Four Steps to Set-Up an Online Shop

The Basic Fist Steps – Website & Marketing

To have an online shop, you obviously need to have a website. If you do not have one already, the three main components that you need are a domain name (i.e. www.myonlineshop.ie), a hosting server (such as a dedicated or cloud based server – discuss the best options for your business with your website designers) and a fully interactive and responsive website itself serves as the last component. With your website in place and live online, you need a marketing strategy to promote it and let people know that it exists so they can purchase from it. Put time into your strategy here by making sure to identify your target audience and reach them accordingly.

The Logistical Steps – Payment and Shipping Methods

When dealing with customer details such as credit and debit card numbers, security is obviously of great importance here. As such, you need to register for an SSL certificate as this will encrypt (safeguard) the sensitive customer details that pass through your website. After a customer has purchased an item, how this item reaches them is a factor that is not to be overlooked. Will shipping be free or will you charge a flat fee? Maybe you will charge in terms of the quantity and weights of the items being shipped? Take into account foreign currencies and lead times and implement a fully considered shipping and delivery policy.

The Capturing Steps – E-Mail Addresses and Analytics

While your online shop may be your main focus, in order to sustain it and keep it thriving it is necessary to capture information in relation to it. Make it so that when customers enter their e-mail address as part of creating an account or having an e-receipt sent to them that these addresses are added to your mailing list. With this, you can build up a list to send offers to when you are running a sale or promotion etc. on your online shop. In the same vein of capturing information, Google Analytics is your friend here to show you what are the popular parts of your website. It will also show you how people are coming to your website (landing pages) and how long they stay there and where they go before they leave or bounce. Use this information to better and constantly improve your online shop by identifying the stronger and weaker areas of it.

The Content Step – Refresh and Reword

Like a normal website, an online shop benefits from having fresh content added to it. By updating images, text and video content etc., not only does Google recognise this as an active site worth directing traffic to; but visitors and users of your website can identify your online shop as an attentive and looked after safe space to shop.