How to develop ecommerce website
Table of Contents
As per NASDAQ reports, by the year 2040, 95% of the purchase will take place using E-commerce. We laid out an 8 steps process that will help you understand how to develop an e-commerce website.
It is always believed that E-commerce is very complex to be implemented. Building an e-commerce website may be easier than you imagine. Now there are various e-commerce solutions that do most of the work for you. But still, you need to understand what is offered and what you need. As for design and development, we have summed up what makes a good e-commerce website and how to develop an e-commerce website from scratch. There are plenty of e-commerce website builders and hosting in the market and as a business, for optimal performance as well as value for money, here we have provided our inputs regarding how to develop and promote an e-commerce website, the best e-commerce website builder, and hosting
Difference between website and ecommerce website
Here we are outlining the difference between a website and an e-commerce website.
A website that shares information on the internet is called a normal website, and a website with the functionality of offering products/services and completing payment over the internet is called an E-commerce website.
How to make E-commerce website step by step
1.Select your perfect e-commerce platform
Finding out the best e-commerce platform is the 1st step in your e-commerce website development journey. It is important to have which can meet the needs of your products /services and brand.
(a) Types of e-commerce platform
There are various types of platforms:
Open Source- It provides basic source code free to everyone who wants it.
Since it is free code, so you may require advanced knowledge to customize, also security is the issue of concern on it and you may require hiring people dedicated to security so that may be a costly part of it.
SaaS- Software as a Service is an e-commerce platform that is offered on a subscription service model. Features of these systems are ease of use, ease of scalability, robust security, multiple features. They are specifically designed for e-commerce so they can handle other e-commerce functions like logistics, checkout, payment processing, etc.
In SaaS, there is monthly subscription fees, transaction fee as well as plugin or apps.
Headless E-commerce-Here in the front end and back end different technologies are used for your e-commerce website to ensure you are maximizing use content while using the best in class e-commerce platform at the backend.
(b) E-commerce Hosting-
Hosting is the server space where data is stored. There are various web hosting options available.
Cloud- in most of the SaaS cloud hosting is used. Platform manages updates/uptime/patches/upgrade etc. Open source also uses Cloud which includes the cost of hosting.
On-Premise-They are hosted on servers owned by business and is common in open-source solution. The businesses have to provide space, handle the installation and keep people to manage/maintain it.
One of the famous web hosting used in open source is Bluehost due to its backup features, robust support, malware scan, and optimized features.
Important things to consider while choosing your e-commerce solution
Following are things to consider when building an eCommerce website
- Website performance: Website must have good uptime and fast loading and easy navigation
- Bandwidth: Website must have capacity to handle traffic. It must have proper bandwidth.
- Mobile responsiveness: Now most consumers do shopping on mobile/tablet devices, so it should be optimized for all devices
- Security and secure payment and data: SSL, PCI compliant services. SaaS providers are mainly such compliances. For self hosted and open source solutions, you need to take SSL etc
Ecommerce website builders to use:
Website builder is the basic foundation for an e-commerce store. They are specially designed for e-commerce hence it provides more options. Following are some popular ones:
Shopify- SaaS solution which is easy and quick to set up. They are very popular now a days, especially for the fashion/cloth industry. You will find most of the new e-commerce stores using this platform. They have an extensive range of plugins as well. Also, they have features of marketing products and email marketing ones. It can handle a higher number of transactions per minute.
Big Commerce- It is another SaaS solution that is scalable and provides 24X7 support, along with priority support to larger accounts. They have various built-in features.
Magento- Self-hosted solution so requires a higher level of knowledge.
Woo-commerce-Open source WordPress plugin. It can be used only with the existing installed WordPress site. It is flexible and has limitless customization. Since it is open-source, so it needs some technical knowledge to make customization. A basic setting can be made on your own as well (with little knowledge).
Best ecommerce website builder and hosting
We have already understood the pros and cons of website builders and hosting. Our preference will go with Shopify in SaS for its ease of use and multi functionalities. Also, it does not require hosting to be purchased separately.
If you are going for an Open source platform, then Woocommerce is one of the best options. There are various hosting options available, although Bluehost is the best hosting service provider and is recommended by WordPress itself.
Best ecommerce website builder for small business
As small businesses have budget constraints, so we are listing some of the good website builders. Wix is getting popular due to its overall performance. Shopify is another platform used for its capabilities in sales-specific features.
2. Purchase a domain name
If you have already purchased a domain for your business it can be used /transferred to your online store builder/hosting provider. In case you don’t hold any domain name, then make sure to follow the below practices to purchase a new domain.
- Avoid bigger names-limit to 15 characters maximum
- Always prefer .com -best and old most
- Avoid creative spelling-easy in pronunciations and phonetic
- Avoid hyphens and numbers -it should be easily sharable
You may purchase a domain name from bigrock.in, in.godaddy.com, etc
3. Hire e-commerce developer
A developer can make the process of setting up and running the e-commerce site simpler. They have technical knowledge and experience in developing and managing e-commerce sites. Following things may be considered important while deciding the developer
- Experience in developing and working on the platform decided
- Time line
- Reference sites on which developer has worked in past
- Support in debugging (if any) and maintaining site
- Developer must understand your vision and create what you are looking
- Budget
- Customization
4. E-commerce theme
How to pick your E-commerce theme
Templates or themes are ready, built pages that can be customized based on your requirement. It must be in sync with your brand and website vision.
