Coming up with a business idea and launching
it is difficult. Luckily, learning how to build an eCommerce website to sell
your products or services online is easy.
Modern eCommerce platforms are economical and
extremely user-friendly, allowing you to create a custom website for your
eCommerce business with just a few clicks. Most eCommerce platforms also offer
key elements like secure payments, shipping, and marketing on a plug-and-play
basis, so you likely won’t need any coding experience to set up a professional-looking
eCommerce website.
Interested in learning more? Here is the guide
to building an eCommerce website that will walk you through everything you need
to know to build your eCommerce website so you can start selling online.
How to build an eCommerce website in 5 steps
Step 1: Choose a name and get your domain
If you’re new to building an eCommerce
website, your domain—also called a URL—is your web address. This is your
eCommerce website’s “home” on the internet, and what shoppers enter into the browser
bar to visit your website.
Choosing a good domain name is important to
both your branding and overall success. If possible, select a business and
domain name that’s closely connected to what you sell. By using descriptive
keywords or key phrases into your business and domain name, your customers know
what you sell up-front, plus it helps you rank well in search engines, which is
crucial to your business’s SEO strategy.
Step 2: Pick your eCommerce platform
Your eCommerce platform is where your site “lives”
online, and you have many options to choose from. There are free eCommerce
platforms with limited features and nearly free eCommerce stores built on
WordPress. You can add eCommerce features to popular website builders, or go
with a dedicated eCommerce platform that can support unlimited growth.
Here are some top eCommerce platform options
to consider when deciding where you’ll build your eCommerce website:
Dedicated eCommerce platforms
Dedicated eCommerce platforms are the easiest
way to quickly launch a full-featured eCommerce website. These solutions are
very robust and expandable and deliver powerful built-in functionality like
secure payments, shipping labels, email marketing, and multichannel sales
support. These solutions aren’t free but deliver a ton of tools starting at
around $30 per month.
Three top dedicated eCommerce platforms to
consider include:
BigCommerce: BigCommerce is geared to
multichannel sellers and perhaps the most expandable small business eCommerce
platform. Plans start at $29.95 per month.
Shopify: Shopify is the most popular dedicated
eCommerce platform and is ideal for startups and drop-shippers. Shopify plans
start at $29 per month.
3dcart: 3dcart is another top contender in the
dedicated eCommerce platform field and offers a budget startup plan for just
$19 per month.
Step 3: Plan and build your eCommerce website
After settling on an eCommerce platform, it’s
time to start creating your eCommerce website. For this, you’ll need to gather
the following elements and information:
·
Logo and brand imagery
·
Product photos, descriptions, and data
·
Your story
·
Customer service pages
·
Blog content
·
User-friendly navigation
Step 4: Set up payment, tax, shipping, and
marketing tools
How you handle these tasks when building your
eCommerce website will depend on your eCommerce platform. All-in-one solutions
like BigCommerce and Shopify come complete with built-in payment processing,
tax calculations, shipping label printing, and marketing tools. Most others
require integrating a few outside services to handle these tasks.
·
Payment processing and tax table setup
·
Shipping setup
·
Email marketing and social media setup
Step 5: Test and launch your eCommerce website
The last step in building your eCommerce
website begins with processing a few test orders. Each eCommerce platform
handles testing differently; however, all let you run a few pre-launch test
orders through the system. These orders connect with your payment processor but
don’t charge your card. Once you’ve sent a few test orders through successfully—or
have worked out any bugs you noticed while navigating around your eCommerce
website—you’re ready to open for business.
Of course, launching your eCommerce website
doesn’t equal instant sales. It takes time for search engines to find and index
your new online store. You can speed this along by verifying your new eCommerce
store in Google’s Search Console and uploading an XML sitemap, which eCommerce
platforms provide for this purpose.
It truly is easier than ever to build an
eCommerce website. A decade ago, setting up an online store required some
technical skills and several integrations to make everything work. But today’s
modern platforms make the process quick and seamless.
If you have just a few product pages to build,
you can be up and running in a day or less.