The sale and purchase of any product or service through an electronic medium such as the internet are involved in e-commerce. In simple terms, we also refer to it as online shopping. It has a number of benefits. One does not have to go to the store to buy things. People can buy products from any place and time according to their convenience. In many cases, a also provides e-commerce services.
Online transactions of products and services are done through online portals over the internet. These online portals are called e-commerce websites. Whatever that is needed in a transaction can be executed online through e-commerce websites. There are different types of e-commerce websites such as business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), consumer-to-business (C2B), business-to-administration (B2A) and consumer-to-administration (C2A). For a successful e-commerce business, you need a proper e-commerce website which must be developed by a professional e-commerce website development company. The following are some steps for building a proper e-commerce website:
1. Decide your product or service
You have to decide what you would like to do business with. It may be any product manufactured by you, any product collected from other sources or any service that you want to provide. Any product or service is a must before starting an e-commerce business. It is also necessary to do some research on your product or service. You have to judge whether there is a market for that product or service or not. If there is a market, then what USP (unique selling point) is there in your product or service which can give you an edge over the other merchants selling the same type of product or service.
2. Set your pricing
If you are starting a new business, a difficult job is to decide the pricing for your product or service. You will not get the price of your efforts if you keep the price too low. Again, there will be fewer sales than your expectations and you will suffer loss if you keep the price too high. You have to figure out your own costs if you want to figure a competitive price. For example, in the case of any product, your costing will include your product’s manufacturing costs, your e-commerce website’s web hosting, taxes, shipping, the percentage taken by the online payment providers and advertising and marketing costs.
3. Research shipping costs and options
You have to decide the mode of delivery if you sell any physical product. It may happen that you want to take the shipping cost from the customers. But it is not a good idea as many customers normally cancel their orders due to high shipping costs. You may consider taking some other steps such as to offer free shipping without any conditions, raise your product cost a little bit and offer free shipping, for orders of certain size offer free shipping or offer a flat shipping fee.
4. Choose a domain for your e-commerce website
For your e-commerce website, you must register a custom domain name at first. Choosing a custom domain name gives you an identity by which your customers will recognize you, a professional email address connected to your domain for communication with your customers and the benefits of search engine optimization (SEO). An provider company can help you in managing search engine optimization (SEO) of your website.
5. Choose an e-commerce web hosting and an e-commerce platform
After you choose a domain name for your website you need a hosting where your e-commerce website will be hosted. You will also need an e-commerce platform which will integrate easily with your e-commerce website.
6. Design your e-commerce website
Now the time comes to design your e-commerce website. For this purpose, you must hire a professional e-commerce website design company that can professionally and aesthetically design your e-commerce website. If it is for any product, your brand name will be properly represented and products will be showcased in the best possible way. The price of the products will also be listed. Other images, text and video will also be added to your e-commerce website if required.
7. Set up payment options
You have to set up payment options. The mode of receiving payment from your customers and the way of transferring the payment received to your bank account should be properly decided and arrangements for that will be made in your e-commerce website by any professional.
There, your e-commerce website is almost ready. A little more work and you can start selling your product or service.
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