Whether you already run an exist­ing busi­ness, you’re sick of rely­ing on sales from your local phys­i­cal store, or you want to start a new drop­ship­ping busi­ness online, hav­ing an online e‑commerce store is crucial.

Hav­ing an e‑commerce store can save you costs on rental and staff bills, and the poten­tial of fast inter­na­tion­al deliv­er­ies allows you to reach cus­tomers from all around the globe.

Sta­tis­tics show that in 2020, 16% of all glob­al sales were made through online stores. Trends show that these num­bers are con­stant­ly ris­ing and that more and more peo­ple pre­fer to buy online.

The heart of any suc­cess­ful e‑commerce busi­ness is its online store.

Think of your e‑commerce web­site as the store­front of your busi­ness. Your web­site is the best place to exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent prod­ucts and receive cus­tomer feed­back quick­ly. You can upload new prod­ucts or run sales in a mat­ter of minutes.

Luck­i­ly, build­ing an online store is now eas­i­er and quick­er than it was a cou­ple of years ago. Web­site builders such as Word­Press, Wix, and Shopi­fy offer afford­able, cus­tomis­able e‑commerce solutions.

Are you ready to dive into the jour­ney of build­ing your online store?

If you want to get the most out of your new e‑commerce busi­ness, you need to learn how to do every­thing the right way — from buy­ing a domain name to choos­ing a web­site builder. There are also the tasks of design­ing and devel­op­ing a store and cre­at­ing a mar­ket­ing and SEO strat­e­gy for growth and development.

Below are the dif­fer­ent chal­lenges you need to over­come to set up a suc­cess­ful e‑commerce store.

Step 1. Buy a domain name

Since you are read­ing this guide, we’ll assume that you have already explored your niche and com­peti­tors and that you’ve come up with a busi­ness plan.

It is time to choose a domain name for your brand new web­site. A domain name is the part of the web­site URL that high­lights your store name.

For exam­ple, for the URL etsy.com, the domain name is Etsy, which is also the com­pa­ny name.

When choos­ing your domain name, make sure to avoid well-known titles that already exist or ones sim­i­lar to big exist­ing brands. Avoid long and com­pli­cat­ed names. Keep it as sim­ple as pos­si­ble to allow your cus­tomers to remem­ber you easily.

It’s tempt­ing to choose a name that is already out there, but this can only hurt your busi­ness. You want to make your online store stand out, not make it merge with oth­er brands.

If you don’t have any ideas for nam­ing your web­site, host­ing plat­forms like Godad­dy, Big­com­merce or Hostago­tor can help you make this choice. Enter 1 or 2 key­words that match your niche and browse the results until you find a suit­able domain name.

Once you have your domain name, you need to choose your web­site suf­fix such as .com, .net, .biz, .org, etc.

The .com and .org exten­sions are con­sid­ered top-lev­el domains. A .com domain name is the most pop­u­lar domain option out there, and it’s the best option for e‑commerce websites.

Some research shows that Google’s pre­ferred domain exten­sion is .com because most peo­ple brows­ing online assume that a busi­ness web­site con­sists of the busi­ness’s name and .com at the end.

Step 2. Choose an e‑commerce builder

To start sell­ing prod­ucts online, you will need a web­site that attracts cus­tomers and encour­ages pur­chas­es. A well-opti­mised and secure pay­ment process and a good site struc­ture are essen­tial for web­site performance.

When build­ing an online store, one of the most impor­tant steps is choos­ing the right web­site builder.

There are a bunch of e‑commerce store builders on the mar­ket that help you cre­ate and cus­tomise your online store with­out you need­ing any advanced cod­ing skills.

Here are some of these platforms:

Wix Website Builder

Wix’s web­site builder has plen­ty of unique, ful­ly cus­tomis­able e‑commerce themes to choose from. When you sign up for their ser­vices, you get flex­i­ble design capa­bil­i­ties and pro­fes­sion­al ana­lyt­i­cal tools to man­age and analyse your web­site’s performance.

The web­site builder also offers afford­able sub­scrip­tion plans.

Wix is the per­fect start­ing point for small busi­ness­es or new drop­ship­ping busi­ness­es. Even if your busi­ness is rel­a­tive­ly small, you don’t have to start with the most expen­sive plan.

