E-commerce is one of the fastest growing industries in the business world. A report by Statista shows that in 2017 “retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to $2.3 trillion US dollars and e-retail revenues are projected to grow to 4.88 trillion US dollars in 2021.” This is indeed huge.
Apart from the rigorous processes of getting a domain name, preparing legitimate business documents, and web design and development, there are other vital tasks you need to pay adequate attention to. Here are five tips for building a successful e-commerce website:
1. Have a Reliable Website Hosting Platform
Growth is inevitable as long as e-commerce is a concern. Online shopping has been identified as one of the most popular online activities worldwide, and what would happen to your business if you didn’t put up a sustainable web hosting platform to contain sudden traffic on your site?
Development and expansion are on the minds of thoughtful entrepreneurs. With more than an estimated 1.66 billion people worldwide purchasing goods online, you don’t want to make low projections about the nature of traffic your e-commerce site could generate.
Decide on the size of competition that’ll come and prepare the infrastructure to contain it. Host the site right, whether Shared or VPS hosting, or you can use the cloud — just make sure it’s something that can support a sudden growth hike without breaking.
2. Setup a Safe Payment System
Sorting out the payment issue on your e-commerce site is very critical because it’s pointless to drive traffic to your site if customers are finding it difficult to make payments. There are lots of payment options available in the e-commerce business.
But first, you need to know how customers are going to pay and the options available to get those payments into your own bank account. This is where you need to find a reputable third-party payment processor to handle this important task.
Please remember that getting approved for a payment gateway and credit card processor is not usually easy, as you need to have the necessary requirements in place to ease the process. Any difficulty in the payment process is bad business. Try to avoid this.
3. Protect your E-commerce Site from Cyber-Criminals
We can’t separate cyber crimes from electronic commerce, can we? Cybercrime is suddenly becoming a big business, especially when small and medium online stores aren’t putting proper protocols to adequately protect their businesses. Insufficient internet safety has actually put many customers at risk of payment fraud.
"Ensure your e-commerce platform is adequately protected by hiring a reliable cyber-security firm.Endeavor to monitor all transactions, regular updates of anti-virus software, utilize the Address Verification System, use stronger passwords and Virtual Private Network (VPN) to improve your online security and privacy," says Nikolos Faslow, the Security Engineer of Bestvpnrating.
Data breaches can affect business finance, customer loyalty, and brand reputation. Hence, you need to use the right tools and adhere to a strict set of policies and procedures that guarantee security to minimize the threat of fraud.
4. Intensify Your SEO Efficiency
It’s not enough to build an e-commerce website; it’s also necessary to have an online presence that’ll drive traffic to your site and also give you the opportunity to attract and reach a wider audience. This invariably will result in an increase in sales.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a great way to improve your e-commerce website’s visibility on the internet. Find an expert in SEO to help you or you can take up the task by accessing useful materials and resources on SEO. Ensure you use the latest guidance on SEO to help prospective customers to easily find your e-commerce website.
5. Have an Efficient Shipping/Delivery System
This task is as important as having a safe payment system because the customers are directly affected by the extent to which these tasks are effectively carried out. Customers’ patronage is largely dependent on how their orders are delivered and how their complaints about refunds are tackled.
Before you launch your e-commerce website, you’ll need to make crucial decisions on how to store and ship your inventory. Are you partnering with vendors for your inventory? Do you want to have a large warehouse where you can store your products? Are you going to set up a haulage system or rely on third-party services for delivering your products or providing services?
These questions are critical at this stage and should be objectively answered. Starting an e-commerce website is not as easy as you think. However, with the right information, support, and resources, you can set up a successful e-commerce website.
Richard Agu is a researcher, entrepreneur and freelancer, passionate about entrepreneurship and self-development. Currently, Richard writes for Entrepreneur.com, Goodmenproject.com, among others. Follow him on Linkedin.com by clicking here now.
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