If you have decided to bring your business online, you need to know how to create an e-commerce site. Do you have a business idea and think of opening your own online business? Do you have a company or a physical store?
Increasing sales with e-commerce are possible! In fact, a site can help you broaden your sales area and strengthen your brand. Follow our advice and you will understand how to create successful e-commerce. But know that creating an e-commerce site is not enough! To sell online, it is essential to plan a promotional activity. Let’s see how.
Do you want to Create an E-commerce Site From Scratch
Opening an e-commerce site today means being in step with the times. Electronic commerce is in a phase of continuous growth. Many entrepreneurs are successfully starting to sell on the internet and more and more users are making their purchases online.
The great advantage of online trading is the ubiquity of the service. Sell and buy wherever you are! This brings great benefits to companies that can reach users anytime and anywhere, significantly reducing costs.
On the other hand, users can make their wishes come true with a simple click without having to move from home. An online shop, therefore, represents a critical moment of growth for brands, with many advantages:
- helps to provide more details to the user about the company and products;
- allows you to collect valuable information on customers;
- cuts costs related to real estate and personnel;
- allows you to do more specific and profiled online campaigns;
- facilitates the customer shopping experience;
- reaches the customer everywhere.
What if these services were even personalized? The development of customized e-commerce allows you to have a tailor-made solution for your company so that it can stand out from the competition.
If you are thinking of creating e-commerce, it is important to evaluate the advantages of choosing custom e-commerce with:
- features created specifically;
- customized graphics for each element of the site;
- administration panel designed on your needs.
Creating an e-commerce site with specific graphics and good UX brings you closer to the customer and distinguishes you from the competition.
How to Start a Successful E-commerce Site
To create e-commerce, you need to plan the steps to take. Improvising in this sector means wasting money, time, and resources. First, you will need to choose which products to sell and identify your target audience. Deciding which platform to use to build your e-commerce is a decisive step and depends on your company’s prospects and needs.
What do you want to call your online site? Before buying the domain, you must decide what name to give your brand and how to present yourself to the online public. A memorable brand logo is also a must for your e-commerce site. Once you have the name and logo, you will need to establish the payment method for the goods and decide the web design of your e-commerce site.
Choose the Products to Sell
If you already have a company or are a manufacturer, an online store represents a growth opportunity for your business. In this case, you can insert the products in your showcase with different criteria:
- all the products in your range;
- your best sellers;
- inventories;
- a line designed only for e-commerce.
In any case, you will be able to experiment and understand over time which products are most requested by your target and adjust the shot. If, on the other hand, you don’t already have the product and you need to create e-commerce from scratch, you need to evaluate how to enter the market.
Responding to market demand or creating one with little competition is very important. To understand which items to include in your online store, you must follow these criteria:
- Choose the products the consumer is looking for. Don’t rely solely on what you know! It is very important to analyze the market and respond to the needs of the target;
- Your product must intercept people’s needs or create new needs (but for that, you have to be really good!);
- It must arouse interest and entice people to place orders;
- Look at what the competition offers and don’t imitate it! Offer something that only you produce or that is not easy to find everywhere.
Identify your Audience
Trying to sell to anyone is the worst way to enter the online sales market. Before establishing the target, analyze the product well and try to understand what needs it solves. After analyzing the needs, it will be clearer to satisfy the target audience. What product would you like to sell? Which sector are you interested in? Before deciding on the sector, it is best to do market research. This way, you will understand where to place your offer, how high the competition is, the profit margins and the costs to enter a particular market.
In this way, you will be able to identify your buyer personas, building a tailor-made shopping experience for them. Studying the target will make it much easier to work and define the right communication strategy for your online store.
Choose the Best Platform
The e-commerce platform forms the foundation on which to build your online store. For this reason, you must choose it in a way that best meets the needs of your business. Each platform has its own characteristics and you must evaluate which one to choose based on the type of your company:
- need for a multilingual shop;
- size of your company;
- your ability to manage the site independently;
- the volume of orders;
- types of products.
These platforms are designed to be managed independently. But to install and configure the platforms, it is necessary to rely on experts so that e-commerce works well and is configured correctly and customized.
Buy a Domain
The domain is the first step in building your brand identity. If you already have a business, e-commerce will be your extension on the network, so your best bet is to use the brand name as your domain. In this way, you will keep your customers who come from offline sales and you will be able to increase your target and brand awareness even online.
In case your company doesn’t have a name yet, you can choose to launch a new brand and buy the corresponding domain. What is the right name for e-commerce? There is no perfect answer to this question, but you can draw inspiration from the product you sell, its characteristics, and the company’s ethics. The important thing is that you do not remember existing brands and that it is not too difficult to memorize. The perfect name is the one that stays impressed!
Know the Costs
If you want to understand the costs of opening e-commerce and what budget is needed to start an efficient online store, you have to analyze several items. In particular:
- cost for creating a professional and personalized e-commerce site;
- costs for the purchase of the domain;
- purchase of hosting;
- costs for the promotion of the site;
- expenses related to bureaucratic and administrative aspects;
- expenses for the accountant;
- logistics costs;
- costs related to warehouse management;
- purchase of software for order and warehouse management.
It is crucial to ask for quotes from various suppliers. Doing this will give you an idea of the costs to start your entrepreneurial adventure and establish a starting budget.
Payment Methods
Making payments online is one of the key points to making an e-commerce site work. The customer feels understood and safe when he discovers that his payment method is accepted on a particular site.
In this way, he feels reassured and security is essential for those who have to make an online payment. One of the most popular methods for users is the payment with Paypal, but you can also choose to enter other options, such as credit card and cash on delivery.
One point you need to be very clear about is the cost of shipping costs. Lack of clarity about expenses is one of the reasons that lead users to abandon the cart and not make the purchase. Visibly place them so that the customer does not feel betrayed at the time of payment.
Conclusion
As you will have understood, creating an e-commerce site is not easy. It requires a great deal of effort and many steps, ranging from the conception to the actual creation of the e-commerce site.
