How to Build E-commerce Website in 2022

No one can deny the importance of having a professionally built e-Commerce website in 2022. It is not easy to build e-commerce website unless you are familiar with the latest updates and trends. The internet has a great influence on our lives, and life without the internet is difficult to even imagine. The Internet has provided us with everything from watching movies to socializing and from research to shopping. We are largely dependent on the internet, especially when it comes to buying different stuff online.

When it comes to promoting your business through e-commerce, you must have a website. According to Statista, there are 2.14 billion online buyers in the world. It is clear identification of why eCommerce websites are increasing with the passage of time. There are numerous benefits of an e-commerce website or internet shopping, such as:

1. Online shopping offers you the convenience of shopping at anything anytime. You can shop 24/7 and while sitting on your couch or bed.
2. Products sold online usually have better pricing because you are receiving the products directly from the manufacturers, and no middleman is involved. Additionally, you can find more discounts in the form of vouchers, promos, points, and discounts.
3. While sending gifts to your loved one, you don’t have to go to the market. Just order your product online, and packaging and delivery will be done by the online sellers.
4. When purchasing online, you can compare products easily compared to offline shopping.
5. In online shopping, there is always more variety of product which is not found in the physical store.
6. Last but not least, you can save fuel and parking fees. You don’t have to get stuck in a traffic jam. Just order online and receive the product conveniently.

According to reports, global e-commerce sales are expected to reach $5.4 trillion in 2022, which puts emphasis on entering this field right now. So far, you have learned the introduction about online shopping and why creating an online store is good for the business. Let’s take a look at the types of online stores. It is important to know because you might just create a store without creating a professional store.

1- Online Retailers

Online retailers like Amazon are the websites that sell their products directly to clients. They allow you to use their existing stores, but you have to pay some commission, so you can create a store without creating a professional website. It is a good option when you have no resources for your own store and website.

2- Individual Brand E-Commerce Stores

As the name suggests, an individual brand e-commerce store is good if you want to have full control of all the functions, looks, and feel of your shop to improve your customer experience. Individual online retailers are also increasing in number because they can allow you to create your brand identity and full control of the data collected and other features according to your requirements.

3- Marketplace

Etsy, eBay, and Amazon are common examples of a marketplace. You can sell products here without maintaining an account. Although it is a great opportunity, you don’t have a direct relationship with the customers and no access to their data as well.

Steps to Build E-commerce Website in 2022

While looking at the above types, we can say that a personal website is an ideal solution to meet the required goals. This is how you have direct contact with the customers and reach more new customers. It allows you to make possible changes to the website and offer a unique customer experience. When you are on other websites like Amazon or eBay, the customer can hardly know or remember your brand. An individual website or online store assists with creating a strong brand for business.

If you want to create an e-commerce website in 2022, you have come to the right place. Here is how you can create a perfect e-commerce website in 2022. After reading this article, you will know how to build an e-commerce website from scratch and how to run a successful e-commerce business.

1- Find the Best Product

Must know your product in advance before you’re going to sell it online. An ideal product can increase your revenue, and a bad product can ruin your savings and investments. Therefore, keep in mind these proven tips in this regard.

• Every marketing has its distinctive features. Therefore, you must have a clear idea of the target market. Some products may be suitable for your market and may not be a wise option for other markets.
• Move with the trends and technology and always provide the customers with quality products to increase the user experience and referrals.
• Niche is something you are good at. First, find your niche, then the target audience. You must consider all the factors (age, gender, location, and interest) of the target audience. You’ll be able to build a store of the same niche products.
• Your competitors are always trying to conquer the market. Always keep an eye on their product and go some extra miles to raise the quality, lower or raise your prices, and offer something extra to the buyer.

Always consider the profit margins when you buy the product at wholesale rate and sell it at high rates. Set a reasonable price because the price factor plays a critical role in selling a product. Check the competitor’s pricing and offer a reasonable price.

