Setting up an Online Store
So, you want to set up an online store? An online business is also a form of business, and when it comes to business, it will have cost to go with it. Be sure to think it thoroughly before jumping into the water.
When you have done thinking and are ready, ask yourself and do market survey on what products or services you want to offer to the public that they are willing to pay for. You can even combine products and service together to create a new form of service for your customers.
The next step is for you to get a domain name. This is a very important step in your online setup. A nice and catchy name like “Amazon” will ring better with your customers than something that is difficult and long to remember. Do research on it. After you have done that, register it.
Of course, with the domain name and type of service ready for sale, you still need a storefront to sell it from. You need to get a hosting account with a hosting company to do so. Some hosting companies such as HostDepartment.com offers ecommerce packages that ease your way into building your storefront. Alternatively, you can also code it yourself (if you are a good programmer, of course), or hire someone else to create it for you.
No matter the methods of creation, you have to make sure it represents the idea and services you are offering. Some of the factors to consider include:
- How many products do you wish to display? Too few can leave you with a bare-looking website, while too many can look busy and overwhelming to visitors.
- What type of products are you selling? That’s going to affect how many you display, as well as how you display them. You wouldn’t want to display basic furniture in the same way you display highly detailed jewellery, for example.
- Do you have digital pictures of the products? If not, can you obtain them? And are they of a quality that shows off the products to their best advantage? (You should also consider how quickly these pictures will load; you might have to settle for some kind of compromise between highly detailed pictures and faster loading).
- Include item descriptions, prices of items, and discounts (if applicable). Your customers will definitely want to know this information! In order to keep this data up to date on your site with a minimum of hassles, you might need a database or content management system from which the site can pull information.
- You might already have this set up if you’re taking a bricks-and-mortar business online, but you need to keep in mind all of the information that your database requires so that you can keep track of your products and sales. This might include the item number, product ID, a description of the product, and its price. You might also need to know its weight, at the very least so you can calculate shipping costs.
Your website should be easy to navigate and you need to be clear on what to tell the customers and what they can expect from the services you offered. This is the trust factor. Especially when online store do not deal directly with customers, they will have major doubts if your site looks shabby enough.
Your customers will have to pay for the services they purchase. You have to give them an easy payment method that is secure. Using SSL is the norm nowadays. Find out if your hosting company offers it as part of the package or as an add-on. You will also need a merchant account to allow instant payments by the customers.
Make sure the uptime guarantee of your hosting company is reliable too. You are running a store online, and if it goes down, your store is close for that period of time. Your loss of revenue has to be compensated one way of the other.
The other thing you need maybe a CGI-BIN directory. This directory is needed to store all your interactive shopping cart applications such as payment process and shopping cart management system.
Keep track of all your customers’ data too. This is useful when you are paying taxes and for improving customer relationships. A shop that remembers their customers will get more sales than the one that doesn’t.
Make sure to have a good customer support from your hosting company in case something happens to your website. You will know where to go then. Hosting forums usually have lots of information on those and it is especially easy to spot a bad hoster.
These are some of the basics that you may want to consider first. Of course there is the cost and operational such as shipping, warehousing your products, etc. You may want to really research first before committing to your online store.
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