How to Create an E-Commerce Website: A Step-by-Step Guide

Digital life has changed everything about the way we shop, work, and interact. One of the most interesting trends in recent years was the tremendous growth of e-commerce—buying and selling goods and services online. Having a well-designed and functional e-commerce site has become the key to a business’s success, regardless of its size. But the serious question is how to create an e-commerce website that’s fully functional and gets powered by the best ecommerce hosting servers, ideally.

Why You Need an E-Commerce Website

When we analyze the retail e-commerce shopping growth rates, it’s evident that there’s a high rise in online shopping and the shift to digital business. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift toward online shopping as more and more consumers increasingly resorted to the internet to satisfy their needs. 

Today, even as the impact of the pandemic subsides, businesses selling both services and products are building e-commerce websites to offer their users more convenience, accessibility, and an online marketplace.

Benefits of creating an e-commerce website

1. Your online store is always open and available to your customers 24/7. That way, you would offer them the convenience of shopping at their leisure.
2. The e-commerce website lets you reach consumers beyond the local market and can reach out to an international community as well.
3. Compared to a brick-and-mortar store, creating an e-commerce website typically incurs lower overhead costs, including rent, utilities, and staffing.
4. A good design of an e-commerce website provides an excellent and perfect experience for the customers. E-commerce platforms streamline shopping in a smooth way for your customers.
5. The collection of data and analytics aspects of e-commerce platforms helps you collect valuable data from your customers and their preferences and purchasing behavior. By analyzing this data, you’ll be able to make data-driven decisions and improve the course of marketing efforts.

Choosing the Right E-Commerce Platform While Creating an E-Commerce Website

Of course, the e-commerce platform you choose plays a major role in creating your e-commerce website. Everything from the list of products to stock to payment processing to establishing well-defined communication with your customers relies on the e-commerce platform.

Introduction to Popular E-commerce Platforms

1. WooCommerce

• Overview: WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that easily converts your website into a fully functioning online store. The system is highly customizable, allowing users to leverage the richness of content management within WordPress while adding e-commerce functionalities.

• Advantages: Its robust range of themes and plugins enables it for wide usage in various businesses. Moreover, it’s an open-source product, which means you may alter it according to your needs free of charge.
• Use Case: Great for small to medium-sized businesses already using WordPress. Moreover, WooCommerce is also beneficial for businesses in a position to create a highly customizable, easy-to-maintain application.

2. Magento

• Overview: Magento is a powerful e-commerce platform for scalability and flexibility. It comes with an out-of-the-box package of robust features, making it very suitable for larger businesses.
• Advantages: Magento can be very flexible and highly loaded with a huge product catalogue, so it is great for companies looking to grow. The community support is strong, and extensions abound.
• Use Case: Optimal fit for medium- to large businesses with resources to manage and customize the platform.

3. OpenCart

• Overview: OpenCart is free, open-source e-commerce software that will make it easier to work because it has a simple setting process and an intuitive interface to understand.
• Advantages: OpenCart has a lot of integrated features, such as payment gateways and shipping methods. OpenCart is easy to use; therefore, with its simplicity, users are able to handle their online stores without much technical knowledge. 
• Use Case: Suitable for small to medium enterprises who only need a less complicated platform that does not require much tweaking.

How to Select an E-commerce Platform

In choosing an e-commerce platform, there are a few factors that must be considered to ensure that it suits the needs of the business:

• Pricing: Be conscious of the cost of creating an e-commerce website at first. Some e-commerce platforms charge a monthly fee, while others charge transaction fees. In some cases, platforms also introduce extra charges for plugins and themes. Consider which is most feasible in comparison to different pricing models and whether it fits your budget and will provide all functionalities.
• Scalability: The platform you opt for should be scalable in terms of growth while building an e-commerce website. Determine what platforms have flexible hosting capabilities and accommodate a good volume of transactions without compromising their functionality and performance.
• Features and Integrations: Different types of platforms have built-in features, which may include payment processing, inventory management, and marketing tools. Also, consider whether you can hook third-party services such as CRM, ERP, and email marketing tools. Make a list of features that are non-negotiables for your business and determine which platforms meet those needs. Ensure that the platform will easily integrate into all the tools you expect to be using.
• User-Friendliness and Customization Options: The interface of the platform should be intuitive both for you and your customers when you create an e-commerce website. An intuitive interface helps you to make managing your store simpler; moreover, by keeping customization options, you can make the shopping experience unique. Test the interface and customization abilities of the platform.

