Ecommerce is no longer the future leader of sales…it is already outpacing retail sales. Having an online store is now (more than ever) a vital component to success. But like any aspect of business, it needs a plan. Each aspect of your site needs to be thoroughly planned from top to bottom, and that’s why we created our Ecommerce site checklist.

1. Catalog preparation & inventory policies

Your products and how you present them are the foundation of your online presence of your company, and it is important to have a plan for what  product or service you will offer online and how you will keep it updated. While this may seem basic, it is important to answer a few questions as they will have a major impact on all aspects of your site. You’ll want to know:

• What kind of products will I be selling?
• Do I manufacture them, or are they products that someone else manufactures?
• What are the products that someone else manufactures?
• How many products will I carry?
• Where is the product information coming from?
• How often will pricing be updated?
• How will new products be added?

Once you have these foundational questions answered, you are ready to start designing your site.

2. Design & Branding: How will I present my products to the customers?

The design and feel of your site needs to be consistent with the products you sell. If you are selling little girls’ dresses you may not want a “goth” themed site, but if you are selling rock band t-shirts, that might work well. The colors you choose represent different moods. That theme must carry over to your content, and must remain consistent. Think about how you want to come across: do you want to be informative? Funny? Are you creating awareness about something?

Make sure your branding is properly geared to your client base, both demographically and financially. For example, are you gearing towards people who are looking for something cheap or are they looking for quality, knowing that it will come at a cost? Remember,  how you present your product is what separates you from everyone else online.

3. Payment: What payment methods will I offer to my customers?

Without a payment method, your site won’t make any money. There are many forms of payment you can choose to accept and integrate into your site, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Accepting credit card, debit card or bank transfer are the basics, and accepting Paypal is becoming more and more standard as well. Most visitors to your site probably already have a Paypal account and it is trusted, which adds a sense of security to your site. However, PayPal does require a redirect away from the eshop to complete payment.

Amazon Payments is rising in popularity as well because it is a recognized company in which people also place trust in. Depending on your platform, integrating Amazon Payments may be somewhat difficult and require a lot of paperwork.  Both of these options charge a percentage of the sale along with a standard transaction fee.

There are many other forms of payment and it is important to review them to determine which will optimize the shopping experience for your customers the most.

4. Order management: How will I manage and process orders?

An order management system manages the lifecycle of an order , and is the center of all the backend action of your webstore. It’s where your storefront, shopping cart, payment and shipping meet. Every online retail store must have an order management software; some may be built into the platform they are using and can be very effective for workflows. However, depending on the size of your store you may want to consider integrating a third party order management software to improve processing order workflows and track inventory. Companies with multiple shipping locations almost always need a third party system.

There are many features of an order management software: when choosing a software you can break down the services of each one to find which offers the most value to your business model. Some of the main factors to take into consideration are the management of payment services, fraud prevention and order amendment. Your software should also provide inventory management, fulfilment management, delivery management  and returns management. Some more advanced options offer customer service and reporting such as location-based wave picking, quality control and forecasting analytics.

Finding the right system for your site will allow you to run a functional and efficient online store.

5. Fulfillment: How will I fulfill my customers’ orders?

Once you’ve made a sale your next step is to get your product to the customer…and there are a few options for how to do this. You can chose to fulfill your own orders via in house fulfilment, which is often the cheapest option, and you can oversee it entirely. You also have more control over how things are packaged and branded which can help create and maintain your custom brand. It is however, extremely time consuming, and the expenses to operate between the cost of a warehouse and paying people to package and ship may end up being more than outsourcing. Another option is dropshipping. Dropshipping is a method in which the retailer does not stock the product it sells, rather, upon an order, the retailer purchases the item from a third party and has it shipped directly to the customer and the retailer never actually ends up seeing the product. This is a very good option for companies with limited capital because the overhead is far lower as you do not need to stock a full inventory of what you offer. However, due to the ease and low overhead of setting up such a business, the competition is steep and companies often find it difficult to differentiate themselves from many other sites running similar businesses.  Furthermore, whenever you are relying on another party to fulfill your orders you are far more vulnerable to shipping complexities and supplier errors.

