How to Make an Ecommerce Website: a Guide for Beginners

An ecommerce website is an online store that can open the door to a lot of opportunities to reach your potential customer and at the same time skyrocket your sales and revenue. But if you don’t have an ecommerce website and considering making an ecommerce website and don’t know how to do it or where to start then this article is for you. If you are a person with no technical or coding knowledge and also you don’t have any experience in making an ecommerce website or any other website then take a deep breath and relax. Because making an ecommerce website is easier than making a salad dressing. Now there are a lot of ecommerce solutions like Isshue with everything in one place and you only need to do is customize and design it as you want. If you don’t know how to make an ecommerce website, then stick along as we explain it in detail in the article

Why Do You Need an Ecommerce Website?

Before learning how to make an ecommerce website, you need to know the value of an ecommerce website. An ecommerce website creates a very strong online presence. And an online presence gives businesses many opportunities to reach a wide range of people and grow in a very short period of time. Other than that there are more reasons to create an ecommerce website as it brings a lot of benefits for a business. Let's look at some important reasons why you need to create an ecommerce business.

1. Online Presence

An ecommerce website is a great way of creating a strong online presence. With a strong online presence, any business can reach its potential customers. A business can gain the trust of its customers with a strong online presence. At the same time, an online presence can work like a 24/7 marketing tool. This is a big reason you should open an ecommerce website and learn how to make an ecommerce website.

2. Reach Large Audience

Startups and small businesses can reach a large audience in a very short span of time with an ecommerce website. It can be very difficult for any business to reach this much audience with only a storefront when they are new in the market. Many customers might be looking for the products you sell or the service you provide. But just because you couldn’t reach them they aren’t purchasing anything from your store. As they don’t know about your business. 

That also means you can’t make good revenue with a large number of sales and the reason is you are not reaching your customers. If you learn how to make an ecommerce website and create an ecommerce website of your own, you will be able to reach your customers and make good revenue.  

3. Unique Experience

You should learn how to make an ecommerce website and create an ecommerce website for your business to ensure that you can provide a unique experience to your customers. An ecommerce website can help you create a new way of shopping for your customers. Now customers don’t need to visit your store to purchase things. You are reaching your customers online and your customers can buy things from the very comfort of their houses or any other place they want like from school, college, university, office, restaurant, park, or even from the hospital.

4. Increase Brand Value

There are a lot of online marketplaces out there such as Amazon, Alibaba, etc where you can sell your products. But when a customer purchases something from your brand through these online marketplaces they don’t even realize they are buying from your brand. Sometimes customers don’t even care to check which brand the product belongs to. They just check the price and specifications and if they like the product they purchase it. As a result, your customers don’t recognize your brand as they don’t remember your brand but the marketplace.

An ecommerce website of your own can help you avoid all this confusion and help you create brand value. You have all the control over your ecommerce website. So you can decide how to present your products. And when your customers purchase anything from you they remember your brand. This way your brand recognition is increased as well as your brand value.

5. Marketing Tool

An ecommerce website can be a strong online presence that works as a 24/7 marketing tool. It will continue to market your business when you are fast asleep. You can use it to reach new potential customers and also do future business with your existing customers. You can use the data of customers who already purchased something from you to do remarketing. 

You can reach your customers through email and also social media. You can offer them vouchers, discounts, and many more things to make more sales and do future business with your existing customers. And you can also design presided marketing strategies to reach new potential customers when you integrate social media with your ecommerce website. An ecommerce business opens the door to many new opportunities for any business. Business owners should use these opportunities to grow their businesses.

Types of Ecommerce Platforms

Every business has different kinds of functionalities. So you should choose an ecommerce platform that fulfills your business needs and requirements. There are a lot of different categorized ecommerce platforms available. Mainly three types of ecommerce platforms are widely used. They are:

• Open Source
• SaaS
• Headless Commerce

1. Open Source

Open-source platforms are free of cost. In simple words, it is a free ecommerce platform. Anyone can install it for free from the internet. It is also customizable beyond any limit. An open-source platform allows everyone to get access to their source code without paying any cost. In simple words, anyone can create a free ecommerce website with an open-source platform. But it also creates security concerns. Anyone can attack and steal your sensitive data. That’s why you need to hire someone who can dedicatedly maintain your ecommerce website security. 

Also, you have to be a person with advanced coding knowledge or hire a person with advanced coding knowledge to use it properly. This is a big problem for those people who have no coding knowledge. They might need to pay more than a monthly subscription to customize their website and also maintain their website security.

2. SaaS

Software as a Service or SaaA is another type of ecommerce platform that provides subscription-based service. These types of solutions are user-friendly and have very advanced security. You don’t need to know any coding knowledge to use it. Also, you don’t need to hire a dedicated website security provider to maintain your ecommerce website security. Moreover, you can handle a vast majority of the logistic processes such as payment transactions, checkouts, and many more with SaaS solutions. As SaaS solutions are designed keeping ecommerce business in mind.

