Ecommerce store – when do you begin building its inner workings?
You do this once you’ve established your business model. You do this once you’ve created the initial product line. This can be anything from drop shipping to selling your own products. This includes digital products.
That means:
- building your website
- creating a system for your visitors to buy products
- marketing to your audience so they can find your site
This checklist will ensure that you don’t miss a step. Let’s begin with the process of building your website for ecommerce success.
Building Your Ecommerce Website
Your website is the core of your business. If it is easy for visitors to navigate your site, then you’ll be more successful. Of course, there are many behind the scenes functions that will make running an ecommerce store easier too.
You’ve chosen your website host and builder. When looking for a host and a website builder, consider the following features. Do this too when designing your site:
- The ability to have multiple categories for your products
- The ability to input your desired number of products
- The ability to automatically optimize for search engines
- The ability to schedule
- The ability to create email marketing messages and customer communication
- The ability to customize and brand your pages
- The ability to create featured products
- The ability to include delivery information and choices
- Automatic tax calculations
- The ability to include several images of products
- The ability to include user friendly functions
- “Buy Now” buttons
- product details
- payment options
- The ability to offer customer history to make repeat purchases easier
Customer Support
Automating your customer support dramatically increases your organization. This creates a much better impression when dealing with your customers. Gaining the confidence of your customers is a great way to ensure future purchases and customer loyalty.
You’ve created a branded checkout page. This page can:
- Thank them for their order
- Offer upsells or recommend add-ons
- Provide next steps, including shipping and fulfillment information
You’ve identified an autoresponder to use as your follow-up and customer communication system. You can create:
- Thank you messages
- Inquiry follow-up messages
- Shipping and delivery updates
- Upsells and special promotions
You’ve created an easily accessible and comprehensive:
- FAQ page – Answer the most common customer questions
- Contact page – Make it easy for customers to reach out and ask questions
- Policies and procedures page – Share information about guarantees, shipping, and returns
Payment Processing
In order to sell products you have to be able to take payments. There are many ways to accomplish this. However, the simplest, and often the most effective way, is to utilize a shopping cart service or software. These services provide a number of functions for an ecommerce store, including:
- autoresponders
- inventory control
- payment processing
- gift cards
- even social media integration
I’ve compared payment processing solutions, including:
I’ve made sure that the ecommerce technology I’ve chosen is:
- User friendly
- Compatible with my other systems and technologies
- Within my current budget
- Look at monthly fees
- Evaluate transaction fees
- Able to grow as my ecommerce store grows
- Offers the features and functionality I need. Keep in mind that some shopping cart systems offer:
- Autoresponders
- Customer service functionality
- Analytics
- Images and catalog descriptions for your products
- Inventory and sales reporting functions
For the best results, map your systems. Make sure that the technologies you choose work well together and provide your visitor and customer with an exceptional experience. Your store needs to be visually appealing and easy to use.
Behind the scenes you want to be able to manage your store quickly and efficiently. Use this checklist to keep track of everything you need to do to create an ecommerce store that is both profitable and efficient.
