There are many benefits and reasons for considering e-commerce website creation nowadays considering the rapid growth of ecommerce with over $4.28 trillion e-ecommerce sales recorded in 2020.
Why You Should Consider ECommerce Website Creation
For businesses in retail, ecommerce website creation is a great way to establish global market reach as more than 2.64 billion online buyers in 2023 alone. The other reason for going cyber is the factor of consumer preference. Consumers are increasingly preferring the convenient option of shopping online.
The growth of Shopify as an ecommerce platform to over 25% market share globally is telling and indicative of the upward trajectory of the ecommerce trend. Ecommerce also creates a myriad of business opportunities particularly for new entrants without hefty budgets to start brick and mortar shops.
Ecommerce Stats
This post focuses on the meat and bones of ecommerce website creation. We look at the three approaches outlined below:
1) Firstly we define the code enthusiast approach (for a more technical perspective on technologies and approaches involved in creating an ecommerce website 2) We then explain the open source approach which involves deploying existing open source ecommerce solutions and customising these to suit you unique business needs, 3) lastly we dwell much more on the ecommerce platform solution to ecommerce website creation. For this we spend more attention on Shopify as the best platform for ecommerce website creation.
Comparative Analysis of E-commerce Development Approaches
(Shopify vs. Building from Scratch vs. Open Source Solutions)
Aspect | Building from Scratch | Open Source Ecommerce Solutions | |
|---|---|---|---|
Ease of Setup | Quick and easy, intuitive website creator with user-friendly interfaces. | Technical work require coding and design skill – is complex and can be overwhelming | Complexity of setup varies per platform and your technical skills |
Customization | High customizability, vast market places for themes, apps and plugins | Flexibility for complete customization but requires technical skills | Extensions and plugins available but may require coding |
Development Time | Reduces lead time in setting up a digital store. Can set up a professional store in minutes. | Time consuming | Development turnaround time varies per solutions and customisations required. |
Security and Updates | Offers security mechanisms and automatic updates | You have to implement security measures and updates | Support for security updates not always officially available |
Support and Community | 24/7 customer support, (live chat, email, telephone) comprehensive documentation, and a large community of users | Hardly any community support except for technologies used if they have their own support communities | Although limited, Community-driven support and resources are normally available |
Scalability | Scalable and suited for both small and big businesses | Requires a lot of work to build for scalability | Limited scalability for big enterprises |
Costs | Flexible subscription based pricing predictable cost | Widely varying development, hosting and maintenance costs | Free solution, costs only associated with hosting and maintenance |
Third-Party Apps and Plugins | Extensive app marketplace for extending functions, look and feel | Additional features must be developed | Relies on third-party apps, addons, extensions and plugins |
SEO Features | Built-in Digital marketing SEO features and integrations. | SEO optimization must be implemented in the development. Additional plugins can be used | SEO features vary per open-source platform |
Mobile Responsiveness | Free and paid themes are mobile-responsive for a seamless mobile shopping end user experience. | Mobile responsiveness must be implemented at development | Mobile friendliness depends on the template. Custom development may be required |
Ongoing Maintenance | Regular maintenance and automated updates | Maintenance on ongoing basis and requires constant monitoring and updates | Varies based on chosen platform, themes, extensions and plugins |
Time-to-Market | Swift time-to-market, you can literally have a professional site up in minutes | Time-to-market take longer due the cumbersome development curve | Time-to-market varies per platform – based on nature and scope of customization |
Ownership and Licensing | Shopify‘s terms and conditions apply however you get everything you need to succeed | Full ownership of the solution. Licensing may apply to certain open source extensions and integrations | Ownership and licensing vary from platform to platform |
1. The Code Enthusiast’s Approach
If you are a coding aficionado and tech savvy, e-commerce is an exciting turf to explore from an application development point of view.
The approach involves planning your solution and crafting a project outline that defines how the technological solution will satisfy the needs of the ecommerce business model.
You then need to design mock-ups for your solution and define the scope of the front end (layout and user interface) and the scope of the back end functions for inventory management, inventory control, payment processing, customer data management, etc.
Development includes building all the blocks for the back and front end. For the front end you will work a lot with html (HyperText Mark Language), CSS (cascading style sheets) and JS (JavaScript).
