If given a choice between buying stuff online and shopping the old-fashioned way, the modern customer will say they prefer — both. Developing an eCommerce website is a common investment decision among the majority of business owners, retailers, entrepreneurs, and most of the commercial. The eCommerce businesses that I work with can’t keep enough products stocked.
Ecommerce has been growing for a while, and the numbers below don’t account for the recent events leading to an increase in eCommerce sales. And they can do all of that without ever having to think about how to develop an eCommerce website that lets them shop online.
Online business is booming, and online shopping statistics say that eCommerce is the way to go for any growing business. But that’s what business owners and managers are for. You have a product you want to sell or a great business idea. Even small businesses and the people who own them need to take their online presence seriously and provide their customers with a decent online shopping experience. Lucky for them, it’s never been easier to develop an e-commerce website than it is now.
Ecommerce Website Development Key Choices
When you can shop online, seamlessly checkout, and then conveniently have your favorite pair of jeans, a nice new watch, or even a customized computer shipped directly to your doorstep, you might think the process isn’t that complicated. Two of the most basic decisions future eCommerce website owners need to make is the domain name they’ll use, and who is going to host the website.
The domain name doesn’t have to be the same as the name of the business. It doesn’t have to be the same as the name of the website. But it helps a business if it doesn’t make it too hard for the customers to remember it.
So all the names should at the very least be easy to remember together. The hosting is a serious decision. Good hosting providers can make it incredibly easy for small business owners to develop an e-commerce website.
They can have dedicated WordPress hosting, for example, which makes WordPress website development easier. And the only thing that’s separating a WordPress website from an online store is a WooCommerce website plugin. For DIY store developers, this is probably the way to go.
Do Not Go Blindly into Ecommerce Website Development
A good business owner will have plenty of things figured out before the actual development of the website starts. Now, think about the last time you left an eCommerce store frustrated, abandoning your shopping mission before even reaching the cart. Online business is still a business, after all, and it needs to do all the things other businesses do:
- Register as a business entity;
- Decide on the line of products it will sell;
- Figure out a catchy name;
- Think about branding at least a little bit.
These things will matter a lot for the success of the eCommerce website. Businesses that don’t register as real businesses and sell stuff online are running the risk of potential legal troubles. Businesses that don’t focus on a certain type of product waste their energy trying to sell everything to everyone. So the work on the website needs to start before the actual development.
Website Development Basics
Business owners who decide to build their own WooCommerce website will probably want to stick with easy-to-use website builders. Still, they will need to sort out the product images, as well as the website copy.
That work is neither easy nor irrelevant, and it can be time-consuming. Especially when compared to using eCommerce website development services for WordPress WooCommerce development. Website builders make it easier by letting users choose things like themes and by making it easy to rearrange things on the visual side.
The business owner will still need to set up a payment getaway if they expect to earn some money. But then again, the website builder can take care of that for them, too. Choosing a shipping partner and beefing up security are the two final concerns. The shipping partners might wary from one region to another, and they might have different prices.
Finding a reliable one might require some research online, but it’s effort well spent. For security, the very basic thing business owners can do is install an SSL certificate. Not only will it make the website more secure, but it will also keep the business in Google’s good grace. And that’s what all websites (and humans) should be striving to.
And that’s about it. Once they’ve done with these steps, business owners will have a functional eCommerce website they can use to sell their wares to people all across the globe. Of course, the real work starts when they have to figure out how to get those people from all across the globe to visit their store. But hey, they managed to build their own website. They’ll figure the rest out.
Frequently Asked Questions
A lot of people don't appreciate the moment until it’s passed. I'm not trying my hardest, and I'm not trying to do