7 Strategies to Building an eCommerce Website?

Starting an online store is a like scaling a peak. Proper planning is mandatory, lest you are bound to get stuck in between. Here are 7 things to bear in mind before you start building your eCommerce website.

Statista estimates, global ecommerce market is all set to swell from $1.3 trillion in 2014 to $ 4.5 trillion by 2021. That is approximately a threefold increase from existing market size.  The retail online industry has seen a tremendous growth with the increasing number of users shifting from traditional shopping mode to online shopping.

Small businesses to large enterprises, everybody is trying to get into the league of setting up their own online shopping website. Lack of experience, insufficient business knowledge and access to technology makes it difficult for them to delve into the online marketplace.

In case if you are one among those who are trying to build your own ecommerce website, here are the ten things to keep in mind to tailor your business needs for making an online presence.

1 Understanding the customer needs your products feed

“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves” - Steve Jobs.

Now that is something that needs to be realized when it comes to understanding your customers. Woo your customers by committing your business to provide what they want. Smart businesses delight customers unexpectedly.

Think Amazon that goes the extra mile to make customers smile. Or Four Seasons that has an entire protocol on guest servicing. Draw inspiration from these customer-centric brands and try to imbibe them culture into your online store’s business model and customer service.

2 Outwit Your Competition With Unique Offerings

Just because you have put your brand identity in your products doesn’t bring you profit. The way you project content to your target audience goes a long way in differentiating your business from competitors.

To acquire a large number of audience in the market you have to implant a strategy which showcase your brand identity even to someone out of your business region. Disney is the master of this strategy. Do you think people are willing to pay 20 bucks for a filmy t-shirt which would cost only 2 bucks to manufacture? The only reason is because Disney has sucked people into their content.

Children are so obsessed with their movies and adverts that when holiday comes there is no alternative to parents than to spend money hand over fist for buying  their feature products. If you want to make your own marketplace website, then you have to find a way ahead of your competitors in publicising your product contents to reach potential customers.

3 Pick Your Business Favoring Buying And Selling Methodologies

There is a difference between selling your products in an online store and setting up your own business online store.

• Single seller

In this phase you will set up you own B2C online store where customers can directly engage with your products and make purchases. You have the privilege of setting up your own website and at the same time a full responsibility of governing each customer’s purchase needs.

• Multi-vendor

Companies like Amazon allows sellers to feature their products on their website. Each sale of your products gives them a share of amount for hosting the seller’s products. The seller gets the share on their side without the worry of managing the customer’s purchase cycle.

Now you have to decide whether you are planning to set up your own online store which requires skilled maintenance of the website and a responsibility of handling the whole customer purchase cycle. Or you can depend on a Multi-vendor business where you can set yourself free from the technicalities involved by paying a mere share of your business.

4 Website build mechanism

You can either create a online website from scratch or get a readymade online marketplace script solution to create your online store website. There are plethora of options available to choose from while building an online website using an extension script. Both of them have their own advantages and disadvantages in terms of security and use.

• From scratch

Building an online website from scratch requires exemplary expertise in programming and a deep understanding of web development security parameters. You have the whole responsibility in your hand if something goes wrong. But it gives you an edge over the creativity and design of the website. You can also optimize your website performance.

• Using a website script

By using an online script for your website, you can rely on your web solution service provider for security and performance of your website. On the other hand you get to choose the best possible option available. Implementation, affordability, scalability and user friendliness are all a cake walk when using a script clone.

5 Product Images

“It has been said that 80% of what people learn is visual” - Allen Klein

Human beings learn more about a thing by visualising them and seeing  rather than reading a written work. The brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text.

The use of imagery content to create your own online marketplace is crucial to address the right audience.You can tell many thing about a person based on their appearance. The same thing goes for showcasing your website.

The more visually appealing content the website has, the more it reaches the user base. Stunning product shots, intuitive designs and images make up a full fledged website. The design and imageries used should tell a story and convey visually what you are going to make the visitor understand.

6 Product descriptions

Manufacturer brochures and catalogs are the primary source of product descriptions. Replicating this content on your online store might do more harm than good. It is always recommended to create your own product description than copy-paste what is already written by the manufacturer or another retailer.

Genuine use of words to describe the products helps in higher SEO ranking of your website. You must include customer search keywords in the descriptions. Along with this you have to make the reader excited by telling them about something which they don’t know. The urge to buy your products must be aroused in a reader’s mind by reading the descriptions.

Also the content of your descriptions must be unique and plagiarism free so that it couldn’t get penalised by Google as a duplicate content. Finally you don’t have to write a novel like story describing your products. Try to be as concise and precise as possible.

7 Blog, article, news content

“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic” - Seth Godin

The ability to reach your potential audience relies mostly on the way you market your business.

Content marketing has rewritten the efficiency with which any business can reach out to its potential market. Content marketing can be briefly explained as the process of creating and distributing relevant content to your target audience.

Maintaining a business blog in your website and notifying visitors about your products and services is one of the components of content markets. Unlike advertisements, a blog or article stays in time and gives the reader detailed information about what they are seeking.Publishing product relevant articles and materials in social media networks like Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram get you an extra lead in letting more people know about your items.  

Conclusion

Nowadays even local businesses are moving their business to the internet. But, building an online store is not an easy task. With several things to count on before moving to the online phase, these are the most important seven things to keep in mind while planning to create your own online marketplace.