A successful business now depends on having an online store. Physical stores are insufficient because of several factors, like the ease of visiting an online store and restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Regardless of what your field is, you must build your online store to grow your business efficiently.
However, you need a lot of effort and hard work to build an online store. It would be best to consider user interface and customer service options before you even start building. When you take these into consideration this approach, you can sell online products better than the other online stores out there.
You must comprehensively understand how to set up an online store right from the start of your business. By building an online store, you will ensure that your business has long-term success.
Essential Elements for Building Online Stores
1) Captivating E-Commerce Product Page
Creating a well-designed and informative product page is essential to boosting sales on your online store. This page should capture the attention of potential buyers and provide them with all the information they need about your product.
When you build an online store, you must create a high-quality eCommerce product page. To create a successful product page, develop a clear and concise product description. This description should highlight key features and benefits of the product, as well as any restrictions or limitations that may apply.
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
Next, provide images and videos illustrating your product's key features and benefits. Use these images and videos to help potential buyers visualize how your product can benefit their lives.
Finally, include a contact form on your product page so buyers can ask questions or leave feedback about your product. This contact form will allow you to connect with potential customers and build relationships that could lead to future sales.
2) Brand Identity
Building online stores is a complex and time-consuming process. The following are four essential elements that should be included in any design:
- Brand logo. The brand logo is an online store's first and most crucial element. The logo represents your business and must be attractive, legible, and recognizable. An excellent way to create a logo is to use an existing graphic or template, then customize it to fit your specific business.
- Navigation bar. Next, include a navigation bar at the top of your website so visitors can easily navigate your products and categories. Include keywords in the title tags of each category page and the main header of your website. You also want to ensure all links on your navigation bar are clickable, so visitors can easily find what they're looking for.
- Product images. Images are vital for selling online products. Make sure you have high-quality images for each product you sell, including the front and back views. Indicate which size product each image represents by including a sizing icon next to it. Also, have product specifications such as color, size, and quantity in the image descriptions beneath each picture.
- Product descriptions. Descriptions are crucial for selling online products because they help buyers understand what they're buying. Use precise language and list each product's features and specs in detail, including any limitations or caveats if applicable.
3) Special Deals and Offers
An online store that sells products from a niche market can make a lot of money by offering special deals and offers to customers. When you build an online store, you must understand your customers clearly. By understanding your customer base, you can create targeted deals and discounts that will attract new customers while satisfying current ones.
To create targeted deals, you first need to understand your customer base. Are they buyers or renters? Do they prefer free shipping or low prices? Once you know what your customers want, creating deals that appeal to them is easy.
One way to offer free shipping is to bundle products together. For example, if you sell candles, you could bundle two boxes together and provide free shipping on the combined order. This way, you're not just enticing customers with lower prices; you're also giving them the convenience of free shipping.
Another way to offer free shipping is to have a sale that lasts for a certain amount. For example, if you're selling clothing items, set a deadline for when the deal will expire and offer free shipping on all orders during the sale period. This way, you're lowering prices, creating market urgency, and driving more traffic to your website.
Finally, consider offering exclusive deals only to customers who buy a certain number of products. This way, you can coax more people into buying more products from your store by rewarding them with special deals available to those who need to buy more products.
Another way to drive traffic and sales to your store is to offer free shipping on orders over $50. It can be a significant advantage for customers looking for high-quality products at affordable prices. When you build an online store, you hope to create a positive reputation. This approach is a great way to show your appreciation for loyal customers.
4) Signing Up Option
The signing-up option helps create an email list and retain at least some of the customers you acquire. Sign-up options should be in some corners and hidden from viewers' sight. However, they should still be prominent and easy to find.
As a ready-made form template, Strikingly lets you build a subscription form for your online store. Once your site visitors submit the form, their email addresses will be added to your website's audience list. Using our newsletter feature, you can send out newsletters to this audience.
5) Payment Methods
When you build an online store, you must ensure that your customers stay in the checkout phase for only a short time. There are several payment methods that you can use to accept payments on your online store. These include PayPal, Stripe, and more.
Image taken from Strikingly
The payment processors allow you to accept customer payments through your website and email. Stripe is a more recent payment processor, allowing you to process payments quickly and easily through your website.
6) Image Optimization
When you build an online store, creating and optimizing images is essential. Not only do they need to be eye-catching, but they also need to be sized correctly so that they load quickly and only take up a little space on your website. Here are a few ways to optimize images for your online store.