You can consider leveraging JavaScript frameworks such as react, view and angular for the front end. For the backend you can consider server side languages such as PHP, (Laravel), Python, Node.js etc.
This approach also involves, developing ecommerce functionality (frontend and backend), testing, securing your ecommerce website as well layering security measures for transactions.
Disadvantages of Creating Your Own Ecommerce Website from Scratch
While this approach gives you full control over your ecommerce solution, the challenge with this approach is that building an ecommerce store is a complex and time consuming exercise.
A lot of coding and testing goes into the work. This approach also comes with security risks, consistent maintenance and updates and may not have robust features that well–built ecommerce website creation platforms have.
You will also need to deal with the question of scalability, challenges with lack of community support, etc.
2. The Open Source Odyssey
This approach is one of the common approaches especially for brands looking for a solid ecommerce that they can expand in the aspects of functions and capabilities.
Some common opne source ecommerce solution here are:
- WooCommerce
- Magento
- OpenCart
- PrestaShop
- osCommerce
- Zen Cart
- Spree Commerce
- Drupal Commerce
These solutions can be integrated seamlessly with an existing website. These solutions are also supported by market places of apps, plugins, extensions and integrations to suit a business’ unique requirements.
The advantage with these lies with harnessing the benefits of a community driven ecommerce ecosystem
Disadvantages of Open Source eCommerce Website Creation
While open source ecommerce solutions can be a cost friendly approach to leveraging a robust ecommerce solution, this approach has its limitations. Open source ecommerce platforms can be complex and overwhelming for beginners.
These also come with hefty development and maintenance costs especially where heavy customisations have been implemented. Also, open source solutions do not always have official support.
These solutions are publicly accessible and as such they can be susceptible to security risks. Open source solutions may also present compatibility issues and also have limited out of the box features.
If you decide to go this route, consider the implications of dependency on community extensions, scalability challenges, steep learning curve for beginners, potential for bloat as well as limited ownerships and control.
3. The Shopify Solution
Of all the three options, the Shopify solution presents one of the simplest ways of creating a solid ecommerce website and bringing your ecommerce dreams into reality.
With the Shopify approach you pretty much have major technical aspects of your ecommerce enterprise taken off your hands.
The platform has a solid and user friendly – drag and drop ecommerce website creation platform that makes it easy to create stunning front stores within minutes.
Shopify is a preferred option by retailers that want a straightforward and yet robust technology to set up shop online and simply focus on inventory management, marketing and customer experience without being bogged down by the technical aspects of running an efficient, customer friendly and secure online store.
Getting Started with Shopify
Whether you are a rock star or a newbie in ecommerce, the following section will guide you through the benefits of setting up an online shop on Shopify. The section will outline steps to engage the platform and get started with the platform.
Defining Your Ecommerce Goals
Before you settle for Shopify as an ecommerce platform you need to define what your ecommerce goals and objectives are. What are your ecommerce goals and objectives? Why are you taking your products or services online?
Are you trying to increase sales in an existing offline business? Are you trying to expand your customer base or perhaps you are trying to enhance your brand’s online presence?
These different objectives have different implications for the choice of your ecommerce approach, platform and to the ecommerce business model. And often, all three go hand in glove. So, read on.
Increasing Sales: If your ecommerce objective is to increase sales you need to settle for a platform like Shopify that enables you to optimize product listings for search engines (SEO).
The platform also enables you to optimise the checkout process as well as to implement cross selling and up selling techniques to up your sales. The platform also enables you to run targeted marketing campaigns that will increase your sales.
Expanding Your Customer Base: If your commerce objective is to expand your customer base you need to invest in a well crafted digital market strategy.
eCommerce is: essentially, selling stuff online and for an ecommerce business model to be successful, a solid omni-channel digital marketing strategy is necessary.
Set aside a budget for strategies such as social media advertising, pay per click advertising and strategic influencer collaborations.
Omni-channel is not necessarily about running campaigns on all platforms: it’s about identifying the types of campaigns and platforms that give you the best results and focusing more on those.
Enhancing Your Brand’s Online Presence: For some entrepreneurs, the central objective of going online is to enhance their brand‘s presence. In this case considerations must be made for ecommerce creation websites such Shopify and WooCommerce that have content marketing and SEO capabilities.
