If you’ve recently established a new business that specializes in the manufacture and sale of products, your next step will be to build your own ecommerce website.
As the growth of the internet continues, more and more companies are shifting their businesses online, and there are plenty of reasons why!
For one, ecommerce offers customers the unmatched convenience of being able to shop for their favorite products from the comfort of their homes.
Not only can they research all the available options before making their decisions, but new payment methods and digital wallet technologies like Apple Pay also allow these consumers to pay for their products with a single swipe of their thumbs!
In addition, having a business website allows your store to run all year round, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Your products will be available to your customers anytime and anywhere!
Building an ecommerce website – consider these five tips
The ecommerce industry in Dubai and the rest of the world are now a $22 trillion global industry, and it’s about time your company, too, joined the World Wide Web!
To help you in this endeavor, we’ve created a step-by-step guide to building a successful and efficient ecommerce website:
1. Analyze the competition
It’s important to know what kind of competition you’re going to be facing for your products online before you begin.
Do a bit of research on the companies that you’ll be sharing the industry with, and check out their products.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is there a market for the product I’m selling?
- How is my competition doing in terms of revenues generated?
- Is a competitor offering more services than my business would be?
- What kind of quality must I maintain?
The answers to the questions above will help you figure out the viability of your business plan, and what kind of profits you can expect to see in the first few years of your operation.
2. Figure out the costs
During your research, you will have come across many products similar to yours. Did you check how they’re priced?
Pricing is one of the most important factors when starting a new business since it plays a big role in determining whether your products succeed or not. Customers don’t want to pay premium prices for products from a brand they’ve never heard of.
Figure out how much it’ll cost you to manufacture and deliver the product to your customer (including taxes, cost of materials, cost of shipping, overheads) and then add in the profit margin you wish to maintain. This will determine your final prices.
Remember: As a new business, you’ll want to minimize your profit margins to ensure that your products are priced at a competitive rate!
3. Choose a web hosting service and domain name
There are two basic types of ecommerce platforms:
- Hosted (more user-friendly)
- Self-hosted (more flexible)
Your choice will depend mainly on your technical expertise. Hosted ecommerce solutions are managed by the host’s technical staff, while the users themselves manage self-hosted.
Web hosting company will help you register your desired domain name and help you secure an SSL certificate. An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate encrypts sensitive data like credit card details and customers’ personal information, so it is necessary for all ecommerce websites.
Once you have these formalities sorted out, get in touch with one of the best web design company in Dubai to help you build the final website structure.
4. Set up a merchant account
Merchant accounts allow businesses to receive online payments from debit and credit cards. You’ll need to set up a merchant account that’s linked to your website to ensure you can actually receive the payments from your sales.
Do keep in mind that banking companies like PayPal will charge you for their services on every transaction.
5. Start Selling!
Congratulations, entrepreneur! You can now start making money off of your ecommerce website.
The only thing left to do is to market your new business aggressively and establish a customer base. Remember that the online world will get more and more competitive every year, and you’ll need to stay on top of your website’s maintenance needs if you wish to succeed.