How to Build an e-commerce Website

Selling your products online is not new, way back in 90’s when internet had just raised its head people were smart enough to use internet as a tool to sell their products and services to customers. It was a radical change at that time for those customers who were a regular at mom-and-pop shop and large megastores for their daily groceries and other needs. But eventually the idea was a success and today every year billions of dollars of purchases is done through e-commerce websites all over the world. Now with website technology available to everyone the rate of e-commerce websites launching everyday is growing exponentially. People’s trust and faith has made brands like Amazon, e-bay, dell into billion dollar enterprises. But not all the websites selling online products are successful. The reason for failure of almost 90% e-commerce websites is due to the fact that they don’t care to follow basic rule of e-commerce website. Below are some of the fundamental points that can greatly help anyone who think of starting e-commerce website.

1) As you sow so shall you reap

When you offer products or services online always see to it that you offer what customers wants. The products should fulfill the needs of the buyers and offer them value for their money. There should be a compelling reason for them to choose you over the next door mom-and–pop stores or the mega stores few blocks away. If you can succeed in this pursuit then congratulation, you have got the key to be one of the important e-commerce players.

2) Good content. Good Sales

Writing good content can greatly facilitate the buying decision of the customers. Your content should be such that even if an average e-commerce shopper reads it he should be able to understand what exactly you are selling or offering. Studies have proved it that online customers have shortest attention span, hence keeping your content short and to the point will work in your advantage. Grammatically correct content builds trust regarding the product.

3) An Image is worth thousand words

This is something we have heard it again and again and have seldom practiced. An image is worth thousand words and it speaks more of a product then the entire content. So, when you are offering content but no image of the product then you are making the cardinal mistake of taking your customers for granted.  Unless you provide good quality, high-resolution images for your products then how will customer have faith on the products you are selling? So if you want customer to click check out button better offer high-quality images.

4) Videos of product demonstration work wonders!

A video demonstrating how your product works is a great way to hook your online customers in buying from your website. Survey has convincingly proved that when people are clear about the use and function of the product they make quick decision. Also providing video testimonial of the people who have purchased from your website is a great way of building trust with new customers.

5) Customer Service – demonstrate it!

Small e-commerce initiative can surprise larger companies on area of customer service by bringing out innovative ways of offering superior pre and post sale services. Providing support through telephone, e-mail in a quick and punctual way can take you far ahead in terms of customer satisfaction.  You can even offer them live support through internet that allows them to solve their queries even quicker.

6) Secure Website helps build faith and trust

Security for online purchase is a must. When people are using their card number or bank details they want to make sure that they are dealing with genuine people and their privacy will be protected. To show them the trust factor it is very important to useSSL certificate trust seals like VeriSign, Thawte or GeoTrust and the payment gateway should be from reputed service provider. Since more and more online scams are resurfacing every day, it makes the customer cautious to deal little known online stores. Once the trust factor is established rest assured they will come for more shopping.

7) Leverage the power of social media

Every company wants to reach the consumers far and wide but don’t know how to reach them in a most effective and efficient way. The traditional method used by them is far too expensive and takes time to yield results, but for humble e-commerce initiative these are expensive and time consuming. One of the best ways to reach users all over the world is through social media platform. It is cost effective and delivers measurable results. With numbers of active users in facebook, twitter, linkedin etc crossing hundreds of millions, social media is an appropriate platform to spread wings to the new entrants in the e-commerce ventures.

These are not final words to put your online company in the league of million or billion dollar brands, for that you need to change and respond as per the market conditions. But these points will give you a gist or basic thing which will give you an edge over your competitors.