and resellers that reside on these commerce platforms and sell the same products as you.
That’s why I emphasize building a personal eCommerce business brand boasting a better customer experience. Sure, you might not become as huge as Amazon, but you won’t have to fight solely on price.
What can building a loyal audience that emotionally connects with you mean for your small business?
You can have hundreds of thousands people waiting for your eCommerce web products, even before you launch them. And, you’ll get a free viral marketing strategy for your brand when your fans share your brand story on social media.
A great example is Emily Weiss from Glossier. She grew her new small business Instagram account to 15,000 followers, even before announcing her first product as an online retailer. I’ve shared Emily’s detailed story here.
Similarly, you might have seen the hilarious Dollar Shave Club (DSC) YouTube advertisements. DSC was committed to become a consumer-focused brand and they eventually got acquired by Unilever for $1 billion.
If you’re serious about building a successful eCommerce business from scratch, then this article can help you achieve your goal. I’ll share examples of eCommerce stores, case studies, social network tips, and tools to set you on the right path.
Ready?
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Here are a few tips to create an eCommerce store that clocks upwards of $1 million in yearly revenue.
Position yourself uniquely in front of your target demographic
While I’ve perhaps got you all excited about building a small business from scratch, let me be frank:
It’s a lot of hard work to get your marketing strategy right.
And, if you fail to take a unique stance and solve a unique problem in the market, then consumers won’t care about you.
In their analysis of 18,000 eCommerce sites, Yotpo found that an average eCommerce store site fails to go past 500 fans on the social network site Facebook.
I know you might be thinking that a ‘like’ on social networks is a vanity metric. But, it is an indicator that you’ve managed to hustle your way to acquiring those true 1000 fans that love you like crazy and buy all of your products and share their love on the social networks.
Without a USP (unique selling proposition), it will be almost impossible to build these true fans.
A brick and mortar Walmart store might be available across the street for all of your prospects. And, Amazon is always just a click away. In all probability, these huge businesses will have similar products at a lower price than your e-Commerce platform. So, you need compelling differentiation to make an emotional connection with your target audience.
If your customers can associate with the problems that you’re trying to solve, then your marketing communications have more likelihood to go viral.
Let’s look at Dollar Shave Club, as an example. Their first video told a great story in a comical manner and tied it back to their brand.
How To Build An Ecommerce Website
But, it also quickly differentiated DSC from their competitors, like Gillette. People were clear that DSC is all about ‘affordable razors as a subscription service.’
Their product isn’t fancy, with a boat load of unnecessary features, but it does the job.
They presented their benefits succinctly and memorably through these narratives in the video:
- “Each razor has stainless steel blades, an Aloe Vera lubrication strip and a pivot head.”
- “Do you like spending 20 dollars a month on brand named razors? 19 go to Roger Federer.”
- “Do you think your razor needs a vibrating handle, a flashlight, a backscratcher and 10 blades?”
And, we all know how the video launch went….
People could relate to Michael Dubin and saw DSC to be an effective solution to their razor needs. They went on to acquire 12,000 Customers within 2 days and their social network garnered a lot of traction. In short, their online business became a great success and the search engines also recognized this.
The first exercise for you is:
Decide what you want to be for your consumers and craft a compelling brand story that improves the customer experience.
This might involve saying no to a lot of things. Spend ample time to finalize your message, but ensure that it appeals to you and your audience.
The first 3 steps in this article on building an audience will help you in defining your target audience and positioning yourself as their go to online retailer.
Eric has taken Beardbrand to over $120k/month. And, he has a simple advice for building a compelling brand – “walk the talk.”
If you build your brand image around your lifestyle, you won’t simply be selling products like any old small business, but you’ll also get noticed for your commitment. And, it won’t feel like work, because you already have genuine interest in the products you’ll sell.
Eric loves his beard and shooting videos on how to maintain a beard. So, it’s no wonder that he gets comments like the one below, stating that his brand seems like an extension of himself.
Indeed, Beardbrand customers say that the company’s vision is a key reason why they purchase their products.
THIS is an essential ingredient of every successful brand
One fatal mistake that often leads to death for brands is inconsistency, and this covers everything from your commerce platform to your content and your social network presence.
Once you’ve crafted your message, it’s important to stick with it and use it consistently in all of your marketing activities.
E-commerce Website Shopping Cart
Your design, logo and other collaterals should follow your brand guidelines (that you’ve set previously). Essentially, your website, social network channels, merchandise, emails and advertisements must all be cohesive and be easily identifiable to represent your brand’s personality.
The first important step for maintaining a consistent brand image is observing a consistent color palette and design, because colors speak a lot about your values and make the customer experience more pleasent. I’ve written in detail about color psychology before. Here’s a recap of the color wheel, showing the emotions associated with colors.
