Are you planning on selling online? Or will your target audience lap up your product? Here’s how you can build an e-commerce website in 2023. If you are still not okay with starting an online store or have reservations concerning any ecommerce business, please read on, as I will discuss concrete steps to build an ecommerce website in 2023.
Would you like to expand your reach to hundreds of thousands of Pakistani shoppers and over two billion digital buyers worldwide? According to research by eMarketer, by the end of 2023, over 22.3% of worldwide retail sales will be online. And retail sales will reach 6.17 trillion, and that’s a huge increase as the same figure for 2021 was 5.2 trillion dollars.
You can also get your share of the pie, as a well-built e-commerce website or store can do the trick. But how to create an ecommerce website is the big question.
Related Read: Profitable eCommerce ideas to help you generate revenue from home
The growing e-commerce market is, without a doubt, the best way to bring your business to the next level. If you are ready to stake your claim in this growing market, it’s time to start building an e-commerce website for your business. While it may seem like a job too complicated, honestly, it isn't.
To help you achieve your desired results, we have broken it down into a few easy steps. For your reference, you will see examples from the Webx Ecommerce platform throughout this blog.
Your domain name is your website's URL, the home for your website, and what customers put in the search bar on the internet to find you online. It is what your customers remember you with, making it important to pick a memorable and catchy name. For example, if you sell children's apparel, don’t go for URLs like 123apparel.com or bestapparel.com. Choose a name that tells everything about your business, like apparelforminors.com.
The perfect URL can go a long way in enhancing your branding efforts and ensuring the success of your e-commerce endeavors. In fact, it can play a vital role in your SEO strategy if you pick out a domain that correlates to what you sell.
Once you have decided on a domain name, ensure another business does not own it. Head to a domain registrar website and type in your selected name to learn if it's available.
Once you’ve found a perfect domain name for your product, it’s time to buy it. A domain name typically costs around $12 to $25 annually. And the same registrar will show you the link to buy the domain name you searched for. Pick whatever services and ads-on plan suits you, and you're ready to take on the world.
Many online platforms help you build and host your e-commerce website.
A free platform will have limited options, while premium plans will have loads of options as there are many platforms like Webx Ecommerce available. Either way, you are in for a steep learning curve as you deal with the unique resources available.
However, if you want the easiest way to build a full-featured e-commerce website through which you can start your business within minutes, there is only one platform you can count on. It’s called Webx Ecommerce, and it makes creating online stores easier than you ever thought possible.
Webx Ecommerce has three packages for businesses of all sizes. These packages include:
With the Basic Plan, you only pay Rs. 2,950/- per month to quickly start your business's e-commerce journey. Its features include
List 100 Products
Secure Web Hosting
Custom Domain Support
Free SSL/ HTTPS
E-commerce Themes
Multiple payment methods
Shipping Calculator
Credit Card Payments
Local Payment Gateways
Integrated Courier Service
5 Custom Pages
SEO Support
1 Staff Account
Social Media Connectivity
Live Chat
Google Analytics
Facebook Pixel
Help Center
Phone, Email, and Chat support
The Business Plan requires you to pay only Rs. 4,950/- per month to start selling online. Here, you get all the benefits of the basic plan and the following added features. Please click here for more details on our business pricing plans.
5 Staff Accounts
100 Products Listing
Tax Management
Multiple Currencies
Discount Codes
Product add-ons
Custom Product Fields
Custom Checkout Fields
10 Custom Pages
Standard Reports
If you are in it to win it, you’ll love the ultimate plan. For only Rs. 9,950 a month, you get all the advantages of the Basic Plan and the Business Plan, along with the following benefits:
10,000 Product Listing
15 Staff Accounts
25 Custom Pages
Advanced Level Reports
That's not all. Buy the annual plan for any subscription package and pay 25% less.
And if you are still on the fence, Webx Ecommerce offers a 14-day free trial to explore the platform, experience stellar customer service, and make up your mind.
Now that you have bought a domain name and chosen an e-commerce platform that suits your needs. It is time to build your e-commerce website.
