E-Commerce Website : A Comprehensive Guide

Published by: Abhinav K V

Introduction

Are you a businessman or entrepreneur looking to reach more of your clients? An E-Commerce website is a go-to strategy. Along with more target reach, you also enjoy the spike in brand value due to exposure. How? Let’s Decode.

E- Commerce is a modern day model of business where the sales happen online via websites or E-stores.

With brands turning global and target demographics expanding, E-Commerce has provided them a platform to outbeat physical limitations.

Today, E-Commerce websites are pulling more sales than the retails or offline stores and many have closed the offline stores considering the difference in sales ratio.

Market Research

Before getting started with the development phase of an E-Commerce website, we need to do the market research. See how your competitor’s are doing. See what is the trend. Remember, what is seen more is sold more.

Once, you get an idea about what kind of websites do your competitors have, figure out a way to optimize your inventory so you don’t list things that barely gets sold. Remember, too many things will lead to confusion and skips.

Now that you have sorted what kind of website people like and what products are in demand that you can sell, lets jump to the planning phase.

Planning

Planning a website starts from hunting a web developer and who you get depends on your budget and patience. Why budget? Because you wouldn’t want to spend too much on Business Development than on the actual business. 

For an example, if your average sales are only 50,000 per month then you wouldn’t want to spend on a 5 to 6 lakhs on a website unless your are very sure about the projected statistics. 

As they say, If you want to be an entrepreneur, have the guts to take risk without any denial of chance of failure. 

But considering that most wouldn’t want to start with a loss, a budget that wouldn’t burn your pockets shall do. Remember, an upgrade to website is always possible in the later future when you start earning that much.

Now, that the budget is set, look for a good developer as discussed earlier that fits your budget. Shortlist a few, don’t stick with just one. Pitch the offer to multiple developers and see what they have to offer, see their previous projects, see which with reasonable expense fits the vibe of website that you are looking for and decide.

Development

Websites are getting more interactive with motion and actions based on user responses. You will see alot if fancy websites online. But remember, beyond all the creativity that is out there, the final purpose is to serve the goal of sales.

Make sure the website is not too much cloggy and full of distractions, this may distract the customer from doing the actual shopping rather just interacting and window shopping.

Be very communicative and interactive with your developer. Communication is the key to get the desired result. Have a meeting everyday on the development, involve yourself in the creative process of web-development to give layman inputs. This helps the developer to narrow down on what you are actually looking for. This avoids a lot of revisions after development is over.

But, give creative freedom to the developer, do not restrict much, trust the process and await the final results. Giving your inputs should only enhance the website, it should not initiate anything that scraps existing things that works. Remember, your are working with a professional, you have entrusted them with your project,let them not think otherwise.

While at it, a few things to keep in mind while developing are;

Define your objective and target customers

Choose the overall design language that serves the industry vibe.

Focus on User Interface and Experience, the website is your shop, keep it attractive.

Optimize Product Caterorization and Hierarchy

Simplify Payment Methods and Process

Ensure the security especially since payment and customer bank details are involved

Marketing

A good product unknown is as good as a product never made. So, marketing is important. Many have this misconception that they have a good product and they trust that it will become famous on their own. The confidence is appreciable but business doesn’t work like that.

Most of the time a product is a solution to some void in a day to day life. When somebody has that problem and if that somebody doesn’t known that the solution of their problem exists, they would never look for it. Thats where marketing comes in form of advertisements, campaigns, promotional events, word-of-mouth etc.

So, if your product and its use registers in the audience’s mind, the consumer will buy the product when the use arises.

Now, its easy like that when it is a monopoly, but what if you have so many competitors? You will be requiring more push in the market to showcase your product better than the others.

Conclusion

In Conclusion, the idea of E-Commerce website is a major startegy for any businesses. Since internet has no limit of demographics, you get to target any audience worldwide. And while you are at it, remember you are not the first. There are may who came before you and have established, so in order to stand out, you need to optimize your website to stand on top among others.