First of all, you have to realize that e-commerce is science on its own, and instant solutions rarely work for growing small or mid-size businesses.
Before you jump into Shopify or Woo-commerce, only armed with a notepad, caffeine, and a 5lb bag of sour patch kids (these are all computer nerd staples), understand that each item you add needs a short name, long name, description, one or more images, quantity, ingredient list (if you sell perishable items), disclosures (shelf lift, warning, etc.), storage suggestions, and all the variations you have for each product (color, size, shape, etc.).
It is a good idea to already have all the necessities prepared in advance This includes:
- Short and long descriptions (You may want to run descriptions by a few friends, just to make sure the general population gets the same vision from your description as you intended. A client cannot taste it, smell it, or touch it so the description needs to convey why they should buy it.)
- Quality images in more than one size. Depending on how and where you place your images and whether or not you are selling items that contain your brand, you may want to create images with your trademark and contact information embedded in the photo. Images are often tagged, pinned, or shared, you want to make sure your contact information is also being shared.
- Care/Storage instructions
- Ingredients/ material details, including the weight of the material, keep in mind that people have allergies and pay attention to this tidbit of information
- Warnings/Disclosures
- Price/Shipping
- Policies- Return, Cookie, Privacy, and Terms
Before you can sell anything you need to solve your logistical problems such as stock availability, courier service, merchant services, and payment processors.
Make sure you test, re-retest, and re-test again your site’s database synchronization regarding prices, stock, coupon processing, and so on.
Consider how you need to incorporate advanced features such as “most viewed”, “most purchased”, “people also saw this and bought that” and every mid-purchase, pre-purchase and post-purchase situation. You can do all that and more with Google Analytics combined with Google Tags.
A typical website will take 14 weeks at a minimum from start to launch. This includes a three-week discovery, a six-week design, three weeks for initial development, and two weeks of modifications. It could take much longer if you don’t have all your content pre-written or images secured (you need two sizes, one for thumbprint and one for standard product image) website designers claim they only need a few weeks to build a small site. These same web designers admit that this requires the client to have everything ready to go from the moment the project begins- content is written, templates selected, merchant services and payment processing in play, all pages planned out, photographs are chosen, all functions pre-identified and planned for.
- Ease of Use from Start to End.
- Wish Lists
- Find-in-Store feature
- Related Items
- Social Integrations, including “Share” features to Instagram, Twitter, Facebook
- Security Features
- Advanced Payment Options
- Shipping Information
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Privacy Policy
- Cookie Policy
- Terms Policy
- Return/Exchange Policy
- Testimonials
- Tracking pixels, and ID codes
- Google Analytics
- Google Tags
- Google Adsense/Adwords-if you plan to utilize them
- Product Datafeeds integrated and tested
- Spam security
- CRM capture and integration (ways for you to build your client database)
- Custom eCommerce Website Development
- Web Design & Redesign
- Theme development
- Shopping Cart development
- Payment Gateway Integration
- Mobile Commerce Development
- Plug-in & Module Development
- Migrations & Upgrades
- Support & Maintenance
- Develop user-friendly, multiple browsers and device compatible websites
- Delivery in accordance with timeline commitments
- Transparency throughout the process
- Dedicated team with strong experience in the E-commerce web development technologies
- Scalable eCommerce solutions to meet your future needs
- Dedicated account manager during the entire project execution