2- Get Your Domain

A domain is the first step when starting your professional website for e-commerce. It will be your URL or web address that appears on the top. You have to be very careful while choosing the right domain name for your business. It must reflect the nature of your business or product that you are going to sell online. It is recommended to add your main keyword in the domain for better SEO purposes and help clients know what you sell.

Aside from selecting the right domain, you have to choose the extension carefully as well. For example .store and .shop extension are ideal extensions. Make sure your domain is easily pronounced and avoid hyphens and double letters while choosing the domain name. It must not be copied from your competitors but has uniqueness.  Make a list of different domain names and keep checking on the website, and purchase if it is not taken already.

3- Hosting Plan

Hosting is where your website stays on the internet with all its files and content. A good hosting plan is important for the smooth running of a website and provides good security to prevent any attack. On the other hand, choosing poor hosting for an e-commerce store will result in slow page loading, poor customer experience, and opportunities.

When choosing the hosting plan, always go for the plan with enough storage because you have to add pictures, videos, text, and more stuff. Moreover, choose a hosting plan with unlimited bandwidth and no compromise on speed and security. The installation should be easy and must have phone, text, in-site, and email support.

WooCommerce hosting is suitable when you want to host a WordPress e-commerce website. Mostly, people prefer a shared plan due to its effectiveness and affordability. Similarly, cloud hosting is for large businesses with high traffic.

4- Choosing an Ecommerce Platform

When you have selected the domain and hosting of your e-commerce website, now it’s time to choose the platform where your website will live. Some platforms have limited operations and features, while others offer unlimited options. These platforms offer a great user experience, improved sales, and better results. Every platform has distinctive features; therefore, take time to decide which e-commerce platform is better for your website. Here are some of those platforms with notable features.

• Shopify

Shopify is a great platform for both new and old sellers. It provides a user-friendly interface, compelling themes, and web hosting. You can also host your website here. This SaaS solution is famous for its easy-to-use features and quick setup. It offers a large number of tools and plugins for enhancing the user experience as well as 24/7 customer support.

There is no complex and technical expertise required, and it is fully optimized for mobile devices. Shopify is a reliable, fast, secure, and always online platform that keeps the information of your customers and credit cards secure. Shopify theme store has 160 plus responsive and modern themes according to the nature of the product. Due to its peculiar features, most users tend to build an e-commerce website with Shopify.

• Magento

Magento is another e-commerce platform with numerous functions and a great user experience. This open-source program is rich in features and scalability. Some of the main features of Magneto are catalog management, site management, mobile commerce, order management, reporting and analytics, marketing tools, and customer accounts.

• Big Commerce

Big Commerce is an American company. It is affordable; however, some costs will be there in the form of security, design, application support, and system administration. Big-commerce has stunning designs to attract more customers through sales. Big-commerce is a PCI-compliant platform that offers multi-layer security to keep everything safe and intact.

There are some other e-commerce platforms, such as Shift4Shop and WooCommerce. Similarly, you must know some website builders that provide you with an e-commerce website. Those builders include Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace. All of these platforms have hundreds of attractive designs and e-commerce website templates that add beauty to your e-commerce website. When it comes to free e-commerce website platforms, you can build an e-commerce website on Square Free Online Store, Ecwid, and Freewebstore. Keep in mind that when you’re creating a website on WordPress, you have to install some useful plugins to avail all the amazing benefits and features.

5- Website Planning and Development

This is the most critical stage when you have to hire a web developer or make use of your knowledge of web development to create a professional website in a short period of time. If you want to hire a web developer, you must ask about his/her experience and check their portfolio as well. A developer with a graphic design and SEO background will be a great choice.

When it comes to web development, here are some of the major considerations.

• Graphic Design

Graphic designing and logo design are the major components if you want to build an e-commerce website that puts a strong impression on the users. You can either hire a professional graphic designer or create your store’s logo online with Canva. Here you have to provide the best e-commerce website design to your audience.

