Step-by-step guide to build your ecommerce website from scratch

Are you wondering whether it’s the right time to bring your business online? According to statistics, the growth of online business in recent years is significantly faster and higher as compared to traditional businesses. The success of an ecommerce business has been so impacting that even established brands have started online selling as a complementary effort.

However, first things always come first, and in case of an online store, it is mandatory to create an ecommerce website at the outset. So, what does it take to build an ecommerce website and what are the things to be considered in the process? Follow this step-by-step guide to build your online store from scratch to a full-fledged website.

8-step guide to build an ecommerce website from scratch

1. Identify your product niche

The first step is to decide on the niche product or service that you would like to sell through your website. To find and flush out an idea for this, it is essential to identify activities at the intersection of what you enjoy and what you are good at. Also, it is equally important to determine how your product or service will fit into your target's lifestyle by performing industry research and analyzing the needs of an ideal customer.

There are certain online stores dedicated to selling a specific line of products or services such as apparels, trip planner, fashion items, etc. At the same time, you must have noticed the existence of bigger ecommerce sites selling varied items under the same roof. Therefore, choosing the right product niche will impact every other business decision you make and it is the foremost step in starting your ecommerce website.

2. Buy your domain name

Once you have decided on your range of products or service, the next step would be to choose a business name and buy a domain for it. It’s a smart step to think about the business name and domain name simultaneously so that they’re strongly related. As such, the choice of these names is one of the most crucial stages of the entire online store setup process.

Generally, options are multiple for choosing the name. So, don’t hasten to make the right choice. A business name should be easy to remember for your target audience and relevant to the services or products offered by you. Likewise, it's a domain name that makes it easier for online buyers to recognize you. Thus, make sure your domain name is memorizable and represents your online store to the advantage.

3. Choose the right platform

Many business owners find it difficult to choose the right ecommerce platform. They often tend to go with the low initial cost platform and ignore the hidden cost behind it to start their business. But once their business begins to grow, they confront the problem of coping with the generated demand.

For this purpose, it is necessary to brainstorm what your store will need as you grow so as to scale your business. Considering this fact, ecommerce website builders like Purchase Commerce offers a platform that is lightweight, robust, scalable and customizable as per your needs. What's more? Purchase Commerce has packed all premium features in its custom ecommerce platform with a one-time payment option and lifetime subscription model. Thus, you can entirely own your site and build your unique brand identity.

4. Choose your customizable theme

Having signed up for a particular online store builder, you will be offered to select a template that suits your business vertical. Most of these templates are divided into thematic categories to simplify the template choice, which helps save your time and effort. The templates may be available for both free and paid options, hence it’s up to you to decide on the most suitable one.

However, the right choice of a template is only half of the task. The most responsible part is design customization. Online store builders generally offer a rich set of add-on features upon request, which can make your site both functional and appealing as per your wish.

You must make your ecommerce site attractive as that is your representation to buyers online. Purchase Commerce can wow your customers with premium design elements available in its Angular Material ecommerce themes. Employed the latest technology and design practices, the themes are optimized to increase sales and provide visitors with consistently memorable and exceptional user experience.

5. Add your products

Your ecommerce website is your online store, and it needs to be designed keeping in mind the convenience of buyers. As in a store, your website should include details about the products or services offered by you. Further, their images, descriptions, prices, users’ comments, ratings should all be mentioned in your site for guiding prospective buyers. You must ensure that your web page showcases everything perfectly so that buyers are never misled.

Most of the online store builders provide only limited addition of products in their platform and they ask you to choose higher plans for adding more products and manage them effectively. However, Purchase Commerce has effective product management with advanced features like unlimited product addition within the affordable pricing plan. It helps you to make your website feel intuitive, allowing effortless creation of product cards with detailed description and product photos.

6. Integrating payment & shipment gateways

Having finished creating product cards, you’ll need to set up the payment, shipment and communication methods for your store. The choice of these methods depends upon the platform requirements as well as upon your own preferences based on user convenience. You can include several payment options for your customers to choose from, but do not forget to add their terms.

Buyers would always prefer to buy items if they are comfortable with the payment gateways. Also, for efficient shipment, they prefer a local supplier who would always ensure faster deliveries, easier payment terms, and earlier replacements in case of wrong or defective shipments. With Purchase Commerce, any third-party APIs can be integrated quickly as per your wish. Its apt solution helps you to master your ecommerce order management process from start to finish and centralize store orders for better shipment.

7. Promote your store

If you are a new business and want to establish your market presence, chances are that you would want to spend more money on driving traffic to your website rather than spend money on hosting it. For this, you might have to leverage the 7 most impactful marketing channels that can attract ideal customers to your online store no matter what is your business vertical.

Purchase Commerce offers SEO-friendly ecommerce site that increases your store's traffic and gets more sales for your business. Also, with its go-to-market tools, you can target any demographics and acquire ideal customers from potential markets.

8. Boost your sales

Once you are done with the above steps, it’s time to adopt strategies to increase your sales revenue. There are already many tried and tested sales techniques that help you grow and acquire new customers. However, driving new sales is not the only ideal way of increasing profit. The most efficient strategy is to increase your average transaction value because new customers usually come with more work and costs. For this, large businesses usually combine some form of cross-selling and up-selling along with down-selling techniques to increase revenue.

A Powerful Ecommerce Platform

Purchase Commerce’s ecommerce platform offers inbuilt promotional tools like sales booster, advertising and coupon & discounts for improving ecommerce sales. Its comprehensive statistics using in-depth analytics tools gives an overview of revenue generation and conversion for better ROI.