Shopify has content marketing capabilities through various apps (such as Bloggle, a powerful drag and drop blog builder ). The platform also provides SEO capabilities.
You can leverage such features to build content that generates traction and helps you build a lucrative community around your brand while keeping your existing customers engaged.
Shopify Templates
Shopify has a vast collection of free and paid templates. Shopify premium templates can range between $60 and $400. For most niches and product types, high end free Shopify ecommerce templates like Dawn can get the job done. Shopify templates also allow for high customisations.
This, coupled with a vast collection of plugins and extensions that can be used to extend the functions, look and feel of your online store, contributes to the reasons why Shopify is the leading ecommerce platform globally.
Having chosen your Shopify theme, the next step is to customize the theme according to branding colours and aesthetics. Add a professional logo, if you do not have one, you can cross over to Fiverr and get a professional designed logo for as low as $5.
Connecting your Shopify Store with a domain name
While Shopify will enable you to publish your store on Shopify’s subdomain, this is not great for branding. Your customers will want to connect with your brand and to know that they are engaging with your specific brand.
It is important to register a custom domain that you can connect to your Shopify store. You can register your domain within Shopify or you can use external domain registrars and hosts like Bluehost.
Remember that your domain name must be short, memorable and brandable.
Adding Products Listings on Shopify
The next crucial step is to add product listings to your Shopify store. It’s better to plan your entire catalogue and inventory outside Shopify on your computer so that when you get to this part you have a clearly defined outlay of products and product categories to follow.
You want to make sure that your online store has an easily navigable and searchable catalogue.
Product Titles: Make use of short, concise and yet descriptive product titles. Avoid misrepresenting facts about the products and try your best to be as accurate as possible.
Product Descriptions: Write informative and accurate product descriptions that satisfy a potential customer’s questions and expectations upfront.
Product Images: Make use of high resolution images that represent the true color of your products and do not mislead your customers. You need to invest in professional photography for the best images especially if you’re dealing in physical products.
Remember to make use of Shopify’s SEO capabilities. These allow you to optimize product titles, meta tags and use keywords in your product descriptions to enhance the visibility of your products on search engines.
Payment and Shipping Setup with Shopify
So: you don’t have an ecommerce store if your customers can’t pay for products online. To get this up you need to configure online payment gateways in your online shop.
The critical consideration to make when setting up online payment is to go for options that will satisfy the needs of your customers. Settle for a generous range of payment options to cater to digital wallets, credit and debit cards.
The good part with Shopify is that the platform has over a 100 payment gateway options including Shopify’s own Shopify Payments.
Setting up Shipping on Shopify
Within your Shopify online store admin you can set up shipping methods, regions, rates and shipping policies. The platform also enables you to set up shipping zones to differentiate rates for different regions and countries.
The good news here is that Shopify also integrates with several major carriers and shipping brands. Alos, Shopify simplifies the process of calculating shipping costs as well as generating shipping labels.
Test and Launch
Once you have set up all your products and configured shipping for your online store, it’s time to launch your store. Before you launch your store you need to ensure that everything is on point. Below is a Shopify online store checklist that you can use in preparing to launch your store.
Shopify Online Store Pre Launch Checklist
- Double-check all your product listings, images, descriptions and prices
- Test the shopping cart and online payment processing
- Verify that all links on your front store are functional and do lead to expected pages/endpoints
- Confirm that your online store loads fast and seamlessly across desktop, tablets and phones
- Ensure that your store pages are search engine optimised (SEO)
- Review your shipping regions, rates as well as return policies for accuracy and transparency
- Check for any security issues or vulnerabilities.
Once you have done all these checks and you’re satisfied 100%, it’s time to make your online store live and start creating a buzz around it.
Final Thoughts
Remember setting up a store is just the beginning. What should kick in now is your omni-channel marketing strategy. Ideally, your marketing strategy should include a launch strategy and campaign.
As your business starts getting traction, pay close attention to inventory management, make use of Shopify intuitive inventory management tools and alerts to avoid dead stock and over stocking. Marketing is key for growing and scaling your business. Customer service is also non-negotiable if you want to succeed in ecommerce (in any business for that matter).
So, building a blossoming e-commerce website is now within your grasp, thanks to the powerful tools and features that Shopify offers.
Wishing you all the best in your ecommerce venture!