Beardbrand has a well-defined brand color palette. They like to keep it simple, with black and white as their primary colors and cyan as their secondary color.
Eric says that they settled on the term, “urban beardsman,” to attract folks that care about style and grooming habits. They wanted to break the stereotype that only bikers and hippies have beards.
And, if you look at their About page, tagline and other branding material, you’ll find that this term and their philosophy are consistently represented.
For example, here are their vision and mission statements:
VISION STATEMENT: To change the way society views beardsmen.
MISSION STATEMENT: To foster style for urban beardsmen.
Eric was a trained designer with a clear vision of how he wanted to portray Beardbrand. If you need help with graphics, then I’ve shared a step-by-step process in this article on Quick Sprout.
Remember that you won’t find good designers for cheap at marketplaces like Fiverr (at least not easily). Be ready to shell out real money.
But, once you manage to get a good designer, they’ll help in crafting your brand guidelines, based on your vision. And, you’ll be on the right track to keeping your small business branding consistent.
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One you hire salespeople, marketers and customer service executives, you’ll need to maintain a culture that reflects your vision and brand personality. You’ll also need to ensure that all of your employees are clear and consistent in their communications with your customers.
Ensure a stellar experience for your customers
Remember that I told you that you won’t be able to compete with the bigger commerce platforms on price? You’ll need a clear, differentiating USP and a compelling brand story.
There’s another way that you can earn loyal customers and simultaneously extend your branding- by personalizing your product packaging and making your prospects feel special. It’s all about adding to that customer experience.
Dollar Shaving Club offer a premium unboxing experience to their customers. They treat their members as part of a high-quality club. And, they welcome you with a colorful postcard and a free drink – which they comically refute with disclaimers “not really” and “please don’t drink and shave.”
The backside of the postcard makes you feel like you’re part of an elite movement and shares necessary information about changing your subscription and following them on their social network.
Here’s their complete welcome package.
Indeed, people across the globe have shared their DSC unboxing experience. All of the above images were from a blog post written by Jonathon Colman. Here’s another video of a guy from Australia sharing his executive membership unboxing experience.
Think of all the free marketing that DSC has earned, purely due to their stellar packaging. In fact, it’s not DSC alone. The number of videos titled “unboxing” on YouTube have consistently increased since 2010. This means that people are interested in sharing their first impressions with a brand.
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Dotcom Distribution found that 52% of consumers are likely to make repeat purchases from an online merchant that delivers premium packaging. So, moving beyond generic packaging can be your ticket to free social network publicity and earning more loyal customers.
I would suggest calculating the shipping and custom packaging charges. Then, perform a cost-benefit analysis to evaluate if it’s worthwhile to go for custom packaging or not.
If you opt for customized packaging, then here’s a guide by Shopify to create a memorable unboxing experience for your customers.
Another way of making your customers feel special is by creating loyalty programs and offering discounts. HubSpot shares 7 great customer loyalty programs in this article.
Around 50,000 DSC customers tell their friends to try DSC products every month. Such word of mouth marketing is happening because DSC is offering free months and credits with their welcome mail.
A few nitty-gritties to kickstart your business
Until now, you saw high-level strategies for building an eCommerce brand. Now, let me share a few strategies to get your business off the ground.
Most niche businesses will find their audiences on Facebook. So, I would suggest that you to start with Facebook Ads and leverage the platform’s powerful targeting capabilities.
You can also refer to my detailed guide on driving sales through Facebook Ads specifically for eCommerce businesses.
Once you’ve figured out Facebook and streamlined your ads, then I would suggest that you migrate to the visual social platforms – Instagram and Pinterest.
The users expect to see high-quality visual advertisements from brands on these platforms. And, these platforms have a sticky audience that loves to shop. Here are my guides on generating sales through Pinterest Ads and making sales on Instagram.
Don’t forget to experiment with ads containing buy buttons and practicing native commerce on all of these social media platforms.
Finally, I would recommend that you find the key influencers in your industry and develop relationships with them. I share a few tips on influencer marketing in my guide on making sales through social media.
Conclusion
How To Create A Strong Ecommerce Website For Your Business Entity
The internet is a wonderful place to sell your products and become an established business. But, most companies don’t make the cut, because they take short-cuts. Creating a branding strategy and following it consistently is extremely important for creating a sustainable business.
In this article, I’ve shared a few examples and strategies to develop your own brand from scratch. If you’ve always wanted to build an eCommerce business, then get started right away.
How To Create A Strong Ecommerce Website For Your Business Entity
Are there any other branding exercises for eCommerce businesses that you want to share?