ADVICE: Building your first Ecommerce store – What you need to know

1. Domain name

Previously it was good practice to choose a domain name which included lots of keywords e.g. BirminghamGoldJewellerySpecialist.co.uk. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) experts now think choosing a more memorable brand name is a better approach. Check availability at https://www.heartinternet.uk/domain-names 

British businesses wishing to attract domestic customers should use a ‘.co.uk’ or a ‘.uk’ domain name, but you may have to go for another suffix to get the name you want. To sell globally, a US ‘.com’ web address has wider international awareness.

2. Software

Ecommerce software allows customers to place orders on your website. There are three choices available:

Open source ecommerce software: Purchase web hosting, then install and configure the free shopping cart software yourself, or hire a web developer.

• Pros: Free software, highly flexible for bespoke requirements, lots of feature add-ons

• Cons: No support, ongoing cost of ownership for maintenance, web developer involvement likely

Hosted shopping cart software: Use an online shop plugin/addon on an existing basic website, blog or Facebook business page that doesn’t require any coding skills.

• Pros: Low cost, support available, automatic software updates

• Cons: Less flexible for bespoke requirements

Hosted ecommerce platform: This option provides the complete website hosting and online store solution in one.

• Pros: Fully supported, lots of features and add-ons, automatic software updates

• Cons: Expensive with some providers taking additional per-transaction fees in addition to payment provider fees

3. Online payments

The shopping cart solution connects to a third party payment processor so customers can pay for their order securely, e.g. WorldPay, Sage Pay.

You need a merchant account which is a special ecommerce banking facility for receiving online payments and is separate from your business bank account. You pay a monthly service charge and a per-transaction fee.

PayPal is a popular online payment processing solution which bundles the payment gateway and merchant account together. The standard PayPal business account has no monthly service charge but you’ll pay a higher per-transaction fee of 3.4% plus 20p instead.

4. Growing visitors

Be prepared for the long haul; allow two years to grow regular visitors to your website and social media accounts.

Promote your website and social media in all your offline advertising. Try online paid advertising on Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads for an immediate visitor boost. But make sure you’ve got something special on offer when they arrive, otherwise you’ll get little return on investment.

Finally

Do your research and don’t rush, otherwise you could end up spending way more than you need to start selling online.

Simon Horton is the founder of ShopIntegrator, a hosted ecommerce plugin that makes it easy for anybody to add an online store onto their existing website without any coding skills.