There were the questions and queries in the pipe for tips and tweaks for building, launching and then growing an online store from business enthusiasts from different industry verticals. Hence, this blog is solely meant for the shop owners, retail store owners, online business owners, professionals, local businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs intending to develop and launch an ecommerce website. There is no doubt at all that starting an eCommerce store is a big responsibility but if you initiate your project systematically with some good plans, you are sure to take your eCommerce store to the next level.

There were the times when the retails shop owners thought of having an eCommerce store optionally but today the scenario has drastically changed and has become a necessity.

1. Build Your Strong Network:

When the virtual connections and networking are dominating the businesses, it goes without saying to build strong networks on different social media platforms before you launch an ecommerce store. Social networks have a tremendous and direct impact on the flow of traffic and visitors. It is the audience from your strong networks that might be interested in the products or services you wish to sell. However, you need to take care of the following aspects while building your network ecommerce website launch.

• The selection of your social network should be proper considering your audience.
• Create a rich profile with captivating graphics strongly demonstrating your brand.
• Increase your fans and following.

2. Prepare a sound email marketing strategy:

Email marketing strategy is an integral part of your online store launch strategy. You can select from multiple options for your email marketing campaigns but you should select the one that suits your business the most. The selection of the email campaign depends on the ecommerce store platform use. This is because there are the platforms like Shopify with their host of email options. You just need to be clear that your platform should be compatible and easy to integrate with the email providers.

You may select from any of the following options for your email marketing campaigns.

• MailChimp
• Constant Contact
• Get Response
• Aweber

Related Blog – Ecommerce Challenges

3. Make engaging landing page:

An engaging landing page is important from the point of view of the branding of your products/services. There should be a strong establishment of the brands before launching an ecommerce business. Whatever products/services you are going to offer to the public at large, till your whole ecommerce website is ready, it is important for you to bring the awareness among people about it. And landing homepage will suffice this purpose by displaying the whole range of products or services you sell. It will also be helpful for you to make your email marketing precise as you will be able to fetch the data of the visitors on your landing page.

4. Make strategic use of Google Analytics:

Google Analytics is very important even before you build an ecommerce website. Because, analytics will give you a clear idea about who visited your page, from where, and for how long he stayed there. With the help of these insights, you can build your future strategy to pitch a customer. Here are the steps with which you can install Google Analytics for your eCommerce store:

• Create Your Google Analytics Account
• Link your analytics account to your store.
• Activate ecommerce tracking.
• Set Up Funnels and Goals based on data.

5. Keyword research is a must:

Before you create ecommerce website and contents for the same, you should make deep research for the keywords searched the most relevant to your products. Keyword research is a very primary function of SEO. The selection of the right and relevant keywords helps you in a number of ways and more particularly in ranking on Google and letting it know what your website is going to sell online. With the help of the keywords, the visibility of your website will also improve and help you generate the desired traffic on your website. The Google crawling will fetch the right visitors to your website if your website is rich in terms of keywords.

6. Create your online web store:

Now, this is the phase when you are already done with your pre-launch processes and need to focus on the online store development. This phase is really challenging, inevitable and very important. Before you start working on it, you should consider the following criterion:

• Your eCommerce store theme& design.
• Preparing product graphics.
• Preparing product descriptions.
• Integrating and adding apps.

More tips for developing a successful ecommerce Site.

7. Focus on Key Performance Indicators:

Before you launch an online store, it is essential to identify and implement your key performance indicators to pave a future path. When you have an idea which elements or factors are going to be effective and resultant, you will remain focused on the path you have to spearhead towards.

The key performance indicators might differ from business to business but for ecommerce businesses, the following are some of the prime KPIs:

• Orders- size, execution, and billing.
• Sales Volumes- Weekly, Monthly, Annually.
• Average Margin Cap.
• Conversion & Abandoned Shopping Cart Rate.
• Website traffic- anticipated and actual.
• Visitors- Repeat visits, first visits, and page views.
• Referrals and traffic generators.

8. Plan a sound shipping strategy:

Shipping service is inevitable and crucial for the success of every eCommerce store. However, you can decide when and where and up to what extent you can bear the cost of shipping the orders. There are certain areas where you can work out a cost-effective shipping strategy like;

• What materials you are going to use for packaging and what materials to use.
• Which carriers are available with your shipping budget?
• Time and costs in respect of shipping.

9. Prepare to launch promotion plans:

Launching promotions plans include the discounts you wish to offer, free shipping, membership subscription with some attractive offers, first shopping offers etc.

Apart from the discounts and offers, you also have to decide how you are going to communicate with your audience and what platforms you are going to use for it.

10. Launch:

Having done away with the above steps, this is the phase where you have to directly come into contact with your target audience. This is the time when you will join the race of the business where you are sure to encounter every kind of unexpected challenge but if you followed the above steps prudently, you are going to roll on well with ease.