10 Effective Steps to Strategically Plan Your eCommerce Startup

What popped up in your mind when you first thought of an eCommerce website development for your business?

A website design?

Or a planned advertisement and campaigns?

Or is it a well-strategized portal with a unique trading proposal?

The process covers all of it. From planning to incorporating every minute detail in your website, correlating to your product/niche is required for an improvised user experience.

A business directly or indirectly depends on user experience, be it starting an online store or offline. Similarly, when planning the e-Commerce setup, make sure you incorporate the below steps for a pragmatic outcome.

As a front-end developer, I would genuinely suggest you to imply the below steps contemplatively to grow your business effectively. But before I proceed with elaborating the steps, the most significant and fundamental step is to hire a skilled team of developers or eCommerce website development company. They are the core of the entire development process, and one should not negotiate with that.

Let’s proceed with these ten practical steps to map your e-Commerce set up strategically.

1. Pre-plan your Pursuit or Product thoroughly before you proceed

If you already have an established business with an entrenched customer base, this is not for you. However, if you start fresh and are confused about the niche or selling a product, make sure your settlement regarding a specific product is uncloudy.

Retain to choose a product that will be more manageable for you to work on and be quite informative about. For example, if your existing business encompasses various products, make sure to narrow them down before injecting the product details into the website.

The lesser the product range, the more focused its approach is.

2. Choose an e-Commerce platform mindfully

Choosing an e-commerce platform that you desire to host your business website on is as challenging and tumultuous as choosing a niche. As I continue to discuss website hosting platforms, each has its qualities and faults. I won’t specifically name any of it, but the factors you ought to consider when choosing one are budget, customization options, and hold everything that fits your website’s requirements.

3. Great branding draws the customers

Branding is a way to structurize the product with a budget-friendly approach. It is one of the pillars of setting up an e-Commerce website. The more advanced your branding strategy will be, the more you will save time and money. Here are a few elements underlying the branding phase that will give your product identity.

• Interactive Brand title

Make sure that the chosen name of your website or a product matches your chosen niche. Try to keep the name simple; both spelling and pronunciation wise.

• Engaging logo design

A logo is what defines your brand. So, make sure it’s simple to understand yet visually engaging. Choose the fonts and design that will be easy to interpret.

• Product packaging layout

The other one comes, the packaging pattern of your product. Starting from the design, and informative details to the packaging color, choose everything wisely and accordingly. Make sure all of it goes well with the product.

• Product pages including the product description and more

Congregate all the details that you want to include in the packaging of your product. The ingredients, guidelines, and everything you want to write; make sure it goes aligned with the product and your client base.

4. Get your company registered

After getting done with the product, and website planning, substantiate your registration process. Gather all the documents required for the domicile. However, every country has its norms for business registration; yet the basic ones involve:

• Declare your business name, register it, and see if you need its copyright.
• All the taxation policies and paperwork
• Bank accounts

As per my suggestion, get your business registered as soon as you name it and settled everything else. It might take a few business days, but before that, validate everything from your area or city’s trade office, and you’ll get the official papers at the designated time.

5. Website designing is the key

As a front-end developer and growing among designers, the most crucial demand is for an attractive homepage. A page where, when a customer clicks, stays. A homepage of your websites decides whether the customer will stay or leave. Make sure it looks aligned, informative, and intriguing. Ensure it imprints the product logo, name, description and holds the colors that are aligned beautifully. Insert all the below elements in your website to offer a great eCommerce shopping experience to your customers.

• Choose the Theme

Pick a theme for your website that suits your product and product name. Insert your own clicked pictures or buy from the sites with their copyright. Harmonize the theme with your product and website to make the users stay.

• Representation and number of tabs

Choose the number of tabs you want to include and your product demands. For example, if you’re going to sell your product directly, you add the “Add to cart”and “Confirm order”tab to make it easier for your customer to navigate.

If you want to add informative columns such as blogs/articles, add the “Blogs”tab to the website.

• Navigating tabs to ease the access

If you want to send your customers directly to another page, then validate the navigation menus to insert in your website in advance.

• Embed relevant links

Substantiate all the interlinks and backlinks on your website to make your customers land on the right page or informative piece. Not only it provides information, but it also makes it easier for users to access.

6. Spread awareness through Social media pages

Create the pages of your business or a product on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, etc., to make it reach your client base.

It is the easiest way to promote your business and make them accessible to you and your product.

As social media platforms face high growth in their usage rate, it has become easier to get your products to reach the audience and make them buy them.

7. Comprehend your Competitors

Before entering the market, you should know the way your competitors operate. Check out their social media pages, websites, and search engines about who is topping the list.

Observe their framework and ideas, and only then will you be able to strategize your e-Commerce website.

8. Know your Audience

A business’s audience or client base is what makes or breaks it. Therefore, determine your target audience with several surveys and demands you get from them. The more you interpret your customers, the more you will approach towards success. Hnece, Salesforce consulting can help to manage your audience at different marketing stage.

• Create a framework of your client base

Evaluate your client base when you were offline, and determine the target client base you want to make your products reach. That will enable you to run the campaigns and plan the promotional activities.

• Market research and campaigns will help you know the customer demands

Periodical market surveys and campaigns will give you a sneak peek of your customer’s demands and needs. Not only will it help to recognize their demands, but it also makes them your loyal and valuable customers.

9. Advertisement is the leader

Investing in ads is the most underrated factor in marketing. However, today businesses are coming out of their shell and spending huge on their promotional activities. Here are a few marketing and promotional campaigns when planning an e-Commerce setup:

• Plan your Paid marketing campaigns/advertisement in advance

Once you decide on the niche website hosting platform and are done with the branding, strategize your product’s marketing campaigns on various social media platforms.

Paid ads on the various social media platforms will enable you to reach your target audience and let your customers come to you. They allow your customers to find you the moment they were looking for a product like yours.

• SEO for the leads

This enables your website to reach out to more of your audience and get organic traffic through its keyword research, backlinks, and proper keyword insertions.

As a developer, I find search engines very useful for reaching out to your audience digitally.

• Ads and promotions

Discount and sales excite the most. For once, if I talk about a person and not a developer, I get excited, and it attracts me more seeing the discount on my favorite pair of shoes.

It is the easiest way to attract your customers, and once they see the potential in your product, they stick to your brand.

Therefore, use various social media platforms to run your promotional activities that enhance your business's sales ratio.

10. Weekly technical and product management evaluation

If I talk about e-Commerce, I speak of technicality and updates to keep up with the changes a website or product demands. Right from the domain to the website name, make sure that the team works actively on all of it. Keep it short, relatable, and straightforward.

User experience is the most crucial element. Based on my experience as a developer, an organic reach and engagement – lead a website towards progress. No matter how you choose to trade, when we discuss e-Commerce; a business or a product is solely successful when the customers are delighted with everything.