What is Ecommerce?
Ecommerce is a retail business model where goods are purchased and sold online. With Ecommerce, financial transactions are conducted online digitally, which includes payments, refunds, and data.
While experts predicted that Ecommerce transactions would increase in the coming years, because of the global pandemic of the past few years, Ecommerce has experienced even more rapid growth. Ecommerce growth now sits at about five years ahead of pre-pandemic predictions.
In fact, this year alone, experts predict that consumers will make 20.8 percent of global retail purchases online, and by 2026, online sales could reach 21 percent here in America. In 2021, online shopping sales worldwide were about 5.2 trillion U.S. dollars. Experts predict this number will increase by 56 percent in the coming years, hitting around 8.1 trillion dollars by 2026.
Retail e-commerce sales worldwide from 2022 to 2026 from Oberlo
So, what does this mean for you? It means that now is the perfect time to start your own Ecommerce business. But how? If you’re unsure about your next steps, here’s a helpful beginner’s guide to Ecommerce to get you started.
Choose Your Product or Service
Do you have products or services that you’d like to sell? Congratulations, you’ve just taken the first step in starting your Ecommerce business!
Once you know what you’re selling, you can determine the best course of action for selling your product.
Do Some Research
Now that you have a product or service, do you know who your competitors are? Finding out whom you’re competing against and researching their products and services is the next step in building your Ecommerce business.
Make Plans
Create a detailed business plan. This will help you outline what you’re looking for in an Ecommerce business. Define your goals, mission, core values, marketing channels, and of course, the capital you have to invest in this business or capital that you have to raise.
Define your Brand
Select a name and logo that embodies your products. Not only does this establish your brand identity, but remember to research if your desired domain name is available. This domain will be important when your website is ready to launch.
A professionally designed logo will create instant brand recognition among your target audience (think of the Nike’ swoosh’ or the Mcdonald’s ‘M’). At Byte, we can collaborate with you to design a logo that defines your brand and product offerings, captures customers’ attention, and creates brand awareness.
Think About SEO
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is how you improve the traffic to your website from search engines. Search engine optimization is unpaid traffic that comes to your website from a search engine, and it’s a vital part of running your business.
During the development of your ecommerce website, it’s advisable to consider SEO from the outset. Thinking ahead about SEO can significantly benefit your website’s performance. Byte can assist you in conducting research that will play a pivotal role in shaping website copy, crafting product descriptions, and optimizing meta tags—critical components for success.
Sample Google Analytics Dashboard for Ecommerce site
Now Comes The Fun Part
Now it’s time to build your Ecommerce website. For a professional-looking, easily navigable website with a beautiful, unique design, work with our professional ecommerce web design team.
Our ecommerce website development experts can integrate Shopify into your website. With Shopify, our developers can create custom Shopify ecommerce templates and themes, update and adjust your website, build custom apps using the Shopify API, and more.
We can also design a site using Magento, a powerful software tool that can fuel your Ecommerce website by offering essential store functions to more advanced, complex features. Our web designers are Magento certified and can customize a Magento site for you or perform system administration and maintenance on your Magento website as well.
Not only can Byte design your website from scratch, but we also offer website maintenance plans to keep them running smoothly and safe from security threats, something you may not be able to do on your own with your plug-and-play website.
Furthermore, we can make your website fully compliant with the ADA. This will show your customers that you promote diversity, inclusion, and equality and can also help generate sales. With 57 million disabled Americans with the spending power of $500 billion, you’ll easily be able to garner the attention of a sometimes overlooked segment of the population.
To Market, To Market
The next step you need to take to launch your Ecommerce site is to create a marketing plan. Again, while you can try to go it alone, we recommend outsourcing your marketing to a marketing agency like Byte.
At Byte, we offer many marketing services, from paid advertising to social media marketing, that can get your Ecommerce business results that generate sales.
Ecommerce social media post from Merry Stockings on Instagram
Go Live!
Once your website designers have completed your site and your marketing is in place, it’s time to go live and start generating sales! Whether you’re selling candles, coffee, or Christmas decorations, having a beautiful, fully-functioning website is an excellent way to generate sales online and promote your business both online and offline.
To get started with the design and development of your website, contact the experts at Byte Technology today!
Byte developed Ecommerce site for Merry Stockings
Let’s Get Started
Are you ready to get started creating your own Ecommerce business? Let our team of eCommerce experts help you. With a robust suite of marketing services from SEO to web design and development, we’re here to help you every step of the way. To learn more, please reach out to us today!