Related Read: 10 Benefits of Custom Design for E-commerce Business
All great e-commerce websites have the following pages, and you need them too:
The first impression is the last impression, which also holds true for online businesses.
Your homepage represents your business, and it’s the first look people have at your brand and its offerings. It’s essential to have high-quality visuals, compelling copy, engaging content, an eye-catching layout, and a quick loading speed.
Visitors will likely lose interest if your homepage loads after three seconds. Moreover, it can also hurt your SEO efforts since site speed is an important ranking factor for Google.
If the visitors like what they see on your homepage, they will want to know more about your business. Your “about us” page should represent your business's and people's values. Take a look at the example of the Webx Ecommerce page.
Be transparent about your Unique Selling Proposition (USP), and don’t stop telling visitors what makes you better than your competitors. Portray your business's values, visions, missions, and team. You can even add a personal touch by telling the story of your business. This can go a long way in helping to build better customer relations.
This is one of the most important pages on your e-commerce website since it tells your visitors and customers how and where to find you. See the Webx Ecommerce example below.
We suggest listing down the email addresses and phone numbers of your customer service representatives here. Put the office address here to make your business seem dependable and more approachable. It would be ideal to also include a contact form for visitors.
Answer the most frequently asked questions about your products, services, shipping policies, sizing, and other issues on one page. This way, prospective customers won’t have to email you to find answers, and they can find a reliable solution to all their queries and concerns regarding your e-commerce store.
See the example for Webx Ecommerce below for reference.
With increasing data theft, people stay sceptical of purchasing online and giving out their data. If you want your customers to feel confident in your ability to protect their data, tell them how exactly you plan to do it.
You can add a link to the privacy policy page at the footer of your website and explain how your website collects, uses, and stores customers’ personal information. See the Webx Ecommerce example below and read the complete privacy policy here.
Also known as the website terms and conditions or terms of service, this page oversees visitors' use of the e-commerce store. You can see the complete terms and conditions here. Take a look at what it is about with a screenshot below.
Shipping Policy
Customers like to be informed clearly about shipping policies. So, this is where you offer information regarding shipping costs, methods of shipping, and delivery times.
Return and Refund Policy
Online retailers have policies regarding items customers want to return, exchange or refund. This page must explain how refunds and exchanges are handled at your retail.
Since the customer cannot hold, feel, try or touch your products, you have to make their experience so raw that they truly understand your offerings. Product pages are what you need to make every visitor feel that he is on the right track in buying the product he has in mind.
The easier you make it for your customer, the more likely they will purchase your items. Add pictures, videos, and descriptions to help them understand your product. Keep your color theme pleasing to the eye, and let the images stand out.
Now it’s time to get familiar with how the admin area of your website works. These are the “nuts and bolts” of your e-commerce store that customers never get to see. See the above picture for an example of a typical dashboard of online stores.
It would be best to get acquainted with everything since admin fronts are vital for managing product listings, setting up, configuring store settings, and operating your store.
Learning how to work with an admin front is essential because the backend for your e-commerce website enables you to edit, delete, add, update or modify your website as and when necessary.
You may have a vague idea by now about what you want to sell online. It’d be best to pick products that are easy to ship and require little handling time.
Drop shipping and POD (print on demand) are the most widely used methods of sourcing products for e-commerce selling. Let's talk about both in detail:
Drop shipping allows you to sell items from an extensive database managed by a third party. You never have to handle those items, worry about packing or shipping them or even keep them in stock.
When a customer places an order on your website, you can send it directly to the third-party retailer or wholesaler. They ship the order directly to the customer.
You never see the product unless you get the sample to take your photographs and post them on your site.
Related Read: 7 key elements to make your online ecommerce store look more upbeat!
This is a reliable yet low-risk way to sell custom products. You find a supplier for white-label products, customize these items and sell them with your designs.
Print-on-demand is an excellent way to make money securely because you only pay for the product until it’s sold. So, there’s no need to buy much inventory and hold it.
Do a little research to find product ideas for popular hot-selling products. But before you go any further, know whether you want to introduce and manufacture your products or you want to opt for drop shipping.
