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Planning your e-commerce website

More and more small businesses are looking to ecommerce as a way to expand their business. If you are one of them you need to do a little homework before you start investing your money. You don’t want to be in the unenviable position of having all of your money invested in a loosing proposition. Following these basic guidelines will help you avoid that pitfall.

Know the market: Your first step in deciding to build an online ecommerce site is to look at the competition already on the Internet. What do their sites look like? How easy are they to navigate? What kind of inventory do they carry? What are the price points? What are their shipping costs? What kind of guarantees do they offer? What is the customer service like? What are the customer’s expectations? What are they used to and can you do better?

These are basically the same questions you would ask if you were thinking about starting a local brick and mortar store. They are equally important in the virtual world. In fact, the virtual world dramatically limits personal interaction making the rest of this even more important. Once you understand the online market you simply have to ask yourself this.

Can I build a web store that can successfully compete? Do I have the necessary competitive advantages to one-up the competition or am I going to be an also-ran?

The chance of you being successful on the web is far greater if you can successfully compete with the other sites you find on the web. If your inventory is smaller, your prices higher, your site less professional, your marketing budget smaller… your chances of success are far less.

What’s the niche? The Internet market is huge. Business can cater to a much narrower market niche on the Internet than is generally possible in a community. In fact, generally you will find that the narrower the niche the easier it is to compete. If you sell only solid silver kitchen ware and you can provide a selection far greater than those sites who don’t target that specific niche you will probably find yourself in a good position on the web. Look at your business and the web competition to see if there is a narrow niche you can fill better than anyone else.

Website necessities: In the retail arena there are a few things that your ecommerce site can hardly do without. These are driven by the basic expectations of the online shopper.

• Trust: Websites are by their very nature cold and calculating. They are, after all, computer programs. The first thing your site has to overcome is the lack of personal interaction. This generally comes down to getting the customer to TRUST that you will do what you say. The more professional your site is the more likely the user will trust you enough to make an order. To do this you must have at a minimum:
• Your own URL and not be some sub-folder of a mall site
• A professionally designed site that is easy to navigate.
• Your own merchant account and credit card processing gateway. Don’t try to use a third party payment process. You will loose some potential customers.
• Solid, well written shipping, return, privacy statement and store terms and conditions that are easily found and easy to understand. Many people are very cautious of leaving their email address with a site that does not clearly state what they will do with the information.

Full featured shopping cart: The shopping cart is second in importance only to your site navigation. A full featured shopping cart will allow the shopper to add, update and delete products and will maintain that list of products if they should leave the site for any reason and return later. At a minimum the cart should allow for multiple billing and shipping addresses that are maintained even after the customer leaves the site. The cart should also show exactly what the person is buying, what the shipping costs will be, any sales tax and the exact amount that will be charged to their credit card. The cart should also include a detailed receipt with complete order information that can easily be printed without loosing any information.

Marketing features: Your biggest job with your online ecommerce website will be marketing. The more features your site gives you to manage and market your site the better. At a minimum you should have an opt-in email system that will allow you to bulk email your customers, the ability to set and accept coupons and easily place items on sale.

Those are the basic requirements for setting up your ecommerce site. There are lots of other things you can add to enhance the experience for your shoppers but, at a minimum, these features will provide you with a professional site that has an opportunity to succeed. 

Just a couple of notes. You do need to know that getting the site set up and operating is just the beginning. To be successful you will need to constantly work the site, marketing, updating and looking for ways to give your customers a little better shopping experience. That’s where the work is and it is what ultimately drives the success of your ecommerce website. If you are seriously considering creating an online ecommerce solution we encourage you to connect with a company that can offer more than a software solution. The success of your site depends on having access to information that can help you market your site. Contact sales@webtransitions.com.