Published on May 27th, 2018 | by Sunit Nandi

Things to keep in mind for building a better Web Store!

An Eye Opener on building a better Web Store!

Creating your own web store is not a difficult venture, considering that you have the right information to guide you through the process. If your products or services are worth selling, there is no reason for you to hold back from having your shopping cart and a catalog online. This is because it eases the movement to another web host, causes better branding of the business, could be cost-effective and enables one to take control of the shop’s presentation fully. You can check various online stores to learn how each product are segmented. In case you want your website to be your major source of income or even your side project, the guidelines below will enlighten you on how to make your dreams come true.

A. Assemble All the Resources You’ll Require

You need to have figured out the essential basics such as the name of the company, the products to be sold, the services to be offered, the prices of each item, and the Hosting options to suit your budget. In addition to these, you will also require:

1. A personal SSL document and an IP address

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer whose function is to encrypt data between the server of the website and the browser. It serves to protect the customer’s data. As many web hosts provide free but shared Secure Sockets Layer certificates, they are not recommendable as they regularly provide warnings on the website claiming that the domain name does not match the SSL certificate provided. This could result in your customers mistrusting you, thus turning away to seek service providers that have a private SSL certificate.

2. A domain name

Various tools could assist you in selecting a proper domain name. You can undertake your research and get enlightened on how to choose the best.

3. A script for the shopping cart

The backbones of numerous online stores are free scripts for the shopping cart including Zen Cart and osCommerce. The osCommerce script is offered by many web hosts as a fast and efficient install. However, you can look up for others on Wikipedia and compare them to select the one that suits you best.

4. A web host

In case you have not acquired one, you could refer to various web hosting companies that are recommended by the Life-hacker readers. HostGator and Bluehost are some of the most recommendable web hosts available today.

B. Create Your Website

You can set up a homepage and other necessary pages for your website once you have registered your domain name directing to your web host. You could include information about yourself, your products, or whatever you think will be of importance to your customers. Your website could solely stand on the script of the shopping cart if you choose to do so. This is because the script can create static pages containing the background of the company, details about shipping, and more.

C. Install a System for Your Shopping Cart

In your website cPanel, look for Quick Install or Fantastico as you can be able to install a shopping cart system with them automatically. The demonstration of this process can be found on osCommerce, but you can also find similar guides in other tools under e-commerce.

D. Modify the Online Store

Various shopping systems such as osCommerce have abundant features that will help in customizing your website. You can keep records of the products in stock, analyse developing reports, alternate tax rates, and classes among many more activities. A variety of skins and modules are also important in modifying your web store.

E. Arrange Your Products

The products are listed in the Catalog, which is the main section in which you are going to be working on. An electronics shop is by default set up for you by osCommerce if you are dealing with related goods. If these are not the products you are dealing with, you can easily change the categories and customize them as desired. In case your products are not as much, you could add your products using the administrator interface. All you must do is to pick out an image for your product and input the necessary details such as the name and description of the product.

If your products add up to a large number, you could use add-ons which support the importation of products from delimited files, CSV files and Excel spreadsheet. If you do not have the add-on application, you could download it as it functions with a couple of shopping cart systems. After installing the add-on, download a CSV file which will enable you to edit your products, services or both.

F. Manage Shipping and Fulfilment

On the administration panel, there is the modules section which contains payment methods and costs of shipping. After the products, have been imported to their respective sections, the next step is to prepare the fulfilment section. Install modules for a variety of payment options such as PayPal among other modes of payments. Therefore, if a customer wants to purchase a product, they will be directed to reliable, functional, and safe sites to have the payment successfully processed. It is important that you individually specify the shipping costs of each time in different regions.

Your email should serve as a reliable source of information each time an order is made. This will help you to avoid delaying your customers thus delivering their product as soon as possible. This is a good way to begin your business as the faster a business provides their services, the more customers it attracts. People do not like to order something and wait for a significantly long time before the item is delivered to them. As this is not attractive, ensure that you handle the shipping out of items immediately you receive orders.

G. Enhance the Customization of your Website

You could consider hiring a professional web designer if you think that you are not well informed on how to enhance your web store. However, hiring one could be quite costly, therefore recommendable if you have enough capital to fund the store and pay off the designer.

To have a successful store you should not forget to insure your business so that if there are any mishaps then assets and business are secured.

Tags: better, building, business, e-commerce, keep in mind, things, web store

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.