How To Build An E-Commerce Website
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How To Build An E-Commerce Website
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Black Pearl Matrix
Essential Steps to Create a Successful Online Store
- Have a plan
- Choose a good platform to start with
- Choose a payment gateway
- Invest in cybersecurity
- Produce content for the products
- Study about logistics
Building a business of any kind is certainly challenging work. Creating product and strategy ideas, among other things, are big and important steps you will have to face.
However, even if you’ve never built a website before, the tools now available ensure that anyone can create an online store.
Of course, when you shop online, checkout seamlessly, and then get a product or service conveniently delivered to your doorstep so easily, you might think that the process is not that complicated.
Of course, if you’ve never started an e-commerce store from scratch, it’s impossible to understand how time-consuming and detailed the process is. If you have been hesitant to sell products online, here are some good reasons why setting up an online store is a good idea.
1. People Are Spending More Money Online
People in the United States spent $602 billion online in 2019. And that was before the coronavirus changed everyone’s shopping habits. In the first month after the start of the pandemic, e-commerce sales grew by 49%.
These days, more than ever, any business owner who goes offline is missing out on their share of those profits and certainly the new normal. Some experts predict that e-commerce will exceed $2 trillion in sales in the next few years – it’s the fastest growing industry and one of the most valuable.
While some shoppers still prefer the in-store shopping experience and will return to do so when it is safe to do so, many prefer to skip the trip and do their shopping from a computer screen or mobile device.
2. An E-Commerce Website Costs Less Than a Storefront
Managing a showcase requires payment of:
• Space rental.
• Salary of store employees.
• Appropriate licenses and authorizations for physical stores.
• Utility bills.
• Furniture and decorations.
• Building maintenance.
• Cleaning products.
• Selling supplies such as a point of sale (POS) system and cash registers.
Selling products on a website, on the other hand, reduces most of these costs. You’ll still need to pay for things like web hosting and marketing. And you may still need to hire some staff, depending on the size of the eCommerce store you’ll be running, but the costs are much lower and easier to plan for.
3. Online Shopping Provides Convenience
When you’re tired, busy, sick, or just feeling a little lazy, you probably don’t want to spend time driving somewhere and browsing a store for items you want to buy. There’s a lot going on in people’s lives and sometimes there just isn’t room for a trip to the store.
In comparison, browsing an online e-commerce site offers the customer more options. Making selections and comparing prices is easier, faster and requires much less energy. People are more likely to spend their money when it doesn’t seem like work to do so.
Buying online is not 100% easy. It is true that it requires consistency and attention, but it is not very difficult. When you sell your products through an online store, you remove many of the barriers to buying that exist in a physical store.
About Black Pearl Matrix
We are a passionate team of experts that have helped businesses large and small from all around the world to capitalize on the Internet.
BPM Professional Web Design, Online Business Development, Pre-Built Online Stores, Mobile Apps, SEO Services, Web Hosting, Interactive Media & Animation, Social Media Integration, Branding, Affiliate Opportunities, Online Store
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4. An Online Presence Gets Your Products Found in Search
85% of people use Google to discover products and make purchases. Without an e-commerce website, your products don’t stand a chance of showing up when potential customers start looking for what you sell online.
But when all the products you sell are listed on your e-commerce site, they will all be indexed by search engines like Google. This is the first step for your products to appear in search results.
If you want these product pages to appear on the first page of Google, it requires an investment in SEO best practices. But before you even start thinking about it, you need an e-commerce site for your products.
5. You Can Sell Your Products To People Anywhere
With cheaper and faster delivery couriers and the growing trend of mobile shopping, it’s much easier these days to get your products to potential customers around the world. As long as you have a good product and price that people want, it’s not hard to sell it and ship it elsewhere.
Mobile shopping has certainly been a game changer for online sales, making it possible for people to shop at the exact moment they decide they want something. It doesn’t matter if they’re on the couch watching TV, walking down the street or lounging on the beach, if they think of something they want, they’ll pull out their cell phones to buy what they want in the blink of an eye.
This creates more sales opportunities, avoiding less risk of a potential customer deciding they want an item you sell, only to forget about it when they get home to their computer.
Before starting the process of building your e-commerce store, you first need a domain name and web hosting plan. Without it, there is no way to have a live e-commerce site.
There are dozens of different providers and services you can use to buy a domain name and hosting, and you can buy them together or separately.
If this is your first time creating a site, the easiest course of action is to buy them together from the same provider. This minimizes the number of technical tasks you have to complete and speeds up the process of getting your site online.
6. What You Need to Build an E-Commerce Website
Building an e-commerce website will be a little different than building a standard website or starting a blog. In addition to purchasing a domain name and hosting, you will also need to consider tools and software for processing payments as well as designing and manufacturing your products.
While building an e-commerce store is much cheaper and easier than building a storefront, it still requires some upfront capital and work.
Below is a list of all the steps we took to get started and successfully build our e-commerce site:
6.1 Purchase a domain name
That’s pretty straightforward. You need a domain name that perfectly identifies your brand. Don’t overthink the process. You can buy a domain name for less than $10.00.
