Starting an eCommerce business is a tough job with everything needed to be done at the right time. For new online retailers, it may be hard to understand the steps for starting an eCommerce business. To help, we’ve put together a comprehensive resource list of eCommerce development steps. These steps have been placed into a logical order based on how you would research, build, and grow as a profitable eCommerce business. 

 

The Business Plan

Everything, whether it’s about buying a cake for a birthday party, has to be planned properly. If you can identify a niche, the USP of your business, you can successfully place your online business on the top of other leaders in the market. Not only a good formal business plan a good practice, but a printed version of it may be helpful when talking to the investors or the banks further down the line.

Register Domain Name

I bet you must have a business name in mind already. But is the domain of the same business name available? It is advisable to ensure that you can obtain the domain name of your choice that will represent your business on the virtual world. Search Google for domain name registration to find the desired and unique domain name.

The domain name should be taken smartly, keeping in mind your target audience. For example, if you are in Italy and want to target buyers from Australia, then you should register the .com.au. It not only helps you localize your brand, but also keeps you on the top of search engines when local people searching for businesses like yours.

Build Your Website

It is potentially the greatest obstacle any business owner would face throughout the eCommerce development process, but the solution is surprisingly simple. Simply look for the best suitable and secure Content Management System (CMS), Magento may be considered, and then hire a professional development company to create and manage content on the front-end website.

During the development process, make sure to shortlist the number of features you would want to integrate in the website to offer a more flexible and comfortable shopping experience to the buyers. To avoid the additional charges of customization, use Magento extensions. These extensions are developed by the certified developers to integrate desired features on the site. Also, they help you need the website navigation comfortable and shopping experience better for the buyers.

Secure Online Payment

Another biggest hurdle anyone would face during the eCommerce development process is providing a secure payment gateway to the shoppers. Keep in mind the country you are going to target and identify the most trusted payment gateways in the particular region so people don’t feel insecure while making payments online. This problem can also be solved payment gateway integration extensions as they help integrate any online payment gateway in the website for secure payment process.

Once you have decided on which payment processor would best suit your needs, integrating it with Magento modules is as simple as selection from the menu.

Premium Web Hosting

Multiple times we’ve described how important it is to use premium or dedicated web hosting. Using shared hosting may be lucrative and better choice for the service providing websites having lower budget, but when you’re going to process payments online, this simply can’t be an option. Using dedicated hosting is the right choice to make sure secure payment processing and to offer better shopping experience to the online shoppers.

Also, dedicated hosting helps your website stay secure from cyber attacks as you always have the support of the technical experts who are ready to deliver real-time support.

Marketing, Marketing, Marketing

Well now that you’re done with everything like domain registration, web development, features and payment gateway integration and web hosting, you may find it a complete win. But, the journey has now just begun as the competition is quite rigorous online, regardless of what you’re planning to sell. Considering a well-thought marketing plan is what you need for successful online shopping business. A perfect combination of paid ads, Magento SEO, Social Media Marketing, Email marketing, etc. can be the right choice.

In order to maximize the returns, make sure to install MagChat by SoftProdigy as it lets you to communicate with the website visitors in a real-time. Your visitors feel more connected and comfortable when you are available to the help right at the time they’re planning to purchase.

Determination and hard work will do the rest!