Bring your creativity to capture awesome photos of your products. Your high-definition camera and a nice background. You can add authentic and inspiring videos of the product to show its use and importance along with other features.

Now comes the product description, where you have to describe the product and add your target keywords as well. Avoid fluff words and add valuable information only. Moreover, FAQs help understands the product and your return, refund, and other policies. Therefore, do add professionally written FAQs.

Some other things to add are product sizes, variations, pricing, and the weight of the product. Don’t forget to add your keywords and some LSI keywords as well for ranking purposes.

• Setting Up Web Pages

Home Page: Your home page is the first thing that customers see; therefore, it shouldn’t be an ordinary page with substandard graphics and content writing. Your home page should be very responsive, fast loading, appealing, and equipped with attractive graphics related to your product category. The home page is undoubtedly the number one thing to note if you want to build an e-commerce website.

About Us: This page contains your mission and brand’s story. Tell a story to grab the attention of the audience. Use the voice of the company and make sure you hire a professional copywriter for this page to avoid spelling mistakes and thumb-stopping writing.

Contact Us: To describe your business availability and reliability, you have a contact us page. On this page, try to add every possible way to reach you. You can add a physical address, business email, and active phone number. Additionally, you can add social media links on icons as a hyperlink and insert a map as well.

Must add some other important pages such as policy privacy, return and refund, and FAQs page. Don’t forget to add your Call to Action (CTA) 2-3 times on the home page. CTA helps customers to take action and buy your product or services.

The theme you choose for the website should be mobile responsive. This is because of the reason that 46% of the total internet purchases are made with mobile phones. Similarly, the website should work great on other devices as well.

6- Set Up Your Payment Gateways

When you have completed all options and steps, now it’s time to set up your payment options. The customers will use these payment options to make their purchases online. You can lose potential buyers if you miss some payment options. Adding more payment gateways increases sales and conversion rates. PayPal, Master Card, Payoneer, Wise, online bank transfer, credit card, and debit card are some of the most recommended payment options to add to your e-commerce website.

Try to make your payment options straightforward because the customers will avoid making purchases when the payment process is complicated and untrustworthy. Always keep the personal information secure when someone makes a purchase.

The payment option varies from site to site. For example, Shopify and Big Commerce have built-in payment processing, taxes calculation, and marketing tools. In short, there are three types of payment gateways.

Redirect Payment: PayPal is the best example of a redirect payment option in which the site takes the customer to another website for payment processing.

On-site Payment: As the name suggests, the payment is processed on the website. It gives you complete control of the payment control and accountability. There are e-commerce website examples that make use of this payment option.

Checkout Onsite, Payment Off-site: Stripe is the best example of this kind of payment processing. The collection of personal information and payment information takes place on-site, but the payment is processed on the third-party website.

7- Shipping and Implementing tracking

Order fulfillment can be tricky and cause massive problems if you don’t add proper shipping software. The software does several types of work, such as notifying the customers when the order is shipped, printing labels, and choosing carrier and shipping method as well. Some platforms require a third-party solution, while some platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce have built-in options for shipping.

Google Analytics is a great tool to check traffic, location, and many other things as well. Google Analytics gives you a complete insight into improving e-commerce websites and making necessary changes. You should also link to Google Webmaster Tool to check the indexed pages in Google and how they are behaving in the search engine.

8- Launch and Test Ecommerce Site

When you have everything in place, now it’s time to test the website. Try to process a few orders, check the performance, and observe if there is any issue from order placement to shipping. Some of the platforms allow you to create pre-orders just to check the website without adding any credit card information. When you have taken care of all the above-mentioned processes, now it’s time to publish or launch the website. This is the last operation to build an e-commerce website for your brand or business.

Conclusion

This guide tells you how to create an e-commerce website. You can build an e-commerce website following the above-mentioned steps and using the required tools. An e-commerce site is more than just selling the products; in reality, it attracts more customers and helps build your brand. In order to build an e-commerce website, just get and domain, know your product, choose a platform, build the website, add a payment method and launch in the end.