Important Considerations Before Launching Your Online Store

Whether you’re an established brick-and-mortar company looking to expand into e-commerce or an aspiring entrepreneur ready to take the leap into business ownership, launching an online store can be a great way to sell your products and services directly to customers without having to invest in inventory, storage space, and other physical assets. As you begin exploring your options for launching an online store as a seller, you will want to consider some essential points related to ensuring success with this venture.

Depending on your unique circumstances and resources, some of these considerations may have a more significant impact than others. However, at the same time, they all serve as important factors that should not be ignored when determining whether this is the right time for your company to launch an online store and what steps must be taken in order to do so successfully.

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In this blog post we will discuss 5 important considerations before launching your own e-commerce store:

Determining the Right Online Store Platform for Your Needs

One of the first and most critical decisions you will make when launching your online store is which e-commerce platform will be used to host your site. Essentially, an e-commerce platform is a website on which retailers can create an online store through which customers can transact purchases and which serves as the technological backbone for the entire e-commerce operation. There are numerous e-commerce platforms available on the market today, and each has its own set of features and functionalities that may make it a better choice for your specific needs compared to others. You will want to consider a number of factors when choosing the right e-commerce platform for your online store.

For example, you will need to think about the size of your business and product catalog, the average order value, your customers’ preferred payment methods, and your desired level of flexibility when managing the online store.

Ensuring a Quality User Experience

Once you have chosen an e-commerce platform to host your online store, the next step is to ensure that its design and user experience are geared towards providing a quality experience for your customers. Successful e-commerce stores provide customers with an enjoyable and easy experience that encourages them to come back for more purchases in the future. Despite your best efforts to make sure that your e-commerce platform is equipped with the right design and user experience features to meet your desired level of quality for the site, you may discover that there are areas that still need improvement. In such cases, you can consider working with a digital design/development agency to help you improve the design and user experience of your online store before it goes live.

This can be a particularly important consideration if you are planning to use an e-commerce platform that is not provided by your current website hosting/software solution. In such cases, it is especially important to identify the right partner to help you customize the design and user experience for your online store.

Knowing Your Audience

The e-commerce platform that you select for your online store and the design/user experience that it provides are, to some extent, dictated by your intended audience. For example, if your target customers are younger individuals who are relatively new to purchasing products online, you may want to consider a design that is guided by simplicity and ease-of-use. On the other hand, if the majority of your customers are individuals who are very familiar with online shopping, you may want to consider a design that is geared towards filtering out the unnecessary and enhancing the overall experience through increased functionality.

Once you have a better sense of the profile of your customers and their preferred experience with your online store, you will want to also consider how you will attract new customers and encourage them to become loyal repeat customers. While it may be tempting to spend all your time and energy on improving the user experience for your current customers, doing so without investing in marketing strategies that target new customers can result in a major missed opportunity for growth.

Timing and Marketing Strategy

Before launching your online store, it may be helpful to conduct some market research to get a sense of how your target customers are currently shopping and what factors are driving their decisions. This can help you identify any major shifts or trends in the market that you want to be prepared to address quickly through your marketing strategy.

Rather than launching your online store with a set shopping calendar (for example, “our online store will open on Black Friday”), you may want to consider launching your online store when you have a greater level of certainty about how your customers are shopping and how your marketing strategy will address those trends. With that said, you also want to factor in the timing of other important events in your business plan, such as the timing of your product launches, the amount of time it will take to get your new online store up and running, and any external pressures that may be impacting your planned launch date (for example, a significant increase in online shopping during the holiday shopping season).

Affirming your business’s value proposition

When launching your online store, it can be helpful to begin by clearly identifying and reaffirming your value proposition. As we discussed in detail in this blog post, your value proposition is essentially a promise to customers about the benefits they will receive from purchasing products through your online store. This can include promises related to the ease of shopping on your site, the level of customer service you will provide, and/or the value of the products that you sell.

Once you have clearly identified and reaffirmed your value proposition, one of the next steps is to make it visible on your online store through the site’s overall design and marketing copy on product pages. Doing so will help you begin to win over customers who come to your site and may be on the fence about purchasing products from your online store.

Final Words

Launching an online store can be an exciting and challenging journey for any business owner. Fortunately, you can benefit from the insights gained by other merchants who have gone before you. To help you get started on the right foot, we have provided you with a quick recap of 5 important considerations before launching your own e-commerce store. These include determining the right online store platform for your needs, ensuring a quality user experience, knowing your audience, timing and marketing strategy, and affirming your business’s value proposition.

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