The only problem SaaS-based ecommerce systems have is the expensive monthly subscription fee. You need to pay monthly subscription fees, transaction fees, etc. Also, there are some premium plug-ins and you are required to pay extra costs to use those.

3. Headless Commerce

Headless commerce is a type of platform where you can create your ecommerce website at a lower cost than SaaS. Still, you can get full control over your ecommerce website without having to worry about your security. You need different frontend and backend technology such as CMS or content management service, DXP or digital experience platform, PWA or progressive web app, etc to run your website on the headless commerce platform.

How to Make an Ecommerce Website?

Nowadays making an ecommerce website is easier than ever. You will find a lot of ecommerce solutions and platforms like ecommers POS system or ecommerce shopping cart software that do all the hard work for you. Whether you want a simple ecommerce website or a dynamic one, you only need to customize it as you want with a few clicks. But first, you have to understand and then identify your business needs. 

When you finally identify your necessities then you need to do a lot of research to find the best platform or solution for your website. You should carefully and precisely measure what is offered and carefully come to the conclusion to choose the best ecommerce platform or solutions for your website. With the right ecommerce website builder, you can build a marvelous ecommerce website that will bring growth to your business shortly. Let’s look at the steps of how to make an ecommerce website so that you can create your own online store.      

1. Pick a Platform for Your Ecommerce Website

The first step in your journey of how to make an ecommerce website is picking the perfect ecommerce platform or solution for your ecommerce website. You need to make sure the platform or solution you are choosing for your ecommerce website meets all the requirements of your brand and products.

Popular Platforms for Your Ecommerce Website

The website builder you chose to create your website is the primary base or the foundation of your ecommerce website. Website builders that are designed for ecommerce are not the same as the website builder with an ecommerce add-on. For those just starting out or looking to minimize initial costs, exploring a free AI website builder designed for ecommerce could be a smart move. These builders provide the essential tools needed to grow your business effectively.

Let’s look at some website builders below which are specially designed for ecommerce businesses and give you more room to grow your ecommerce business.

1. Isshue

Isshue is a software solution specially designed for ecommerce. It has a super admin panel with multiple store management systems. You can create unlimited user accounts if your organization is big with a large team of employees. It ensures a strong online presence with a fully responsive and SEO-friendly website. It also has an online order management facility. The most amazing feature of Isshue is that it has an Ecommerce Android App. You will get multiple payment getaways like Mastercard, Param, Izipay, etc. And also multiple login systems such as Google, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. You will add some amazing addons for example an accounting module, an affiliate program, and assembly products. 

2. BigCommerce

Another popular ecommerce website builder is BigCommerce. It is a SaaS solution. But it also supports headless commerce. It has a lot of built-in features that make it extremely user-friendly. It also ensures data safety with a multi-layer security system. It has local payment methods and also 24/7 customer support. The most amazing feature of BigCommmerce is that it has a priority support feature. It allows you to provide priority customer support to your important clients.

3. Shopify

Shopify ecommerce website builder is another popular SaaS solution with a fully hosted facility. It is popular for its quick and easy setup feature. It can easily deal with traffic spikes and handle the massive amount of payment transactions every minute. It has a considerable number of plug-ins that can make the maintenance of your ecommerce website easy. These plug-ins can help you add more features to your ecommerce website and also help you provide extra facilities to your customers. But your expense can go up and down with the number of plug-ins you use.

4. Magento

Magento is an ecommerce solution that gives full freedom to personalize your ecommerce website according to your business needs and requirements. Because it is a self-hosted solution. But you need to know coding knowledge or hire someone if you want to take 100 percent advantage of it. It has a huge variety of integrations. You can handle instant checkouts and product suggestions with it.

5. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is well known for being flexible. It gives its users unlimited customization facilities. It is an open-source WordPress plugin. Anyone can install it for free. Organizations with existing ecommerce websites built on WordPress usually use it.

6. Wix

Wix is the best website builder for beginners. It is a cloud-based website builder. It has a large number of high-quality smartphone-friendly customizable themes. It has two types of editing options, first one is the standard website editor and the other one is the mobile editor. It is also an affordable ecommerce website.

2. Web Hosting for Your Ecommerce Website

Web hosting is a place where the data of your ecommerce website is stored. You should carefully choose a web hosting for your ecommerce website. As it can affect the security and expenses of your ecommerce website. There are two types of web hosting available. They are:

• Cloud-Based Web Hosting
• On-premise Web Hosting

1. Cloud-Based Web Hosting

Cloud-based web hosting or cloud hosting is a type of ecommerce site that is hosted off-site. Usually, it is offered by all types of platforms and solutions like open source, SaaS, and headless commerce solutions. But a merchant needs to maintain the security of an open-source platform where the other solutions don’t require to do the same. SaaS and headless commerce solutions manage all the updates and upgrades which are necessary for the robust security service.

2. On-Premise Web Hosting

On-premise web hosting is a type of ecommerce site that is hosted on an on-premise server owned by the business. It is suitable for large organizations. As it requires a dedicated space for the server, handling installation, a full-time expert employee, or a professional team to maintain the security of the site in order to keep the site running smoothly.

