Beginners Guide to Build an Online eCommerce Store

Is having a business idea in your mind enough for the creation of your online eCommerce store? Is your business idea cent percent unique and profitable? Certainly not! Implementing a business idea and going ahead with it requires proper research and a plan of action.

So, If you don’t want to put your investment at risk, would prefer to play a safe business game, then there is a guide for you for your eCommerce website development.

Step 1: Research your eCommerce niche

You cannot sell everything on your eCommerce website, unless and until you have enough budget like Amazon and Flipkart. You’ve to decide your product niche, be specific and then focus on it.

• Try to avoid the niche which is highly competitive, dominated by major brands.
• Also, do not select a niche which has no competition, because zero competition signifies no market at all.
• Try to pick a product category that works well on social media. Because a lot of traffic on e-commerce websites comes from social media.

Step 2: Research your target Audience and Product Selection

An eCommerce website development company that started offering health and nutrition services won’t last a long.

After selecting the product niche, the next step is to think over the product ideas. But before you invest in a product, research about the audience who you are selling to.

Do not fill your online store with thousands of products, unless and until you are clear about your target audience: gender, age, geography, etc.  Instead of filling your warehouse with thousands of products, try to collaborate with other vendors dealing with the same product category as yours.

Dropship Business Model

The Dropship Business model is in trend these days. In Dropshipping, the customer will shop from your store, the order will be forwarded to the supplier and the supplier will directly send the product to the customer under your name.  This can help you in mitigating the risk of holding the inventory, avoid warehousing costs and time consumed in packaging activity, and list more products with zero risks and capital investment.

Step 3: Buy your business name: Domain name

Choose your unique domain name wisely. After all, it’s the name of your business and address on the Internet!

Healthy tips (Warning: Please do not Skip):

• If you are dealing at the national level, try to use the country-specific codes like .co.uk for U.K, .au for Australia, .in for India, etc. But if you are selling products and services on the international level, choose a .com domain. For better user experience, it is always suggested to go for.com domain name.
• Your domain name should connect with the product niche you are dealing with. This will give organic traffic to your website from the persons who are looking for your product.

But if in case, your online store has gained worldwide popularity and you wish to branch out in the future. What will you do then? Your existing domain name focusses on a particular product niche only and you want to extend the product line. This could be your situation, how will you tackle it?

That’s why again I’m saying you to choose your domain name wisely. If this is confusing you, talk to the eCommerce Website Development experts.

• Try to add the most popular keyword for better search engine ranking of your website.
• Try to choose the domain name which is small, easy to pronounce, doesn’t include both alphabets and numbers.

Buying a domain name is the first legal step towards eCommerce website development.

Step 4: Buy space for your website on the internet: Web hosting

The hosting providers like Bluehost, Doteasy, Rackspace, etc. will allow your website to get live on the Internet. Every website needs a web hosting to get published on the Internet.

Step 5: Get SSL Certificate for your website

SSL Certificate will enable to put a security layer on your website, in order to accept the sensitive information like credit card number and other personal information.

Most of the popular Web Hosting providers, like Bluehost, provides free SSL Certificate.

The start-up cost of eCommerce website development is very economical and affordable.

Step 6: Setting up WordPress

If you are not a technical person, a WordPress website is the best option for you.

The popular Web hosting service providers like Bluehost offers the complete package of WordPress installation plus Woocommerce installation along with Web hosting and Domain name

Login your WordPress website by domain name/admin, you will reach to your WordPress Website Admin Dashboard.

Learn how to build an eCommerce store to sell products online

Step 7: Set up the Woocommerce Store

Launch Woocommerce on your website

On the Dashboard, you will see a “Welcome to Woocommerce” notification. Click on the “Run Setup Wizard” button. This will launch the Woocommerce setup wizard on your website, click on the ‘Let’s Go’ button to get started.

Page Setup

The pages like Shop, Cart, Checkout, and Account are essential for Woocommerce. Click on the ‘Continue’ button to automatically create these pages.

Store Locale Setup

Here you have to fill details like the location of the store, the currency you will use, and units measure to use for product weight and dimensions.

Shipping & Tax Setup

You need to answer the questions by selecting or not selecting the options available. If your eCommerce store is dealing with physical goods, then check the box as shown in the screenshot.

Woocommerce will automatically calculate the taxes and add to your price.

If your eCommerce website is not dealing with digital goods, then skip this step, leave the options unchecked.

Payments

Woocommerce can accept both the online as well as the online mode of payment.

PayPal, PayPal Standards, and Stripe gateways are inbuilt in Woocommerce. Other payment methods can be installed based upon the requirement.

You can set up the payment method by following the simple instructions as shown on the Woocommerce Screen.

Congratulations! Your Woocommerce online store is ready for adding the products!

Step 8: Add products to your Online Store

Add New Product

Click on ‘Product’ from the sidebar menu. Select ‘Add Product’ from the drop-down list.

A new page will open – ‘Add New Product’. Fill the details including ‘Product name’ and ‘Product Description’.

Create Product category

Click on ‘Add new product category’ displayed on the right side of your screen, to create a category for this product. The product category will allow the customer to filter the product he is looking for.

Product Data

Scrolling down the ‘Add New Product’ page, you’ll find the ‘Product Data’ page. Here, you have to fill the information mentioned below.

• Product Pricing: Here you have to fill the regular price, sale price, tax status, and tax class details.
• Inventory: Complete SKU, manage stock, and stock status details.
• Shipping: Fill the product weight, dimensions, and shipping class details.
• Linked Products: Fill the Upsells and Cross-sells details.

Complete the Attributes and Advanced fields.

Product Short Description

Below the ‘Product data’ box, you’ll find the ‘Product Short Description’ box.  Write a short description of the product. This will be helpful when a user would be viewing multiple products on a single page.

Step 9: Install and Customize the WordPress theme

From the pool of thousands of free and paid WordPress theme, select the theme of your choice and decide how your products are displayed to your customers.

To change the theme, go to the Admin Dashboard. Click on ‘Appearance’ from the sidebar menu displayed on the left, then click on ‘Themes’. Click on ‘Add New’ to add the new theme.

Step 10: Add Plugins

You can customize your online website to provide better experience and interface to your website visitors. You can add plugins like Contact form, chat pop-up, slider revolution, etc., to access add on features offered by WordPress. Many free and paid plugins are available, you can choose the best plugins as per your requirement.

On the Admin dashboard, Click on ‘Plugins’, then click on ‘Add New’.  From the Plugins page, you can choose from featured, popular and recommended plugins. Also, you can make an advanced search as per your store’s requirement.

Congratulations Again! Your online store is ready to sell the products!