There are various options on themes as well. Some are paid themes (with loads of options) and basic featured themes. You may decide based on functionality and price.
At the time of deciding template or theme, you may think about following
- Navigation- Ease of navigation among pages, easy reach to shopping cart, ease of making payment as well ease of reaching home page /cart page in one or two clicks.
- Home page style – It should be aesthetically appealing.
- Customization Option-Colors/fonts/background must be in sync with your brand image. How products are displayed and how many images can be included? Other factors include can social media be embedded? Can youtube videos embedded? Also feasibility of Customer testimonials, ratings etc.
Most online store builders use apps(paid/free) to add features that are not part of the original one, so you need to understand how many apps need to be added.
5. Add your products
Product or collection are the most significant pages on an e-commerce store. It shows what you want to sell. It should be showing good images, reviews, ratings, and easy-to-navigate categories. Also, there should be a product variant option (based on color, size, etc) Also, product upselling can be done by showing related products /similar products
Following are important factors that need to be taken care:
- Product description- Basic details, care in using, who may use it, when and when to use this product
- Product images- High quality images, same size image for various images, images from various angles for same product, also product variation image.
- Product categories- It helps to customers to find what they are looking for. Categories can be found using filters as well.
6. Payment Methods/payment gateways
The right payment method is very important. If the method is too complicated and not trustworthy, your
buyer may leave the cart and not return it. Following are points that should be kept in mind while
choosing payment gateway integrations
(a) Compatibility with a platform that you have chosen as well as options of multi-payment option that must include UPI, wallets, EMI, etc. to name a few. Also international payment handling availability.
(b) Ease of integration
(c) Customer reviews
(d) Transaction fees and set up fees (if any), annual charges, turn around time of settlement, etc,
(e) PCI Compliant and secure
Payment gateway for e-commerce website India
Some of the major used options for payment gateway for e-commerce website development are CCAvenues, Razorpay, Instamojo, Payu Money, etc.
For international payments, Paypal is a good solution.
7. Shipping Setting
Shipping is the most important part of e-commerce. After placing the order, the customer/buyer wants the product to be delivered as soon as possible. So shipping should be chosen wisely.
- Shipping policy- It includes fees and carriers. Are you giving it free or free above any fixed amount. If not so then how you are going to charge, is it based on price, or weight or location or combination of various factors. Some providers charge extra money for quick delivery as well. Also policy about international shipping.
- E -commerce shipping solutions- Do you want to ship from your own premises? Or may do drop shipping? Here third party companies providers provide order fulfilment.
There are options available to make packing at your own end or shipping companies provide packing facilities.
8. Preview and publish your ecommerce store
Make sure you check every basic functionality before you click preview and publish
- Check out working/not- You may run test order to check ease of adding to cart and asking relevant information while checking out so that order is shipped and delivered. Order form must include detailed address, phone number (especially mobile number), pin code, email etc. Please check that payment is processed or not. Did you get confirmation mail as per standard.
- Order management- Need to check order management module is giving required information. Also how it is handling inventory, how it behaves once product is old out etc.
- Working on mobile- Site must be checked on mobiles also check for buttons, dimensions, clarity of images on smaller screen etc.
- Check the store functioning- Check every buttons and links working or not, also check filters and categories, if a link is not working then please check 404 redirection is working or not
- Check essential pages- Detailed pages regarding contact us, return and refund, privacy policy, terms and conditions etc.
- Store Settings- Time zone, currency, language etc. tax, measurement details , contact details etc. to be checked.
- Check on different browsers – like chrome, mozilla, safari, edge etc.
Ecommerce best practices
E-commerce best practices help to improve user experience and enhance efficiency.
- Better images- image quality to be good and original one in place of stock photos taken from internet
- Loading speed- it should be quick in loading
- Noticeable search bar-and result in precise and relevant
- Easy navigation bar- Navigation should be less layered and easy to move
- Free Shipping- People do not want to pay for shipping so free shipping is one of the best practice
- Simple registration, check out and aesthetic checkout page and guest login option
- Detailed product description-improve product descriptions and should solve problem of end user. You may tell a story as well. Videos may be put as well.
- Regular updates
- Blog
For latest E-commerce trends in 2022 read the full article here
How to promote e commerce website
There are various ways to promote an e-commerce website.
- Using Socal Media- Showcase your products and prices on popular social media platforms like Instagram ,Facebook, pinterest etc.They also provide option of boosting post as well as running paid ads, which increase traffic to your store. Google also provide google ads (which are paid ads)
- Using Search Engine Optimisation- Getting organic traffic depends on relevance of content for its crawlers. SEO provides more clicks and hence more visit to website
It should solve the problem of users. It should return /show the website when users search something using keywords. Keyword research may be done using google keyword planner.
The title and description should be proper and grammatically correct and as per limits. Right description increases the chance of a click.
Building an e-Commerce Website: Bottom Line
It is truly now easier to build an e-commerce website. A few years ago, building an e-commerce store required a lot of technical skills and several integrations. But now modern platforms make the process of creating an e-commerce store quick and seamless and require not so exhaustive technical knowledge.
If you just have a few products, you may start and run your store in just a few days. So if you are dreaming about testing e-commerce water, check out the steps and pick the best one for your e-commerce needs and drive right in.
If you decide to create an E-commerce store, that sets your business apart from the rest, contact the Brainmerce team to get more insight into the development process.