3. Domain Name For Your Ecommerce Website

Now it’s time to purchase your domain name. You can transform your domain name to your ecommerce website builder if you already have a domain name. In case you don’t have a domain name you must keep something in mind that is mentioned below.

1. Firstly you must not choose a name for your ecommerce website that has a creative spelling. Because if your domain name is very unique, your customers will easily forget about your website as it is hard to remember.
2. Chose a domain name for your ecommerce website that stands out. Avoid generic names as people will either go to a similarly named website with better SEO or forget about your website.
3. Chose a short name for your website. Because it will easily stick in your customer's mind.
4. Make sure it is simple to pronounce your ecommerce website's domain name. Since it will be simple for your customers to tell their friends about your website.
5. Always avoid numbers and hyphens as these things make it difficult for your customers to share with others.

4. Choose A Theme For Your Ecommerce Website

You need to choose a WordPress theme or template for your ecommerce website at this point. Themes or templates are pages that are already built with customizing facilities. All you need to do is personalize it according to your needs. You can customize it without any coding knowledge. You need to perfectly customized your selected theme or template for your ecommerce website so that reflects your brand accurately. Also, make sure your customers have a great experience while browsing and purchasing items.  

5. Add Products on Your Ecommerce Website

You have reached almost the final part of your ecommerce website launching. After customizing your ecommerce website theme according to your brand requirement now it's time to add products. When you add products, you also need to add some more information such as title, product description, image, etc. Make sure to follow the instructions below.

1. Write an Attractive Title

You must write a title for each and every product. Make sure the title is attractive enough to can attract the eye of the customer. But also make sure the title is not too long or not too short and also not too dramatic or unrealistic.

2. Product Descriptions

Now write the necessary details about the products which are also called product descriptions. Avoid long sentences while writing descriptions of products. But don’t skip any information about the products. Always provide enough information about each and every product so that customers can make an informed decision while purchasing. Arrange your products carefully into categories. It will help customers to find what they are looking for easily. Also, customers will be able to filter products and find what they are looking for in a short amount of time.

3. Image

You need to use eye-catching images and optimized product descriptions. Make sure to use high-quality product images and every product image must be the same in size.

6. Set Up Payment Method On Your Ecommerce Website

Choosing a trusted payment method is very important for your ecommerce website. Payment methods play a very important role in your ecommerce website. If a payment method is not trustworthy customers tend to leave their cart and not make a check out. Also if the payment method is too complicated customers tend to leave and not return. Make sure to set up a payment method that is both easy and secure to use.

7. Shipping Setup For Your Ecommerce Website

Customers want to get their products on time. Delayed product delivery or shipping can affect the reputation of your business. So you must set up your shipping settings carefully. First, select a shipping solution of weather packaging or drop shipping. Then you must mention your shipping policy on your website without hiding anything from customers especially shipping charges. Also, don’t forget to mention whether you have an international shipping facility or not.

8. Launch Your Ecommerce Website

Finally, now everything is done and now it’s time to launch your ecommerce website. Make sure you run multiple tests to ensure your ecommerce website is ready for your customers. Test your ecommerce website on various browsers, check on mobile devices, examine the store, payment processing multiple times before and after launching. Before pressing the publish button, double-check everything. Because you don’t want to drive away customers and cause time delays while you resolve the problem. Now you know how to make an ecommerce website. 

Add Necessary Content

You need to add some content to your ecommerce website so that your customers get the chance to know about your brand and business even better before they make any purchase from your ecommerce website. For a better understanding we have mentioned some information below that you must add to your ecommerce website.

A. Category Pages

Create separate category pages before adding your products to your ecommerce website. It will help you organize your products. At the same time, your customers will be able to find the products they are looking for easily.

B. About & Contact Us

You also need to create a separate page on your ecommerce website where you provide all information about your business. Also, you need to share contact information through which your customers can contact you. 

C. Refund Policy

You also need to add refund policy information on your ecommerce website. The refund policy should be clearly mentioned in a broad description without hiding anything. It will help your customers be aware of your refund policy before making any purchase from your ecommerce website. It will also help you avoid any future conflict with your customer.

D. Terms & Condition

Besides the refund policy, you also should add all the terms and conditions on your ecommerce website if you have any. And if you don’t add the terms and conditions on your ecommerce website, then customers will not be informed about them. So you can’t apply those terms and conditions to your customers. 

E. Others

Depending on the type of products you sell or the service you provide you can create some other separate page of contents that might give a better experience to your customers or better information to your customers about your business.

Conclusion

A good ecommerce website is more than simply an online storefront. It is the place where a company can create an experience that enhances its brand, attracts potential customers, and turns casual shoppers into committed advocates. According to Statista, 63 percent of online shopping visitors come from mobile phone users. So make sure your ecommerce website is user-friendly. Hopefully, this article will provide you with enough guidelines to create an ecommerce website if you don’t know how to make an ecommerce website. Choosing the correct ecommerce platform and developing a marketing plan to launch an impactful ecommerce website will keep you ahead of your rivals.