Easy Product Catalog and Collections without Additional Plug-Ins
Once you decide what to sell and how to sell it, it is time to list your products correctly. Here’s what you need to do:
Make it easier for your customer by giving them all the relevant information regarding the product to make decision-making easy. Product detailing includes sizes, colors, shipping, availability, etc. The better the visuals, the more interested the user becomes. You can even create 360-degree videos of the products and demonstrate their use.
Categorization helps you put the relevant products together. User experience is the key to deciding on your categories. But usually, this involves grouping products by related tags and attributes. For example, you could use the same tag to help users differentiate all XL-sized products.
Inventory management is required for every store, regardless of its size and nature. It is essential for you and your customer to know what is available and out of stock. It’s possible to update your inventory through apps, or the platform you pick may do it for you. Either way, an apt solution is necessary to have a complete picture of inventory management on the clock of a button.
Please ensure all your products are displayed on the website in an SEO-friendly way. This practice must be maintained when they appear in search results so that they can get the target audience interested. You’ll need a meta title, meta description, and meta keywords on all product pages.
SEO is a broad field, and you won’t be able to master all aspects in a few days or weeks. But once you master most aspects required in this concern, the results will be in your favor in the long run.
Investing in paid ads like PPC can be very expensive for small businesses and startups. It can get you quick results, but it isn’t feasible for everyone in the long run. That’s where SEO fits the bill, as it is a cost-effective way of reaching on top of the Google search engine results. The results may not be as quick as PPC campaigns. Still, the organic results are to be seen by everyone as they are permanent, unlike PPC, where your ranking goes down as soon as you stop PPC campaigns.
Learning about analytics and reports will help you understand detailed information and valuable insights about your business.
The sales report should detail sales by product, category, brand, monthly sales, weekly sales, daily sales, etc. This offers important insights into which product makes you, how much money, and the average order value over time. You get access to in-depth information about how much revenue you are generating.
Customer Reports
Customer reports help you understand your customers better. You get a deeper insight into average order count, average order totals, and even expected purchases with customer reports.
You also learn about customers over time, returning customers, loyal customers, etc.
After you have gotten all the necessary initial work and laid down the foundation, picked out the niche, and called a domain name, figure out the following:
General Settings for your admin front
Payment Methods
Shipping setup
Tax Setting
Bank Account
Marketing and Promotions
Multi-user accounts for your staff
It's crucial to set up all these essentials before you take the plunge.
Building a website for your e-commerce business can be simple. And now it is easier than ever. With platforms like Webx Ecommerce, running an online store or ecommerce website is not difficult at all. The themes, templates and layouts greatly support customers as they get accustomed to the store and what it offers.
Select the right platform to make the entire process a no-brainer. It can help you select themes, layouts, designs, marketing strategies and more. See the examples of themes, templates and layouts for online stores below. All these three aspects are critical for the success of any store as a product can be displayed perfectly by using these aspects to their best use.
This way, you can run your business without worrying about the backend of your e-commerce site. Webx Ecommerce takes care of all the hard work for you and is the best platform for Pakistani entrepreneurs catering for the local market.
I have tried to provide all the information about online platforms, especially Webx Ecommerce. Still, if you need more information or want to enquire about any aspect mentioned in this blog, you are welcome to ask any question that is bothering you.
Through an e-commerce website, a business can flourish on the internet and be more accessible to its customers. Following are the significant reasons you should opt for a custom e-commerce website:
Build your brand and stand out
Continuous business growth
Increased Revenue
Improved Efficiency
The easiest way to construct an e-commerce website is through a website builder that provides an e-commerce interface, such as Webx Ecommerce. Creating an e-commerce website is not difficult; all you need is information about what you're doing and how you will do it.
To build an e-commerce website, you need the following:
a domain name
a platform
Building a retail website is an easy and efficient approach to business growth. Follow these simple steps:
Choose a niche
Develop a business plan
Pick out a platform that suits your needs
List products
Select payment options
Sort shipping settings
A good platform like Webx Ecommerce helps you set up your e-commerce website in minutes. You can access all the set-up details and edit, add, modify and remove anything on your website according to your needs.
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