6.2 Select e-commerce platform and website builder
For many new eCommerce owners, the easiest option is to use a website builder that includes eCommerce options. Most website builders are designed with beginners in mind, so anyone should be able to put a website together quickly and easily.
As long as you choose a website builder that supports e-commerce, you can also easily add product pages that include photography, basic SEO fields, product description and inventory status information.
To save time and money, select a popular e-commerce platform. The best platforms are Shopify, WooCommerce or BigCommerce. Most developers are familiar with this, making it easy to integrate plugins, process payments, etc.
WEB DESIGN PLANS
MARBLE PLAN
- Blog Website
- Up To 3 Pages
- Responsive In All Platforms
- 6 Months Support
- And much more ...
PEARL PLAN
- Corporate Business Website
- Up To 5 Pages
- Emailing Contact Form
- 8 Months Support
- And much more ...
PLATINUM PLAN
- E-Commerce Store
- Up To 30 Products
- Security Payment System
- 12 Months Support
- And much more ...
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6.3 Find a theme that matches your e-commerce vision
To save even more time, you can choose a free WordPress theme and plugins, that way you can modify and create a layout that resembles the look and feel you want from an e-commerce point of view. Don’t try to make a website from scratch, choosing a theme will certainly save you a lot of headaches.
7. Register your Business
When starting an online business, you cannot forget that although you are selling online, it is illegal to sell products or services without proper business license and tax payment. Therefore, it is important, especially in order to grow your business and be eligible for a bank loan, to make sure that what you are doing is properly recorded and in accordance with the law.
Therefore, it is important to obtain a business license and start looking into business legal issues as soon as possible. It is not very difficult or expensive in itself, however you should get in touch with a local solicitor to assist you in setting up your business. While this is an upfront cost, it will likely save you a lot of heartache and expense down the road.
8. Take Your Website to the Air
As soon as you commit to starting your business, get your website up and running, even before you list any of your products. Have your developer create a homepage, an “About Us” page, and a contact page.
This will be useful for several reasons:
• This will allow you to establish legitimacy when negotiating vendor agreements. You will have more than just an idea.
• When contacting “Help A Reporter Out (HARO)”, partners, potential customers and bloggers, they will see that you have a website and that you are trustworthy.
• This will give you a place for all these sources to link back to your site, which is of course the key to building SEO.
9. Help a HARO
Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is one of the best tools for PR and SEO that any entrepreneur or digital marketer can use. It’s free, it generates incredible exposure (if done right), and it can really be game-changing (again, if done right).
HARO provides journalists with a robust database of sources for upcoming stories and daily opportunities for sources to secure valuable media coverage. Sign up and use this resource as much as you can to build credibility and establish media relationships for your site.
When it comes to HARO, there are several key components on how to get the most out of it. The first is punctuality. When a reporter submits a query, he may receive hundreds of proposals in response. Each inquiry also has a deadline, so making sure you respond right away, morning, noon, and night is key for both reasons.
The second key element is finding a true industry expert within easy reach. This will give you an edge over the thousands of pitches dealing with entrepreneurship (which you should also respond to, but usually return a lower conversion rate).
If you take the time and send back two proposals a day for a period of one year, you will get tremendous exposure on some of the most popular sites on the web. Not only will this help increase your brand exposure, but it will also help your SEO a lot.
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VISIT OUR STORE
10. PitchBox
Developing relationships with media contacts is very important. That’s where Pitchbox comes in. Pitchbox automates the heavy lifting of outreach so you can focus on what you do best; creating real person-to-person connections with the people you want to reach. Pitchbox helps you scale your outreach efforts. It handles all aspects from prospecting to sending emails to tracking and workflow management.
After Pitchbox sends out an initial proposal, if someone doesn’t respond, your SaaS software will send a follow-up email based on a timed schedule. You can create your own emails (initial and follow-up) so that the message still feels personal.
Pitchbox starts at $95 for startups and is a great resource for building high quality relationships.
11. Personalized Service
Personalized relationships are very important, both for suppliers and the media. If you’ve successfully implemented an SEO strategy, you definitely understand the value of personalized relationships.
Make sure you pitch the site something of value. It’s important to poll reporters and editors so that when you pitch a story idea, the email doesn’t get buried in your inbox or deleted without being read. It’s also important to share your experience through articles informing or teaching readers about what you know best.
Make sure you have an email, phone number, and WhatsApp that a customer can use to contact you, and make sure you pick up the phone and respond to messages as soon as possible.
If you have a sales team, be sure to have a close professional relationship with them, as salespeople are the people who dictate sales and promotions. They can keep you updated on the latest brand trends to help increase your sales. They are the people who know the most about the products you are selling, so it is very important to always communicate with them.
Let them know that you are a team and want to work with them to achieve success for both of you. They will appreciate you and think of you whenever they have a special offer or promotion, or even a great marketing idea.
