eCommerce is a growing industry that is poised to take over retail in the next few years. People are starting to appreciate the convenience of completing their order and having their items shipped right to their doorstep. If you’re looking for a lucrative business venture, you might want to consider building an ecommerce website.
With that being said, here is a list of all the steps you need to take to create an ecommerce website.
1. Choose a website name
As a growing business you need a unique name that is easy to remember. Ideally, you want your website name to reflect your brand name or the type of products you sell. If you have the budget for it, you can get your own personalized domain name to make your site look more professional. Alternatively, Strikingly also offers free custom domain until you’re ready to foot for your own domain.
2. Choose an eCommerce Store builder
The good news is that you don’t need a technical background in web development to be able to build an ecommerce web site. As the best free ecommerce website builder, Strikingly features a powerful online store solution called Simple Store. This enables anyone to create their own online shop and manage it from anywhere in the world. With the Simple Store, you can add a secure payment gateway to your site through Paypal, Stripe, WeChat Pay or Alipay to enable your customers to complete their purchases online. The best part is that unlike other ecommerce platforms, Strikingly does not charge extra transaction fees.
3. Customize your website
Let your personality shine through and customize your website accordingly. Start with one of Strikingly’s ecommerce website templates and, with the help of the intuitive website editor, add your own personal touch to the template. Implement your own custom color scheme and explore the fonts in the font library. Use your own logo and website icons. Strikingly has an integrated image and video library but we do recommend that you use your own custom visuals to make your website stand out even more.
4. Select high quality visuals
One of the limitations that an ecommerce store might have is the ability to touch products and inspect them in person. It’s always a good idea to invest in high resolution product shots from various angles to enable customers to make an informed decision. Action shots will also help them imagine how to use your product properly. If you can provide video tutorials for added information, this will also help a lot with improving the user experience on your ecommerce website.
5. Add a secure payment gateway
Accept credit card payments on your online store by adding a secure payment gateway. With Strikingly, you can seamlessly add Paypal, Stripe, WeChat Pay or Alipay to enable customers to complete their purchases online. All you need to do is enter your email address and you’re all set!
6. Optimize your content
Part of building an ecommerce web site is optimizing your content for search. If you want to direct traffic to your website, you want to make sure your page appears on relevant searches for your product or your brand. To make this happen, you have to employ search engine optimization strategies such as proper keyword research and link building. Your content should contain your target keywords although we advice against any form of keyword stuffing or black hat SEO in order to get on top of the search results.
7. Set up shipping and storage
Figure out shipping and storage for your online store and set up shipping options on your website. You may have to make arrangements with your vendors or arrange for a storage solution if you’re fulfilling orders and shipping out the items yourself. Determine what shipping service you will be using and whether you will be doing drop shipping. On Strikingly, you can also set up different flat shipping rates for various countries.
8. Launch your ecommerce store
After testing everything and making sure your website looks great and functions according to expectation, it’s time to get your website live. Work doesn’t stop after you have published your site, however. You need to track your website’s performance, continue to market your site and your products and work on your digital marketing campaign. As your website grows in scale, continue tweaking the design and content to keep up with changing customer needs. Pay attention to feedback and complaints and make sure to provide top quality customer support to maintain customer loyalty.
