So, you're ready to take your products into the digital world.
Congratulations! But it won't be an easy way for you especially when planning to build an ecommerce website.
An eCommerce website is not just a matter of one or two things; there are many things you need to do and consider before launching your online store. And the following checklist will guide you through it all. So, let's go!
This Master Checklist to build an ecommerce website contains questions for you to ask yourself. Answer each question clearly, and then answer the next relevant question on your list.
If you don't know, take action and find out!
Once again: this was created to help kickstart your checklists so that nothing gets forgotten along the way.
You'll have enough work as it is, don't add unnecessary stress by forgetting something critical at the end of your ecommerce development journey.
What Are The Critical KPIs?
Before anything developing and designing your eCommerce website, identify the critical KPIs so you track and measure your project's success.
This is your foundation, the first step of all eComm businesses.
Yes, it takes time, but this will ensure success later on: What are my hard metrics? This means numbers like sales revenue per month/year or the number of downloads/visitors per day. These are clear numeric targets that have no grey area and can't be misconstrued.
What are my soft metrics? Here we talk about people's perceptions, likes, shares and comments. It's still about building relationships between yourself and your stakeholders.
Did You Try To Analyze Your Competitor's Website?
One of the most effective tricks to creating a highly converting eCommerce website is to reverse engineer what works for your competitors. Don't copy their design or exact wording but learn the underlying psychology of why they successfully convert visitors into customers.
Are you focused on increasing sales?
If you're focused on boosting sales and revenue, then you should focus on:
If that's your goal, the following tasks will help you to achieve higher conversion rates:
Other than that, there are different ways to do reverse engineering. Use tools like Ahrefs to perform the competitor analysis. You will definitely get data on how they get their traffic, their ranking keywords, etc.
As much as possible, check the design, unique features and SEO of your competitors. This will give you more ideas of how you'll build an eCommerce website for your business.
What Are Your Key Deliverables?
Key deliverables are different from KPIs. Your KPIs allows you to measure your success. On the other hand, key deliverables are the elements, features, outcomes, and tools you'd like to incorporate on your website.
They are the tasks and projects that your website will need. Here are some guide questions to ask to know your key deliverables:
What Is Your Ecommerce Website Format?
This is a particularly important question to ask before expecting your audience to go through your website.
Ecommerce website formats come in various examples. For example, you have two main formats: an eCommerce website based on visual content and one based on information and data management.
A simple and flexible content management system (CMS) like WordPress or Joomla is the best way to get a simple to use eCommerce website format running in less than 60 minutes. Whereas, eCommerce website format that based on data and information like Magento CMS, Shopify, or BigCommerce will need more time to learn and configure its settings.
How Are You Going To Monetize Your Website?
You must be clear about how you'll make money from the traffic coming to your eCommerce website.
There are five main methods of monetizing the traffic coming in:
How Will You Integrate Your Ecommerce Website With The Rest Of Your Business?
It is important to start with an integration plan before starting any project.
Will you integrate the website with other systems in your business like accounting, warehouse or marketing?
Or will it be a stand-alone project for now?
Will there be any third-party service providers involved like credit card processors and payment gateways to help process payments on your behalf? If yes, how are you planning to integrate their services?
With these questions, you can make a social media marketing plan for your eCommerce website. Depending on the answers you get to these questions, you may need one or more digital agency that do all sorts of work.
Do You Need An Ecommerce Specialist?
It's not that hard to build an eCommerce website or integrate payment gateways and shipping fulfilment services. But it will be definitely difficult for you to make sure your products are getting found in Google, generating leads, managing social media marketing campaigns and much more.
If you think it would be best for you to hire one person or company to do everything, then probably an eCommerce specialist is what you need. Just make sure that your selected company has a good portfolio of case studies to show you. You don't want to get lost in the maze of different eCommerce services and end up with something that will not meet your expectations.
Final thoughts
There you have it – our master checklist to build an Commerce website. It’s a tiring task, but with the right set of questions, you can surely hit your target.
Branding & Design
Branding & Design
Branding & Design
Branding & Design
Branding & Design
General Ecommerce