An alternative option is third party fulfilment: this means you would send your products to a warehouse, and forward them the orders for fulfilment.  This eliminates many of the issues of dropshipping because while you are outsourcing the storage and shipping, it is all customized to your product.

Each option has it’s advantages and disadvantages, and must be analyzed to judge which fits your business model best.

6. Analytics: How will I track how well my store is doing?

Analytics is not just a tool to see how your business is doing; it is the stepping stone for growing your business. Having access to all of your statistical data is how you can find your strengths and weaknesses to help you fix what is not working and build upon what is. For example, if you see that mobile users are not converting on your site, you probably need to optimize the mobile experience. Alternatively, if you find that social media is the highest source for leads, you may want to boost that by integrating your site with social media sources.

Additionally, you will want to see the metrics for returning customers and your bounce rate, which will help you find who you need to target most, the initial step for your marketing campaign. For example, if you find that you are making initial sales but are not getting return customers, you may want to consider implementing a rewards or referral program.

There are many things to track and different ways to track them. Google Analytics is the standard and most popular way to track your store. Kissmetrics is another that provides useful funnels that help follow your visitor’s journey through your site and track the bounce rate at each stage, but there are tons of analytics software options to pick from, and many of them are even free.

Your data is a very powerful tool, but only if used correctly. Knowing what to track and how to interpret your data is the key to expanding your business.

7. Platform: What platform will my site operate on?

Now that you have outlined what the needs of your site are, the final step is choosing the right platform. Remember to keep in mind costs, scalability, and integration needs. Here are some options to consider:

BigCommerce is fast, has high conversion rates, and multiple layers of security, such as firewalls, intrusion detection software, and human oversight on top of it all. Some key features are:

• Wide variety of response ecommerce template designs
• In class marketing and conversion tools to increase sales and drive more traffic
• Industry leading performance and stability and fast loading time
• Cloud based platform 1⁄4 the cost of on premise solutions
• Robust faceted search options

OroCommerce: is an open source Business to Business eCommerce application built with flexibility in mind and can be customized and extended to fit any B2B commerce needs.The application includes features such as advanced search capabilities, a built in CMS system with support for multiple price lists, quote to order process, quick order forms, support for multi business and corporate customer accounts, eliminating the need to compromise by extensively customizing existing eCommerce applications.

Magento: Magento’s CMS platform for ecommerce is one that offers business owners out-of-the-box functionality. Oversight is provided for items such as vouchers, store credits, gift cards, and packing slips. It can also handle payments through alternative sources to credit and debit cards. Magento is rich with off the shelf extensions and a global ecosystem of expert partners. Some of the most popular Magento capabilities are:

• Set promotional pricing for specific stores, categories, customer groups, or Products
• Create flexible coupons for specific stores, customer groups, time periods, products, and categories
• Export coupon codes for offline distribution, email, newsletters, and more
• Track and report coupon usage
• Create customizable category landing pages
• Search Engine Optimization tools for Google sitemap, friendly URLS, and metadata
• Use the content management system to create and easily edit pages and content blocks
• Use a Web Services API for easy integration between Magento and third-party applications

WooCommerce is the ecommerce extension of WordPress; WooCommerce provides great services, powerful features, and is very easily managed making it ideal for people with minimal technical background. Some of the most popular things about Woo commerce are:

• It’s free
• Easy to use
• Large variety of customizations
• Ability to add unlimited products and attributes

Once you have all this checked off, the structure for your online store is in place. The sky’s the limit for your success!

121eCommerce is a certified Magento development agency that loves web development, ecommerce and blogging about both! Want to learn more? Check out their 121e Blog.