Showing posts with label eCommerce website development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eCommerce website development. Show all posts
     
ECOMMERCE DEVELOPMENT
E-commerce
       What is the first thing a visitor notices in an e-commerce store? It’s the design. In a research conducted by Blue Corona, it was found that; Given 15 minutes to consume content, two-thirds of people would rather read something beautifully designed than something plain.
38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content/layout is unattractive.
48% of people cited a website’s design as the number one factor in deciding the credibility of a business.

       These statistics give enough reasons as to why Website design is so important. When it comes to Ecommerce websites, the design and layout is all the more important than all websites in general. A well-designed website gives the business owner an opportunity to communicate more personally with his audience and send across his message more accurately.
The design of your webstore can either make or break sales. If a visitor visits your store and finds that the design is unattractive, the creation and products are unorganized, then chances are he will find your e-store to be no better than a physical store. This can badly affect your sales because, the main reason people shop online is because it is better than shopping from a brick and mortar store. Hence, along with selling good quality products and giving the best services, it is important to have a website design that is appealing and eye-catching.
Let’s talk about a few ideas with which you can give your website an attractive look and design

Keep things clean and professional
Imagine if you landed on an e-store that has a messy layout, bad pictures and mismatched fonts. You would probably leave the site within seconds. So, keeping your own opinion in perspective, design your store likewise. Keep it clean and professional. Have a look at your competitors’ website and note what makes them so attractive. Use consistent and similar styling and use nothing but the best quality images.

UX Design
UX design ensures that a visitor has a seamless journey through your website. When a website is designed keeping UX in mind, the visitor clearly knows where things are and doesn’t have to search for them. Customers like this kind of seamless and hassle-free shopping experience. A good UX design includes simple navigation, CTAs, links to pages like FAQs, reviews, contact us page etc.
As mobiles and other portable devices are dominating the market, you cannot overlook its importance. Hence, your website design should be responsive to all the devices. You need to make sure that your website looks good and is user friendly in all screen sizes.

Keep design consistent
Keep your brand image and design consistent across all platforms. For instance, if you are a company that sells baby products, then your website design should depict something cute, adorable and baby-like. Your website design should also be consistent with your marketing strategy. Hence, you have to decide on how you want to convey your brand and what message you want your ecommerce website to portray. Also, it is important to design for your target audience. For instance, if you have a store that sells wedding dresses than your design should appeal to the would-be brides and their friends.

Have unique elements
Though it is important to keep your store design somewhat similar to what is in vogue in the market, it is also equally important to stand out from the crowd. Let your e-store have some unique elements, this could be a quirky caption, a popping logo, a unique color scheme, cool graphics etc. Whatever the uniqueness is, make sure it appeals to customers and creates a lasting image in their minds.



Create your Ecommerce website

There is a plethora of platforms available for building an Ecommerce website, However Magento is known for its flexibility, customization & expandability and hence is the first choice of many store owners. Magento is backed by a supportive and robust community of developers who are focused on making Magento an enterprise grade ecommerce platform. For the small and medium scale businesses, Magento offers a cost-effective way to overcome the ecommerce technology hurdle.
The most convenient and best way is to hire a Magento development company to handle your project, however, if you wish to do it yourself, below are 8 steps for you.

  1. Get latest Magento installation package
The first would be to get an appropriate Magento installation package that suits your needs. Packages are available on the official Magento website.

  1. Hosting
After you have downloaded the Magento installation package, then you would have to upload and install the package on your hosting server directly or through your FTTP client.

  1. Create Database
You can sync MySQL database with Magento. You would need to assign a user to it via
cPanel -> MySQL Databases.

  1. Create Categories
Create broad categories and subcategories in your website for easy navigation for users. Categories is an important since users will be navigating throughout your website to finally order something.
Example, if you an online book store, then bifurcate categories like,
Broad Category - Fiction and Non-Fiction
Category for Fiction – Drama, romance, thriller
Sub Category under romance – Nicholas Sparks, Cecelia Ahern, John Green

  1. Product Information
Users usually buy those products which have adequate information. Clean, crisp yet informative product information is important to attract users. Some important product information that you should fill out
Name of the product
Short description
Status (availability)
Price
Images etc.

  1. Design
You don’t need to be an expert designer to make your website scintillating. Magento provides you with thousands of themes to give your site an amazing look. Both free and paid themes are available in Magento. However, some points you should consider are;
Theme in sync with your products
User friendly
Consistency
Call-To-Action
Blog section
Responsive
SEO friendly
Authentic content etc.

  1. Configure shipping methods
Alternative shipping methods available in Magento are;
Flat rates
Free shipping
Table rates
Online rates etc.

  1. Integrate Payment methods
Payment Gateways fulfills the major role of processing and authorizing the payment between merchant and customer.


Extra tips for further enhancing your Magento Store

  1. Always keep an eye for updated versions – Make sure your website is updated with the latest Magento version to fix bugs and performance issues.

  1. Custom theme – Customize your theme according to your products, requirements, trends, etc.


  1. Use analytics tools – Study consumer behavior, demographics, study which products are working the most for your website etc. by using tools like Google Analytics.

  1. Use content delivery network- Use CDN so that CSS, images, content etc. loads faster hence, reducing your overall page load time.

  1. Keep your website optimized- keep your website by keeping pace with the latest search engine updates and algorithms.

  1. Keep your website secured – SSL certificate encrypts all data between the browser and the server. SSL certificate also helps to gain visitor’s trust and appear higher on search engines.


Before you start selling online, make sure the following aspects are fulfilled


Where & How to Sell Products Online?
Where & How to Sell Products Online?

  1. Costs
Online business involves various costs. It is important to find out if you can make good profits after incurring all the costs. Your costs may include;
  • Shipping cost
  • Packaging cost
  • Payment gateway cost
  • Storage cost
  • Marketing cost

  1. Understand your profit viability
Now that you have an idea of the costs involved in selling online, you can calculate your profit margin.
Profit Margin = Selling price – costs
Always try to be profitable per product level. If your profit margin is positive, you are good to move ahead.

  1. Create your digital catalogue
Unlike a physical store where you only need a product and a sales staff to sell it, an online store will require a digital catalogue. This digital catalogue will contain produce description, product image, name, price brand, features, extra info and other applicable attributes.

  1. End to end process
Before you actually start selling your products, you need to have a mental practice run i.e. lay out the entire process from getting an order to shipping goods. You can formulate a checklist for doing quality check, invoicing etc and follow the same end to end process every time you get an order

  1. Inventory management software
As your business grows, managing your inventory manually will become difficult. Hence, make sure you have a good inventory management software in place.

  1. Online visibility
Customers are most likely to research about your business before making a purchase. Hence, if they can’t find reviews and business information online, they can also drop off their plan of trading with you. So, a company website, social media presence, etc. are important facets.


Selling on Market place v/s own web store

Once you have decided to sell online and taken all prerequisites, you are most likely to ask yourself, “should I be selling on an online marketplace like Flipkart or Amazon or should I set up my own webstore?
If you decide to sell on an online marketplace, all you have to do is submit your business details on the seller registration pages. You will need to keep VAT registration number, PAN number and Bank details handy. Some sites need address proof as well. You can upload scanned copies of these documents. Verification is completed normally in couple of days.
If you decide to set up your own web store, then you’ll have two options, Hosted and Self Hosted options. Hosted platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce are hosted on someone else’s server. It’s a lot like renting a space to sell your products. A self-hosted platform like WooCommerce and Magento on the other hand, requires you to run the software from your own machine.
Hosted platforms are very easy to use, even for beginners but a self-hosted platform gives you more opportunities to customize your store.




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