How to setup a successful eCommerce store?

Before we proceed further, there must be some compelling reasons that you feel that eCommerce stores is indeed important for your business.

Here, we will list some apparent reasons why more retailers are joining the online revolution:

a) Low setup cost - Normally its only less than SGD5k to set up a full fledged store.
b) No rental fee – Unlike an offline store, you may manage the entire online store on your own with little recurring yearly cost like domain name and hosting charges. There is very little maintenance and many operations can be highly automated.
c) No boundary - With an online store, you can reach anyone in the world with an internet connection. The market potential is really unimaginable.
e) 24/7 operation and support - Your customer can shop at any time of the day/night, while you may be sleeping. Also, you may also provide round the clock support by email.
f) Reduced marketing cost - More customers are actively searching for products online, especially IT products. With a good exposure online, you can cut down the cost of advertisement which you may have spent on other media.
g) Customer data collection and storage - A main benefit of eCommerce store is that it allows you to collect and store valuable customer information such as gender, age, purchase information. These data can greatly help you to improve your store performance.

1st step: Choose a domain name and hosting solution
This step has been discussed quite a number of times in previous articles. Here, you may want to take note that eCommerce stores may take up more storage space than normal sites with little product pictures. Normally, 200MB ~ 500MB will be sufficient for your online store.

2nd Step: Determine your store design and functionality
There are major issues which you need to consider before the initial setup:
a) Do you intend to retail locally or internationally?
b) Are you retailing a single product, few products or more than 50 products?
c) Do you want to include features like gift vouchers / membership discount / related products and other functionalities?
d) How do you want to charge on shipping?
e) What kind of payment system do you intend to use? eNets, Paypal, Worldpay?
f) Do you want to have multilingual feature?
g) Virtual or physical products

The cost of your store will depend on functionality and site mass. If you can clearly identify all the features that you want, it can really reduce the confusion that you may later encounter.

3rd Step: Choosing the right shopping cart software application
If your store is going to be a comprehensive one with more than 10 categories and 50 products that you are going to display, you probably need to spend a couple of thousands on the setup. On the other hand, you may launch a store with a single item with less than SGD2k. Popular free software for eCommerce includes Oscommerce, Zencart etc. If you do not have web design/development knowledge, we advise you to engage a web services company actually. By doing this, you can concentrate fully on your business.

4th Step: Launching your store
So now that the store is nicely designed, you may think that customers will flood in to buy what you are selling. But that’s not true. In fact, your store will only sit there and the only people who know that it exists will be your designer and you. After your store development, YOU NEED TO AGRESSIVELY PROMOTE YOUR WEBSITE. First, you will need to submit your site to the search engines and web directories. This is the most basic and essential way to market your store online.

5th Step: Constant upgrading
Once your store has gained some popularity online, you may need to constantly add in new features to enhance your store performance. Sending out newsletters to your customers is a very cost effective way to maintain your relationship with your customers. While there is very little maintenance needed for online store, you may spend more time to throw in promotions, especially during festive seasons. In the online world, there is no boundary to market potential. So, it is really possible for your store to tap 1000 times more customers than when it was first launched.