How to open an online store is one of the frequently asked questions recently. E-commerce is one of the most profitable fields at the present time, which many people resort to, especially after people’s continuous demand from online stores. To start your journey with commerce, you must know how to open a professional online store. In this article, we will mention the steps in detail and everything related to it, and secrets that help you succeed in e-commerce, and how afftutors.com helps you in your business.
Steps to open an online store
To have a professional online store and to ensure that it will be suitable for your business, you must know how to open an online store before taking a step in the work. In this paragraph, we will explain the steps clearly and what are the things that you must take into consideration to get your online store to the appearance and result you want:
- First of all, you should study the place where you want to appear and where you want to spread and the position you want to reach. In this case, you should know what percentage of profit you will receive and the ability of consumers and customers to search for you and reach you easily. You should also determine the audience you want your store and products to reach. This audience is determined based on studying your products well first and second, you should study the tendencies and passions of your audience and what they are looking for, and also study personal information such as place of residence or social and financial level. Collect all the information you can collect because this will help you while creating your store and how it will be.
- Study the market and study your products in terms of the demand for them, and whether many people are requesting them and need them or not, and if the number is small, will the cost and price cover this small number or will it result in losses for you?
- Determine the shipping system and the company you will deal with and what are the rules and regulations that the company follows because this will greatly affect your dealings with your customer, and it will also clarify what policies and regulations you will put in the store and that customers will see; therefore, it is important to determine the shipping company and shipping system before starting to create the online store.
- Create your own brand name, trademark or logo. The name and logo are what give you a place in the market over time and ensure that your products and your entire store are protected from theft or exploitation in one way or another. Your brand name and trademark will also make you gain more credibility and gain the trust of your customer; because the customer prefers to deal with brands and names that are known over time and that many have dealt with.
- Choose a suitable location to create your store. To choose the location, you must take into consideration some criteria that tell you that the location is suitable. These criteria are summarized in:
- Ease of use of the site and simplicity of dealing with it in all the steps that your customer takes.
- Providing a simple design and many templates to choose from to suit your brand and give it greater visibility and clarity.
- Multiple payment options on the site are one of the most important criteria that facilitate the completion of buying and selling processes; therefore, you must ensure that there are various and multiple payment options on the site.
- The site ensures that customer data, sales data, product data, inventory data, and other information that affects your store are secure.
- The site should perform well and be easy to navigate from one page to another without poor response.
- Easy access to technical support to solve customer problems quickly and not leave the customer for long periods to reach the support team.
- The site supports linking with various social media sites to easily transfer order data to your store.
- In this step, you reach the actual building and creation of the online store after completing all the previous steps.
- You may register your store with the relevant authorities in your country so that the store is legal and you can work on it without worry and so that you can obtain the privileges provided by registering your store, including proving your existence, building trust with the customer, and securing everything related to your business.
- Improve the site from time to time to keep up with updates and provide easier and more distinctive experiences for customers, and to maintain customers’ sense of continuous development and improvement.
- The last step in building your online store is one of the important steps in your journey with e-commerce, which is marketing. In this step, you must take care to market your products to reach the largest number of audiences. There are many ways in marketing, and it is preferable not to use one method. We will help you with different types of marketing that you can use, such as:
- You can contract with influencers to advertise your products on social media, but you must choose influencers who have a lot of followers and are reasonably well-known so that you can reach satisfactory results with them.
- Online advertising such as Google Ads for websites is an effective method and helps in reaching a large number of people.
- Content marketing is also influencer marketing on social media and other websites, but it requires you to be aware of your audience in detail, what they are looking for and what they need.
- Creating platforms on various social media sites, which is considered a type of evaluation at this time, meaning that your audience needs you to be present on social media platforms, and this makes them trust you to some extent.
- You can market your store by word of mouth through personal recommendation and passing on opinions from one person to another. You can apply this type of marketing by sending gifts from your store to people you know.
Read also: The foundations of successful e-commerce sites
How to create an online store link
After you have finished creating your own online store and completed all the previous steps and the store is ready to work, at this stage you will need to create a link for your store and we will mention the simple steps that will help you create a link for your store:
Step One: The first step to creating a link for your store is to purchase a domain. If you purchased the domain independently from the platform on which you created the store, in this case you will need to link the domain to your platform.
Step 2: Make your domain name refer to your website name to increase clarity and make it easier to search for the site.
Step 3: Test the domain to make sure it is working properly and there are no problems with it and do not publish it without doing this test, it will remain subject to testing until you are sure that there are no problems with it and it is working completely and smoothly.
Step 4: Use your link in social media marketing, and also through search engine optimization.
How to design an online store
The interior designs of online stores may pose a problem for some people or a difficulty for others. The store design is not something extra, but rather something essential. The store design is what expresses the store completely and may also cause comfort or discomfort for the customer, resulting in either the customer staying in the store or leaving it. Therefore, it is necessary and important to know how you can achieve the best result with your store design. Here, there are two cases from which you can choose the most appropriate:
- Use ready-made platforms that help you create a design for your store, but in a simple and easy way, without the need to go into complex details. Among the platforms that help you with this are:
Shopify platform
Wix platform
Bigcommerce platform
These platforms provide many templates that you can choose from to suit the store and the products you sell. They also allow you to purchase a domain name and hosting, which may save you time and effort in searching. This choice is considered the best for many people, especially beginners.
- The second solution is to search for the best online store design company and contract with it to create an integrated, professional, and error-free store. Some may prefer this option because it is safer for them, but this may require taking their budget into account, because it may cost an additional price on top of the amounts paid to the store.
Read also: Disadvantages of the salla.com site 2024
7 Secrets to Success in E-Commerce
After all the preparations related to the store and finishing everything, you will certainly want to succeed in e-commerce. In this paragraph, we will mention 7 secrets to help you achieve success in e-commerce:
- Products should be displayed in a professional and clear manner because many people may be influenced by what they see in the pictures and may not want to wait until they see them in real life. Therefore, it is better for your product images to be clear and professionally photographed to attract the customer’s attention first and to facilitate their purchase decision second.
- Provide customers with fast shipping that does not take a lot of time and does not make them wait for weeks, for example. You must ensure the quality of delivery because there are many shipping companies that cause many orders to be cancelled due to poor handling or long periods of time. You can also provide free shipping, as this helps attract customers to you.
- Use email marketing. Most people deal with email from time to time and all official dealings are done through it. Therefore, using it makes you reach people in a closer and more professional way, and you can use attractive offers in your email message.
- Avoid pressuring the customer to buy during purchases. You must be flexible and not force the customer to make a purchase decision.
- Manage your inventory accurately and follow up continuously. This will always make you ready for any order and also make you know what product is in demand and what product you need not to replenish again. Monitoring inventory is one of the most important things that will support your business project.
- Take customer reviews and ratings into consideration and continuously develop your products and store taking into account the feedback left by customers. This helps you retain the customer and build a strong relationship with him.
- Performance analysis makes your store constantly and noticeably develop; therefore, make sure to analyze your store’s performance from time to time.
How does “ afftutors.com” help you with your store?
“ afftutors.com” helps you market your store in a professional and integrated way, and through an integrated team that helps you achieve the best results. The company provides many services that any online store may need, whether it is just starting out or has been in the market for a long time. The company provides you with all types of marketing, search engine optimization, Google ads, software services, content marketing, email, phone marketing, and other services. Contact us now and get a complete guide to search engine optimization for free.
