Buying or selling today is no longer required to move and go to the store or to a seller or a supplier.In just a few clicks, and without even leaving your sofa, you can sell or get almost everything you want.
If buying has become very simple, sell on the other hand is not so easy and if you wish to make e-commerce a solid source of income you will have to acquire a lot of technical knowledge.We present in this article the essential steps to properly start your project.Creating your own e-commerce site seems simple in theory, many tools being even if in practice the task is quite complex and often requires real expertise if you target a professional quality site.
Make a model
For the creation of your e-commerce site, it is essential to start with a model of your site, which you can do on paper, PowerPoint, or with one of the many software of "mock up" and "wireframe" freeAvailable on the web.
Create a logo and define a graphic charter
The next step is to define a graphic charter.This work can be relatively long, but we advise you first to focus on a logo, typography and color code, that is to say here mainly a background color and a color of links.
Define the structure of your e-commerce
Once these first 2 steps are completed, it is important to define the different categories of products that you sell on your site.Simple at first, with wide categories that you can refine later if necessary with subcategories.
Plan a blog game
Once your site is online and operational, you will have to find ways to bring potential customers there.There are many complementary channels allowing this: paid advertising, social networks or what is called natural referencing.
According to a statistical study carried out in 2020 by Backlink, Google records nearly 7 billion research per day worldwide, in other words it is possible to rely on this channel to make your product sales.
This is why it is advisable to provide a blog section, which will be fueled by editorial articles directly related to your activity.These articles will be written in order to help search engines to better understand the themes of your site, but will also aim to drain visitors who ask questions with regard to products that you sell, beforebuy them online.
We will not come into detail in this article in the process of selecting products for sale and research of suppliers, it is indeed a very complex subject, and also one of the main keys to the success of your store.Nevertheless we can already give you simple advice: at first, sell a reduced number of references, original and if possible exclusive.
Indeed you will have to concentrate your efforts on the highlighting of these first products, so as much as not to disperse on this subject, you will already have a lot to manage.
In addition, with a reduced number of references, if you encounter problems, we think in particular of defective or insufficient quality products or delivery problems, they will not be multiplied from the start by your number of references.
So far you have not yet entered the technical part of creating your e-commerce.As we explained to you in the introduction there are a multitude of tools to create e-commerce sites.To name only the most popular you can for example turn to Shopify, WooCommerce or Prestashop.
If you are a beginner, or you want to quickly launch a site to test this activity without having a huge budget and very established plans, we advise you to create the first version of your site on Shopify, this solution is very simple to take inhand and the monthly subscription costs around 30 euros.If you start to make a lot of sales, you can in a second step migrate to another solution, because each sale and the addition of each module punctuates a commission in percentage on your sales, which can end your margin in the long term.
Finally, in terms of payment method, it must be simple, reliable and secure.The vast majority of e-commerce site creation platforms offer compatible modules with Stripe and Paypal, these 2 solutions being reliable and efficient.Stripe notably allows you to manage purchases by credit card.For more details on this subject, we refer you to the blog joptimisite.
You have understood, creating your first e-commerce site will not be easy and will require a lot of work.If you run out of time or have a sufficient start budget, do not hesitate to call on a web agency or even freelance to accompany you or even to completely manage the start of this project.
For a few thousand euros, these providers will be able to help you start, and you can focus on the most important part to sell.In addition, benefiting from expert advice will certainly allow you to save time and money in the long term, and effectively manage your site from the start.