- Use high-quality images. When you're creating your images, make sure you use high-quality standards. It means using sharp, crisp photographs that look good on all devices. You also want to ensure your images are in the correct size—not too large or small—so they look good on any device.
- Optimize your images for speed. When someone visits your site, one of the first things they will see is your image(s). Make sure these images load quickly so people can start browsing your products. To do this, ensure you use optimal image formats like JPEG and PNG and avoid loading too many images simultaneously.
- Use captions with your photos. Add captions to each of your photos to provide additional information about the image (product name or a caption about the person). It will help people understand what they're looking at more efficiently, encouraging them to buy something from you immediately.
7) Customer Service Options
When you build an online store, many customer service options are available. Depending on the type of store, different customer service solutions may be more appropriate. Here are some tips for building a customer service solution for your online store:
- Establish a customer support team. This team can handle various tasks, such as answering customer questions, troubleshooting issues, and providing support during sales and VIP events. This team should have a dedicated worker for each task so that the process is streamlined and customers can get help quickly.
Image taken from Strikingly
- Use chatbots and other automated services. Chatbots are a great way to provide quick, easy answers to customer questions. You can also use automated services such as phone support or live chat to provide support. These services can help shorten wait times for customers and make it easier for them to find help when needed.
- Keep logs of interactions with customers. This information can be used to improve customer service in the future by identifying areas where customers need more assistance or where problems have occurred in the past. This information can also create targeted marketing campaigns that speak directly to your customers' needs.
8) Social Media
Today, you must build an online store and expect substantial traffic to appear on it instantly. It would help if you had maximum support across every aspect to ensure you get the desired recognition. Hence, you should understand and involve social media in your plans. Here are the ways where you can use the influence of social media to sell online products:
- Choosing the right social media platform. Building an online store is not just about selecting the right e-commerce platform but also choosing the right social media platform. Many social media platforms are available, and deciding which is best for your business can be challenging. Some of the most popular social media platforms for online stores include Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, but there are also other options, such as Instagram and Pinterest. Choosing a platform that suits your business and the type of products you sell is essential.
- Setting up a profile and branding. Once you have chosen a social media platform, setting up a profile and brand for your business is next. You need to create a user profile on the platform and ensure that your branding is consistent across all your profiles. You must also create marketing materials, such as Bio pages, blog posts, and product images.
- Developing an effective strategy. You need to build an effective strategy if you want to be successful in using social media for your business. It would help if you planned out what content you will produce each week and ensure that it is relevant to your target audience. Also, consider posting resources (such as videos) on specific topics that help promote your store within your chosen platform's context.
Build Your Online Store on Strikingly
Image taken from Strikingly
Strikingly is a professional website builder that enables you to build an online store without breaking a sweat. With its drag-and-drop interface and 24/7 support, Strikingly provides a smooth website-building experience to its users through its growing platform for website development.
With tons of ready-to-use website templates, Strikingly saves our users time and money that they otherwise have to spend on building a web design from scratch. Our checkout page layouts are responsive, making it convenient for customers to make purchases conveniently from their mobile phones.
Image taken from Strikingly
Strikingly editor makes it easy to create product pages. You have an inbuilt template that you can use to add your products. Strikingly's simple store section allows you to easily create appealing product pages by typing in your product description, setting up the price, and uploading product photos.
Payment options are one of the most significant talking points for selling online products and Strikingly ticks all the boxes in this category too. We provide our users with multiple payment gateways, which allow them to send payments easily or ask for a refund. PayPal, Stripe, and Square are the three main payment gateways we provide you on our platform. However, customers can also send their payments through credit or debit cards.
Your website is one of the most critical pieces of marketing material you have for your store. Make sure it's always up-to-date with the latest trends in web design, and make sure all the information on it is easy to find and understand. It will help you attract new customers and keep those you already have happy.
Conclusion
As the online business has become increasingly popular, having an online store has become an essential part of the business. If your business is late to the party or has an online store, you will retain the potential sales and customers online. You can quickly build an online store and start selling online by using an online store builder.
Now that you know how to set up an online store, you can create one to sell products online through Strikingly today. You don't have to worry about writing code or learning programming methods after a few hours. If you want to learn more about online store development on our platform, you can collaborate with our Happiness Officers immediately.
