2014-10-26

When considering an e-store, you may not know exactly where to begin. If you have very little or no experience in developing an ecommerce website, your best option is to hire the services of a professional website developer. Even, hiring someone to do the job for your can be a daunting task as you need to determine the best criteria for hiring the best website developer for your ecommerce website. This post contains valuable tips to help you when thinking of how to build an ecommerce website.

Start By Researching the Products You Desire to Offer

The first step to embark on when thinking of building an ecommerce website is to research the type of products or services you have in mind to offer. Some of the things you should research about the products in your mind include how many online stores are already offering the products, the sizes of the stores and your ability to compete favorably. Also, find out the demand for your products by using keywords search tools to determine the volume of searches performed by online visitors on the product daily, weekly or monthly.

Consider Your Shipping Method

Another essential consideration when thinking of how to build an ecommerce website is your shipping method. If you have in mind to use a drop-shipping service, you need to research the top drop-shipping companies in order to make the most applicable choice for your ecommerce business. On the other hand, some ecommerce operators choose to store the items all by themselves. In that case, you should also research wholesalers and choose the one that provides the best possible prices on the products you intend to offer.

Pick a Domain Name

You will need a domain name for your ecommerce website and would register the domain name as well. One of the best tips in choosing the right domain name is to ensure the name can be remembered easily. Therefore, keep it short and ensure it suitably describes the product and/or service you intend to offer. When it comes to registering your domain name, there are tons of popular providers to choose from.

Choose a Web Hosting Company

The top website hosting companies offer great website building tools alongside other sophisticated ecommerce tools. These webhosting companies offer wide selections of applications for ecommerce websites such as shopping carts and applications that promote security of your website. Research as many webhosting companies as you can and narrow your list to the renowned ones that have shown track record of flawless hosting.

Consider Creating Your Own Ecommerce Website

As mentioned earlier, most of the top webhosting companies integrate website builders and templates. As a result, someone with little HTML knowledge can leverage such website building tools to develop an ecommerce website of his or her choice. HTML knowledge will help you add or remove some codes in order to achieve a more customized ecommerce website.

We recommend using a hosted solution for your ecommerce store

While there are many ways to create an ecommerce website, we recommend using a hosted solution like Shopify, Volusion or BigCommerce. These software products have come a long way in the last few years. The benefit of using a software like these is based on support. When you have a problem, all you have to do is contact the hosting provider and they will help you fix the problem. Without the support, you are left to hiring developers or fixing the problems yourself.

Finally, remember that an ecommerce website is not all that is required for your ecommerce business, you need to promote your website in order to drive traffic to it.

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The post How to Build an Ecommerce Website appeared first on Alex Designs.

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