With all pre­mi­um plans, you can con­nect your domain, remove ads from the web­site and list an unlim­it­ed amount of products.

Learn more about the com­plete list of fea­tures on Wix’s web­site here.

Shopify Website Builder

Shopi­fy is one of the most pop­u­lar plat­forms for build­ing e‑commerce web­sites on the mar­ket. The builder is packed with cus­tomis­able tem­plates with intu­itive set­up set­tings that make them easy to work with.

Shopi­fy gives you full access to HTML and CSS for full web­site cus­tomi­sa­tion, which is excel­lent if you have cod­ing experience.

Shopi­fy offers great mar­ket­ing, ana­lyt­ics, and social media inte­gra­tions that help you achieve your mar­ket­ing goals.

Shopi­fy offers more expen­sive pric­ing options than sim­i­lar web­site builders on the mar­ket, but the ser­vices and sup­port it offers in return are of a high-qual­i­ty and focused entire­ly on scal­ing and devel­op­ing online stores.

If you intend to cre­ate a vast e‑commerce web­site that sells hun­dreds of prod­ucts to dif­fer­ent cus­tomers from all over the world, Shopi­fy is the per­fect choice for you. Fur­ther­more, Shopi­fy is usu­al­ly the best choice for busi­ness­es that already have a reg­u­lar month­ly turnover.

WordPress Website Builder

Word­Press is one of the largest plat­forms for cre­at­ing dif­fer­ent types of web­sites. The plat­form offers var­i­ous tem­plates that you can customise.

Word­Press sub­scrip­tion plans offer all the tools you need to build, set up and man­age your online store. Its pre­mi­um plans pro­vide great secu­ri­ty and SEO tools.

If you have a small busi­ness and you intend to start your online store with a few dozen prod­ucts, Word­Press is the per­fect choice for you.

Step 3. Choose the right subscription plan

What­ev­er type of web­site builder you choose, the next impor­tant step is to pick a sub­scrip­tion plan that fits your com­pa­ny’s needs. The big­ger the site you want to build and the more func­tions you want to cus­tomise, the big­ger the sub­scrip­tion plan you’ll need to buy.

Deter­mine how many prod­ucts you plan to sell. If you intend to start with a small num­ber of prod­ucts, buy­ing a sim­pler plan with few­er func­tions is best.

If you want to sell lots of prod­ucts online, it is best to buy pro­fes­sion­al­ly with as many func­tion­al­i­ties as pos­si­ble. The more trans­ac­tions you make on the site, the more mon­ey you can save on the trans­ac­tion fees.

One thing to keep in mind when choos­ing your e‑commerce web­site pack­age is that the cheap­er one can often cost you more in the end.

We admit that it is tempt­ing to focus on the most afford­able option on the mar­ket, but the truth is that the more you pay, the more you get.

For exam­ple, more exten­sive pack­ages can give you access to mul­ti-chan­nel inte­gra­tion and allow you to sell on chan­nels oth­er than your web­site, such as Insta­gram or Face­book. More expen­sive plans often pro­vide access to ana­lyt­ics data that will help you improve the con­ver­sion rate on your site.

More sales options often mean more oppor­tu­ni­ties to win new clients for your business.

Step 4. Website design or e‑commerce theme?

Got your domain name and sub­scrip­tion plan picked? It’s time to choose your web­site’s look.

All web­site builders on the mar­ket offer a large selec­tion of free and paid tem­plates that you can choose for your store. If you decide to use a ready-made theme for your web­site, you can devel­op it quick­ly with­out being a design or cod­ing expert.

These plat­forms often offer intu­itive drag and drop fea­tures for cus­tomi­sa­tion. Once you select a tem­plate of your choos­ing, you can go to your admin pan­el and start cus­tomis­ing: upload your logo, change the text size and font style, change the colours and the posi­tions of the var­i­ous sec­tions. Make it your own.

We under­stand that choos­ing an already built tem­plate is cheap­er and often more straight­for­ward than hir­ing a design agency to help you cre­ate your site. So, decide which path is best for your busi­ness’s cur­rent needs.

With e‑commerce tem­plates, there’s almost no room for cre­ativ­i­ty — you’re lim­it­ed to what the theme allows you to per­son­alise. Many web­site tem­plates on the mar­ket fol­low the same for­mu­la; most fol­low the same pat­terns and share a sim­i­lar look with few differences.