12. Get a Payment Gateway
It’s important to have multiple payment methods available. The most popular external payment gateways are PayPal and Stripe. But if you want to accept credit cards directly on site, recurring billing, and mobile payment, a gateway like authorize.net or 2Checkout.com offers great options.
Getting approved for an onsite payment gateway and credit card processor is not an easy process, so do your research and make sure you’re prepared. Before applying, you’ll need to set up a secure checkout process on your website, create a Privacy Policy and Return Policy, find out your shipping and delivery methods, and have a customer service phone number and address. working email.
All of this information will need to be visible on your website. Also make sure you have a clean credit history, a US driver’s license or state ID, a US bank account for the company where the funds will be deposited, and a federal tax ID. You’ll need a voided check (or a bank letter with your account information) and it’s also a good idea to include a cover letter with your application explaining your business and why you’ll be successful.
Setting up your payment gateway and credit card processing can take a while, as these processors don’t want to take any risks on a deal that has no experience or is unlikely to succeed, so you must prove to them that this is not the case of your business. Don’t wait until the last minute to start this process.
13. Google Shopping + Facebook Product Catalog
There are some things you cannot complete until the site is ready to go live and the products are all loaded. When you’re in the final stages of development, be sure to set up your Google Shopping campaign to ensure your product images populate when users search for relevant keywords.
You can use that same merchant center data feed and load it into your Facebook product catalog.
14. Choose Elements to Include on Your E-Commerce Site
Before you start designing, take some time to consider what functionality you want your site to have and how best to organize it.
14.1 Organize your e-commerce site based on how people shop
One of the first steps to organizing an e-commerce site is figuring out which pages and categories to include. Obviously, you’ll want a homepage and pages for each of your different products. But how are you going to organize all those product pages so people can find what they’re looking for?
Think about how your potential customers are likely to shop and browse, and build the site architecture that makes the most sense based on that.
For example, if you sell pet food and supplies, you could organize your website based on the type of pet your visitors have (dog, cat, fish, mouse, etc.) with subcategories under each product type (toys , treats, food, etc.). Anyone visiting the site can quickly figure out how to narrow their search based on their specific needs.
And by visiting a page that groups together many similar products, they can browse through all the dog treats or cat toys available and pick the one they want the most.
14.2 Include a Search Bar
Many of your visitors will be happy to browse your site to find items they like, but some will know exactly what they are looking for. A search bar will give them a way to get directly to the page they need and is therefore one of those features that every e-commerce website should have.
14.3 Include Reviews
More than half of regular online shoppers say they read reviews nearly every time they shop online. Looking at customer reviews has become a regular part of the buying process. By including a review feature on your website, you give your customers a way to hear directly from each other, which is more powerful than what you can say to them.
Enabling third-party reviews shows your customers that you’re confident your products can stand up to honest customer feedback. And if the reviews are positive (which they should be if your products are solid), they will increase your sales.
As an added benefit, reviews can help you gain valuable feedback on the products you offer and the service experience your customers have. You can get some tips that help you improve your e-commerce business results over time.
14.4 Having a Shopping Cart
Your ideal customer won’t see an item they like and jump right into the buying process. They will spend some time browsing and choosing various items they want.
A shopping cart is another standard feature of e-commerce stores as it allows visitors to save the items they want to buy as they continue browsing and then go through the checkout process once for all of them.
And for visitors who add items to a shopping cart but don’t buy right away, you can send a reminder email to your customers to help them come back to your site for a purchase.
14.5 Add Wishlist Functionality
Including the wish list functionality does a few different things, such as giving people an easy place to refer friends and family before a gift giving event (a situation people shop for regularly).
For people who prefer to research before purchasing a product, this gives you the chance to save items you like for a possible future purchase.
For those who avoid impulse purchases for budgetary reasons, you can bookmark things now that you want to come back to later.
Giving people a way to use your site to build a list of items they want creates some opportunities where those items are more likely to become future sales.
15. Order Packaging and Discover Shipping/Storage Options
Before launching your website you need to figure out how to store and ship your inventory, you will have to determine storage to make arrangements with your suppliers.
Some questions you will need to answer are as follows:
• Will you use drop shipping or will you store all of your inventory in a warehouse?
• Will you be using USPS, UPS, FedEx, or some combination of the three to ship and track packages? Where will you ship your package?
• What packing size do you need?
• Will you include any promotional material in your packages?
• Are there any shipping restrictions for any of the products you are offering (for example, some beauty products can only be shipped overland)?
You need answers to all these questions before you’re ready to ship any goods. As you can see, starting an e-commerce website is a very complex and detailed process.
Following this checklist will ensure you take the proper steps to launch your website in a timely manner while being proactive with your SEO and marketing.
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FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions About Building an E-commerce
1. What is the investment required to set up an e-commerce?
2. What do you need for an e-commerce site?
3. How to set up an e-commerce with little money?
4. What else sells in an e-commerce?
5. What is the most used platform to sell?
Conclusion
We hope this content on how to build an e-commerce has helped you understand the whole strategy behind this type of business. With calm and hard work, it is possible to start your business and be very successful with sales.
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