Creating an e-commerce website With the best Domain Name and Hosting Setup

– How to select a domain name that fits your brand.

Having the right domain name gives your website the best online identity. It is one of the important initial steps undertaken while building an e-commerce website with a strong online presence. Here’s a step-by-step guide on choosing the perfect domain name according to your brand:

– Keep It Simple and Memorable

Your domain name should be easy to spell, pronounce, and remember. You should avoid the use of numbers, hyphens, and complicated words. For instance, “bestshoes.com” is much easier to remember than “best-shoes-4-you.com.”

– Use Keywords

Including the targeted keywords for your website’s domain name builds the SEO of your website. Keywords about your industry, product, or service will help users and other search engines identify what your website is all about.

– Choose a Domain That Reflects Your Brand

The domain name should be highly relevant to your business’s identity, brand, and values. If you already have a name that is branded, use it in your domain to ensure uniformity of continuity between the digital and physical spaces. 

– Choose the Correct Domain Extension

The most well-known domain extension is still “.com,” but you will also have “.net,” “.org,” “.shop,” and industry-specific domains such as “.tech” or “.store.” 

– Secure your Domain

A good domain name always remains in demand. If you get the right one, do not waste too much time and register it.

Best Hosting Services for E-commerce Websites

Setting up and learning how to build a website from scratch using HTML involves another field—the best e-commerce hosting. E-commerce websites especially require optimal support and reliable hosting. With these features by hand, you know how to make an e-commerce site that performs the best regarding speed and security as well as handles transactions and traffic spikes effectively.

Consider the following factors to decide the hosting service for your eCommerce website:

1. Uptime: Choose hosting providers that have a reliable uptime guarantee, ideally 99.9% uptime or above. 
2. Storage: The amount of storage space required will depend on the size of your website and the products you are offering. So analyze your requirements and choose a provider with the best storage.
3. E-commerce features: Start looking for features that will specifically cater to being an eCommerce website. It includes SSL certificates, shopping cart integration support, payment gateways, and more.
4. Customer support: The hosting provider must have perfect customer support to help you if technical problems arise.

Great Hosting Option For E-Commerce Websites

– MilesWeb

MilesWeb, along with the pre-designed WooCommerce hosting plan, also offers other options, including cloud hosting and VPS, making it quite flexible as an online store grows. MilesWeb has an uptime guarantee of 99.95%, provides SSL certificates for secure transactions, and provides customer support all day, round the clock. That being said, if that is not enough, MilesWeb also offers one-click installations of popular e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce and Magento. 

To enhance the platform-wise e-commerce hosting experience, MilesWeb included various e-commerce-specific plans, such as WooCommerce hosting, Prestashop hosting, Magento hosting, and more.

Creating an e-commerce website: Design & Customization

– Choosing an eCommerce-Friendly Theme or Template

E-commerce websites should be highly interactive to increase your response rates. This can be possible if you utilize the best themes and templates. Theme or template significantly differs in the user interface and functionality of your website. You should, therefore, consider the following factors when choosing the theme:

1. Responsiveness: The theme must be mobile-friendly. It’s the era of mobile devices, and most sales are made via such devices.
2. Customization: The theme should provide options for adjusting to your brand identity and preference.
3. Performance: A responsive theme optimized for speed should be chosen because of user experience.
4. Compatibility: Make sure that the theme you choose integrates well with the eCommerce platform you would have preferred and all the other plugins and extensions you need.