This pos­es the risk of mak­ing your store unno­tice­able, as it will look the same as oth­er stores on the mar­ket. Even worse, you run the risk of anoth­er busi­ness hav­ing pre­cise­ly the same web­site as yours.

If you decide to work with a ready-made theme, remem­ber that “com­plete” cus­tomi­sa­tion is not always com­plete. Before choos­ing a spe­cif­ic theme, make sure that it ful­ly meets your needs and you have access to the nec­es­sary func­tions. Each web­site theme is dif­fer­ent, and some come with more func­tion­al­i­ties than oth­ers. Do your home­work before buy­ing a par­tic­u­lar template.

Step 5. Focus on your conversion rate

The goal of any online store is to make as many sales as pos­si­ble, or in oth­er words, to have a good con­ver­sion rate. To achieve this, your web­site should look good, feel trust­wor­thy to your cus­tomers, and be real­ly easy to use.

Here are some things you can focus on that can help you build a good con­ver­sion rate right from the start:

Build good navigation

Nav­i­ga­tion is impor­tant for any web­site on the Inter­net, but if you have a large e‑commerce web­site, good nav­i­ga­tion is absolute­ly crucial.

The smooth process of nav­i­gat­ing your e‑commerce web­site is an absolute must to win online sales. Most web­site vis­i­tors will leave your site in sec­onds if they can’t find what they’re look­ing for or can’t fig­ure out how to get somewhere.

Make sure your web­site nav­i­ga­tion is easy to under­stand and acces­si­ble for all types of devices, from desk­top to mobile.

Mobile-first experience

Make sure your online store is just as easy to use on small mobile screens as it is on large ones. Nowa­days, most of us surf and shop online from our mobile devices, mak­ing it increas­ing­ly nec­es­sary to pro­vide seam­less mobile shop­ping for cus­tomers. Fail­ure to do so can seri­ous­ly dam­age your con­ver­sion rate.

Help your customer make decisions

In today’s fast-paced world, deci­sion-mak­ing is becom­ing increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult for many con­sumers. After all, in a mat­ter of a few sec­onds, we all have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to buy some­thing we want from the oth­er side of the world.

Reduce the choice paral­y­sis for cus­tomers by remov­ing all the dis­trac­tions on the way. Organ­ise your prod­ucts into rel­e­vant and spe­cif­ic cat­e­gories so that cus­tomers can pick which prod­ucts they want to see. Try offer­ing per­son­alised rec­om­men­da­tions for your vis­i­tors, so they don’t have to go through the deci­sion-mak­ing phase.

Pay attention to your photography

Many con­sumers in online stores pay more atten­tion to pho­tos. That is why the images used to adver­tise your prod­ucts must be of a high qual­i­ty, grab cus­tomer atten­tion, and present the prod­ucts in the best pos­si­ble light.

Step 6. List your products

The home page might be the store­front of your web­site, but your prod­uct page is what will con­vince your vis­i­tors to actu­al­ly buy a product.

Start adding the items you want to sell on your web­site, and make sure to include all the infor­ma­tion that can help your cus­tomers make the buy­ing decision.

In addi­tion to qual­i­ty pho­tos, make sure that your prod­uct descrip­tions stand out and are not unnec­es­sar­i­ly long. They should be easy to read and scan. Get cre­ative and show off what makes your brand and prod­ucts dif­fer­ent from others

Avoid using clichés or tech­ni­cal lan­guage that can con­fuse your audi­ence. Use strong words and make sure you meet the needs and prob­lems of your cus­tomers. Don’t talk about your­self and your com­pa­ny; talk about how your prod­ucts can solve problems.

Remem­ber to opti­mise your prod­uct descrip­tions for SEO as well. Use key­words and phras­es that can help you rank well on Google and cap­ture the atten­tion of your tar­get audience.

Be sure to add the price of the prod­ucts as well as the deliv­ery costs and terms.

Add anoth­er sec­tion with pos­i­tive cus­tomer reviews to encour­age users to make a pur­chase. Last­ly, add the cat­e­go­ry which the prod­uct belongs to and a sec­tion with sim­i­lar items to improve user experience.

Once you’ve set up your online store and made sure your web­site is secure, it’s time to pub­lish it.