You decided to open an online store. You probably feel excited and, at the same time, a little scared. If this is the first time you are going to work in an ecommerce, you surely do not want to waste time and money on tools that will not help you put your online store in the fastest, most efficient and economical way possible.
So let’s get specific and develop a plan to make sure we’re ready before opening an online store.
If you are considering adding an ecommerce to your website as, for example, selling in WordPress with WooCommerce, a little prior planning will greatly help your company’s success. Let’s start!
12 aspects to consider before opening an online store
- Make sure there is a market for your product or service
- Research your competition
- Create a price table
- Define your shipping program
- Define the return policy
- Create a privacy policy
- Improve the security of your website;
- Create good photos for your products
- Write the descriptions of your products
- Develop a marketing plan and budget
- Create a customer service action plan
- Assess the different payment options
Some of these tasks may seem common sense, but the truth is that every day I receive inquiries from people who want to open an online store and, when I talk to them, I realize that it is evident that they have not thought much about this to really be successful. So, why not change it?
1. Make sure there is a market for your product or service
The best ideas are born from hobbies, interests or passions of the person who opens the ecommerce and who saw an opportunity that no one else was attending. Or better yet, they knew for sure that with a lot of work and dedication they could do better than the competition! Do not underestimate the power of your niche market.
2. Research your competition
Before opening an online store, study the competition. Go to the browser and write the two or three keywords that your target audience will probably use to find the products and services you are planning to sell online. You will probably realize the hundreds, thousands (or millions) of pages that are already doing the same.
If you see too much competition, you will have to specialize in a specific niche or be an aggressive competitor, which will cost you time and money.
Pay attention to what your competitors are doing, see if there is any opportunity to do it better and how you can get to do it in a unique and different way.
3. Create a price table
Can you be competitive and still have benefits when all is said and done? Be sure to include all costs to be much more accurate: SSL certificate, web hosting, domain, email, templates, plugins, extensions, modules, monthly fees, payment gateways, advertising, inventory, packaging, etc.
4. Define your shipping program
The shipping program of your online store can help you a lot or spoil everything. If you plan to open an online store, ask yourself:
- What transport company will you use?
- Will the shipping price depend on the price of the product? Are you going to work with a flat rate?
- Do shipments vary depending on the type of product?
- Are you going to ship worldwide? What customs procedures and policies should you take into account?
Shipping is not a service from which you should make profits, it has to be reasonable.
The perception of too high shipping rates is one of the main reasons why customers abandon the shopping cart.
5. Define the return policy
This must be clear and completely detailed so that, if there is any return, customers can find all the information necessary to request the refund and what are your criteria to grant it.
6. Create a privacy policy
It must be a privacy policy that is visible and clearly indicates what you do with your customers’ information. This facilitates and makes your customers believe in you. Never put one thing and then do another. Be honest and indicate how you will manage and use user information.
7. Improve the security of your website
The security policy of your business must explain in detail everything it does to protect your customers’ data. Explain that you use an SSL certificate and why you do it. Is it verified by an external service? The more information you can provide, the better. It is a good opportunity to give your customers a reason to trust you.
8. Create good photos for your products
When it comes to selling online, visual elements can be a complete success or destroy your business completely. Your products must have quality photos. There are very good resources to know how to take the photos of your products or leave it in the hands of your web designer.
9. Write the descriptions of your products
Forget about the generic one-line descriptions. Also the descriptions that are the same as all other suppliers. You need details, sizes, colors and dimensions! Use a good marketing language that makes your potential customer realize that they need that product that you have.
Are you going to take care of the products too? If not, consider hiring someone to create a spreadsheet so that it can be loaded directly on the web or enter all the data for you.
10. Develop a marketing plan and budget
Develop a marketing plan and a budget, both in time and money to promote your new online store. What are you going to do to make people know you? They will not come by themselves. You are lucky if it ever happens to you, but believe me that it is not usual.
If you want to attract customers to your online store, you should surely invest in marketing.
You can start with PPC campaigns from just a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars a month, it all depends on how competitive your market is. Running successful campaigns in search engines and social networks (such as advertising campaigns on Facebook) also require time to test and launch them.
It is definitely worth analyzing all the options and developing a solid marketing plan before opening an online store.
11. Create a customer service action plan
Your plan should include the preparation, processing and packaging time of the orders. This in itself can take a long time if done correctly. In addition, if the word has spread and you have more and more inquiries, you will need more time to respond to them, update the order statuses and enter the shipping data. Some aspects that you should consider before opening your online store are:
- How will you notify your customers of the shipping confirmation?
- How will you manage telephone inquiries? Will you have a telephone line intended only for this?
12. Assess the different payment options
Before opening an online store, you must be clear about how you are going to be paid. Something important, right? Not all platforms offer integrated payment gateways, so you have to consider the following:
- Do you have an account for your business in which you accept credit cards?
- What forms of payment will you accept? Credit cards, bank transfers, postal orders…?
- PayPal or Stripe?
- Do you have a payment gateway to verify, approve and process charges in real time?
Plan to succeed
Surely more than once you have heard the saying “not planning is planning for failure”. Do yourself a favor and do not continue with your plan until you are clear about the 12 points above. They are basic concepts, but that you must have planned before opening an online store. Having this clear information will allow you to choose the best features, themes, plugins or platforms to know which is the best for your service.
