a beginners guide to e commerce

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A Beginners guide to E-commerce


The buyer’s decision making process has changed dramatically in recent times. They are relying more on online resources and going for extensive online research before opting for any purchase. Ecommerce sales have been increasing consistently year by year.


A Beginners guide to E-commerce

According to Forrester, B2B ecommerce sales for US to top $1 trillion by 2020, this highlights the growing opportunities for retailers and wholesalers in the ecommerce industry.

“If your business is not on the Internet, then your business will be out of business” – Bill Gates

It is now important for all businesses to have an online presence & have a digital storefront to provide their services & products to the customers spread all across the globe. In order to get started you need a set of tools to help you set up, develop and grow your e-commerce business. Here is a quick guide for everyone who wants to get down into a business via ecommerce.

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Start with a Plan

Before starting any task planning is very important. You must start by researching and brainstorming every idea - what is that you want to do? Do some market research & spend some time thinking about audience you want to target, and then you need to make goals & form a business plan for your online business.


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Domain Name

After deciding and creating a plan, the next important step is selecting the correct domain name. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular web pages. So what you have to do is to look out for domain names that best describes your business and are easy to remember. For example, if you want to open an online store for scented candles then you can look for domain name as scentedcandlesonline.com. With such relevant domain names it becomes easier for viewers to find out what they are looking for.

There are many domain name registrar companies like Godaddy, Bigrock, Hostgator that can make registering or booking domain names fast, simple and affordable.


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Design a Website

The next logical step is to get your website designed. Getting a custom ecommerce website developed is the best option as custom ecommerce website comes loaded with great features and custom design ensures attractive look and feel of the website, which is very important for an ecommerce website. But, getting a custom website built can be expensive.

Hiring a freelance web developer or offshore web development company can solve your purpose. Going for an offshore web/ecommerce development company has many advantages – lower cost, professional approach/service, pooled technical expertise and experience, after sales support and more.


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Certain key points to keep in mind while looking for right Web Development Company:

Price: Look out for few companies, send them your requirements and ask for quotes. By doing this you will get a reasonable idea how the pricing works. Price shouldn’t be your first criteria to decide on a web design company, look at the overall package.

Portfolio: Check out the portfolios and see what the firm has already done for their previous clients.

Updated with Latest Trends: With a look at their portfolio and the company’s website you would be able to judge if they are in synchronization with the latest trends and techniques.


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Clientele List – Check the companies’ clientele list.

Be connected with your web design/development company at every step and keep tracking their work in order to achieve the desired result.

Another option is to purchase ecommerce website solutions/packages offered by platforms like Magento, Shopify, Bigcommerce and more. It is to be noted that these platforms sell ready-made packages which cannot be customized beyond a point but there are integration services offered by development companies wherein you can leverage the benefit of both the custom website and features offered by these platforms as well, for example –Magento Integration or PSD to Magento Service.

Here are a few examples of these platforms with descriptions.


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Shopify

Shopify is a template based platform with many features that are easy to use for e-commerce novices. Beautiful template designs, SEO facilities with a wide range of measurement and reporting tools, Google Checkout, 70+ international gateway payment supported and app store are some of its distinguished features you can look for.


Shopify


Bigcommerce


Bigcommerce

A hosted, template based platform that is easy to use and is simple. It offers some great marketing features like daily deals and rules based promotions and creating coupons for individual discounts.


Magento

An open source self hosted ecommerce solution that offers customizable online store from the start. It supports high level reporting functionality and can be seamlessly integrated with other systems.


Shopping Cart

Your ecommerce website would be incomplete without a shopping cart. A shopping cart enables the users to drop their selected products in a basket, keep a track of what they have taken and the amount they have to pay.

Shopify, as an example, have an inbuilt shopping cart function where users one can easily add products to their cart.

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Payment Gateway

The choice of right payment service providers is very important. While selecting payment service provider check its compatibility with your ecommerce platforms that it supports various payment mechanisms and it’s easy to use.

”Payment systems are critically important for overall market stability. On a typical business day, U.S. payments and settlements systems settle transactions valued at over $13 trillion”- Henry Paulson

Paypal and stripe are two latest examples of payment service providers for ecommerce websites.


Paypal

Paypal, a global payment service provider that lets online merchants accept payments in over 100 currencies and is available in 203 markets all over the world. The service is easy to setup, convenient to manage and widely accepted.


Stripe

It allows payments in over 135 currencies. It offers a solid and well considered framework to adjust the system for their personal needs and highest standards for fraud protection and security management.


Online Marketing & SEO

After the completion of website development and launch you need to create and expand the presence of your E-commerce store online. A look into the methods for creating visibility online:

Follow the latest trends in online marketing strategies & make the most use of Social Media Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Instagram. Manage multiple social accounts, schedule posts and come up with exciting offers and discount to engage more traffic on your website.

Hootsuite is one of the best apps for managing social media activities, it combines all of your social media account and streams into one user-friendly dashboard. It lets you perform a wide range of social activities all in one place: retweet, “like”, share, respond to private messages, etc.

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With effective Search Engine Optimization work, get the rankings of your website’s pages improved in the Search Engine Listings. Find out key phrases most suited to your products by doing research of your market & competitors and get higher listing in the SERPs.

Online Advertising – if you can afford or have a monthly budget for advertising, there are plenty of advertising options – Google Search and Display Network, Video Advertising, Facebook Advertising, LinkedIn advertising, Twitter advertising and more.

If your knowledge of online marketing is limited, you may hire a freelance marketer or an offshore digital agency for assistance or service. They can help your business grow without being heavy on your pocket.

http://www.technousa.com/services/seo-sem-internet-marketing-branding-company


Shipping

With an Ecommerce store you need to get a solution for shipping your products to the customers. Since customers expect timely delivery of their goods with near real time tracking, put special attention while choosing shipping vendors. Second important aspect under shipping is the “Free Shipping” norm which is becoming an attractive prospect & has shown a lot of potential in increasing shopping experience by customers. You can also offer free shipping on a minimum order amount initially to establish a customer base.

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FedEx and USPS.com are two examples of shipping service providers that offer real time tracking for its customers.

Creating your own ecommerce business is not that difficult. It’s all about choosing the right products, evaluating viability, planned sourcing and growing sales. Your hard work, dedication and expertise can help you in putting all puzzle pieces together to get desired outcome. It may seem quite confusing at first but by following these resources, you can get a clear roadmap that can help you built a profitable one.


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