Considering building your own ecommerce store? That’s a great idea. Ecommerce website development has been gaining a lot of popularity since the past few years.
According to Statista, the number of online shoppers is expected to hit 300 million in the next 3 years in the US alone. With so much competition out there, it can be a little difficult to form a strong presence in the market. Which makes it essential to build an online store that not only sells products but also has a good name in the market.
So, how exactly do you build an ecommerce website from scratch? Let’s have a look.
How to choose the right business models?
Read down below to find out the difference between business models for ecommerce stores.
- Ecommerce Stores:
B2C or business-to-consumer refers to ecommerce transactions between a business and an end customer. B2C commerce is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy as it simplifies the shopping experience for both; retailers and customers. B2C stores are suitable for online retailers that are targeting individual end consumers.
Amazon, Alibaba and Flipkart are some of the big ecommerce stores that are making use of B2C online platforms.
- B2B Ecommerce Stores:
B2B or business to business e commerce refers to ecommerce transactions between two businesses. According to a survey conducted in 2018, 48% business now make 50-74% of the purchases online. Today, B2b ecommerce is a market of $900 billion in the US alone. Whereas, according to Forrester Research Inc., the B2B ecommerce market is anticipated to reach 1 trillion in the next 2 years.
- C2C Ecommerce Stores:
C2C ecommerce or customer to customer ecommerce refers to an online marketplace that allows customers to interact with each other. This platform is becoming increasingly popular among sellers who are trying to maximize their revenue by connecting with customers they wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise through traditional marketing methods.
Ebay and Etsy are two examples of successful C2C ecommerce stores.
3 important factors to consider before you dive into Ecommerce website development
Before you begin with ecommerce website development, it is important that you are aware of the three basic things that you need to pay extra attention to. These will help you get familiar with the process of building an ecommerce website step by step. Let’s look at what these are:
- Business Plan:
The only way to build a successful business is by planning from the beginning. Same goes for Ecommerce stores. Every business differs, and therefore it is important that you have a business strategy in mind before you hop into the world of ecommerce. Some of the things you might want to consider are:
- What is your budget?
- How do you plan to drive traffic to your website?
- How will you promote your store?
- What’s the size of your customer base?
- Which niche will you be targeting?
- How will you cope with your eCommerce brand evolution?
- Market study:
Ecommerce trends keep changing. It’s not necessary that working today works tomorrow as well. Therefore, it is important that you study the market properly before you start developing your store. It’s always smart to make use of different online business tools and tactics to get the accurate picture of your market. Considering these things can help you evaluate market trends the right way.
- Conduct keyword research
- Get familiar with the market trends to get a better idea of the bigger picture
- Make use of social media
- Explore crowdfunding platforms
- Leverage your digital networks
- Competitor analysis:
Performing competitor analysis is perhaps, one of the most important steps to perform before you start your ecommerce store. Competitor analysis will help you get a better idea about what your competitors are doing to do.
It can also help you find your unique selling point if you are not aware of it. Other than this, it can also help you get an idea about the weaknesses of your competitor and think of ways to be better in those aspects.
Let’s look at an easy and simple way to perform competitor analysis:
- Categorize your main competitors
- Examine the website and customer experience of your competitors
- Look into the market positioning strategy of your competitors
- Look into their pricing strategy
Choose the best suitable platform for building your eCommerce store
The platform you choose for your ecommerce store can either make or break your ecommerce business. Let’s look at the top 3 ecommerce platforms you can choose from:
- Shopify
Shopify is one of the most popular platforms for ecommerce stores. The reason this platform is preferred by so many ecommerce retailers is because it is easy to create and customize. Also, it features several different ecommerce website templates and themes that can be customized according to the requirements of your brand. It is a fully hosted platform that offers a number of add-ons and SEO additions.
- Magento
Magento is another popular ecommerce platform, but unlike Shopify, it requires technical skills and expertise to build from scratch. Therefore, it is more suitable for small to medium sized businesses that already have access to the tools, technical experts and time needed to build a website.
- Woo Commerce
Lastly, Woo Commerce is an open-source, fully customizable eCommerce platform for entrepreneurs and start-up businesses. Woo Commerce basically allows you to build an online store using WordPress. The reason this platform is such a great choice is because it is free, and the underlying WordPress software is also free. Also, it is very user-friendly, which means you won’t need to hire technical experts to build your ecommerce store.
Conclusion:
The right ecommerce website development company can help you build an effective ecommerce website from scratch. If you are not an expert in website development, and don’t know how to go about it. Then it’s best that you contact skilled experts to get the job done for you.