How to Build Your Storefront Like a Pro with Ecommerce Platforms?
Pierre Omidyar, Jeff Bezos and Jack Ma; you certainly know these entrepreneurs and probably a little bit of their stories on how they build their respective ecommerce empires. Jack Ma saw a computer for the first time at the age of 33, which later inspired him to establish his first internet company, and soon after that, the Alibaba. Jeff Bezos was a computer science engineer and he chose to leave his Wall Street job to pursue his dream of building Amazon. Pierre Omidyar’s first sale of a broken laser pointer created a sudden sale explosion of stuffs leading him to the founding of eBay.
Those were the days when building an ecommerce store largely depend on computer programming skills. Today, it’s a bit different. One can build an online shop in an instant, even without the technical knowledge in code development. Ecommerce platform is a game changer. It is giving every entrepreneur the big opportunity to sell online.
We’re you inspired by Jack, Jeff and Pierre to sell online? Then build your online store with ecommerce platforms. Some of the best ecommerce platforms are Shopify, Big Commerce and Volusion. Whether you are about to build from scratch or you already have an ecommerce business plan with you, here are my tips that will help you build your storefront like a pro.
Choose the right platform.
An ecommerce platform is a software application that helps you build an online store. An online store cannot be called a store if it lacks all the features needed to search, buy, sell, pay, ship and return an item for sale.
Technically speaking, ecommerce store runs because of the combination of APIs, data models, business logic, server side scripts, and development environment.
On the lighter side, an ecommerce store is simply a website created for online buying and selling transactions. Since it is an ecommerce website, it needs a domain name, web hosting partner, shopping cart solution, payment gateway, marketing tools, product catalog, and apps to keep your online shoppers engaged.
When choosing an ecommerce platform to build you storefront, conduct a detailed comparison of all the features included under these categories.
plan, hosting and website tools
shopping and marketing features
back office and security
help and support
In doing so, you can individually go over the website of each provider or you may choose to check published benchmark reports from reputable review groups.
Build with SEO in mind.
Let’s say that your ecommerce website is now up and running. However, you’re still not making any good sale even though you’ve already did tremendous efforts in broadcasting it to your friends, ex-colleagues, and social media contacts. You might be thinking that high competition, poor pricing strategy or bad website design could be the major reasons. While they could be true in a sense, another more likely cause that you have to check is your SEO strategy. Is it working?
What you should do is to build your ecommerce store with SEO in mind. Here are the stuffs to know and act upon when optimizing your site for the search engines.
Navigation Links
Page Titles
Page URLs
Meta Descriptions
Image ALT Tags
H1 Headings
Canonical URLs
Auto XML Sitemap
Most ecommerce platforms have built-in tools in properly setting these parameters.
Blogging Platform
Social Media Sharing buttons
Internal Site Search
Web Analytics
Mobile-optimized site
Widgets, Apps, Ads
You may choose to work with an SEO specialist to integrate or setup these tools into your site.
Bring in your sales and marketing team.
Designing, developing and maintaining online stores with ecommerce platform requires good business strategy. Companies with budgets usually hire a team of professionals consisting of web developers, internet marketers and sales experts. The SEO stuff is usually assigned to the marketers. The sales group processes matters related to inventories, payments, and orders. Web developers, other than development, are in-charge of upgrade, maintenance and support.
For small businesses or entrepreneurs who are just starting up, hiring a team of professionals can be a big challenge. But the good news is that many ecommerce software companies also offer such services with flexible pricing.
I once used Wix in creating an ecommerce store. It’s an HTML5 website builder and to be honest, I felt like a pro while using its drag and drop editor. You should give it a try too.