– Why Mobile Optimization and Page Speed Matter in Building an E-Commerce Website

It’s no secret that most of these days the success of e-commerce websites (e-shopping, browsing, and more) is carried out on a mobile device. Thus, having a website mobile-friendly is the most straightforward way to attract and retain customers. Therefore, it should be easy to navigate, quick in loading, and workable on smaller screens. 

In addition to mobile responsiveness, page speed optimizations are important as well. Slow page loading times negatively impact adversely on your search rankings. Optimize images, compress codes, and use a good host with fast WordPress hosting to speed up your page.

– Customizing Your E-commerce Website Layout and Design

The structure and design when you make an e-commerce website should be tailored to the brand persona and enhance the user experience. An organized and aesthetically beautiful website helps guide customers through the buying process.

1. Homepage: The homepage of your e-commerce website marks the first impression. Design your homepage with an impression on visitors toward your best-seller product or category. You have to use clear calls to action, high-quality images, and a great layout. 
2. Product Pages: For every product, you must have enough details, high-resolution images, customer reviews, and a call to action such as “Add to Cart”.
3. Navigation: Excellent navigation helps your visitors locate what they are searching for with minimal effort in a very short time. Use top navigation bar drop-down menus and a search bar to offer effortless navigation.

– The Role of Branding and Consistency in eCommerce Design

The general role of branding is to breed trust and recognition. A consistent look in all of your elements—colors and typography to images—solidifies your identity and really helps to bolster customer loyalty. Thus, brand identity reflects your overall design. In your online store, apply consistent colors, fonts, and even images to create a cohesive and memorable experience.

Similarly, when you are consistent, your website pages look as similar as possible with the same design elements, logo, colors, and the best typography trends. This drafts the best impression that is trusted and familiar.

Setting Up Product Listings

Setting up product listings basically involves uploading your products to your e-commerce site by categorizing them in a clear and organized manner. This way, your customers can easily navigate through your website and find what they want.

How to add and categorize products.

1. Product Information: For each product, you shall be required to provide full information about it on the page, including the product name.
2. Description of product: Emphasize the benefits that customers are going to receive from your product. Focus on product descriptions that highlight its benefits, key features, and specifications. Searing copy sells since the text has responded to the customer’s needs and has shown the value it creates.
3. Price: Study your competitor’s price so that you can standardize your price for the product.
4. Stock Keeping Unit (SKU): Proper management of the inventory will prevent problems arising from stock issues and ensure the products are available when the customer wants them.
5. Categories and subcategories: To add the products to your page, categorize the products. The categories should be made into systematic categories and their subcategories.
6. Tags: Use keywords, relevant tags, and slugs in the description of your product so that your product has an excellent, visible web presence.

Best Effective Competitive Pricing Strategies

Remember, the price of your product should be higher than the cost of creating an e-commerce website. It will ensure you gain profit margins for all your efforts. By using competitive pricing strategies, you can earn a profit and position it in the market. You can choose from the following pricing strategies: 

1. Cost-plus pricing: Add a markup percentage over your costs.
2. Value-based pricing: Price according to the value that is perceived by your product
3. Competitive pricing: Price in parity or slightly lower than the competition.

Payment Gateways and Shipping Options

Creating an eCommerce website without proper payment gateway integrations is like building a house without a door. In simple words, it is rather meaningless when you end up building a beautiful and fully functional house (an eCommerce website), but it’s not going to serve any useful purpose if no customers can enter to make a purchase (no payment gateway integrations). 

With the best payment gateways, you allow a secured path to carry out transactions on your e-commerce site. Payment gateway integration lets the user pay using credit/debit cards and other digital wallets like direct bank transfers. 

Some of the best-known payment gateways include PayPal, Stripe, Square, and others, all of which maintain encrypted payment processing, so any information you type in is completely secure.

Popular Payment Gateway

1. Paypal: Paypal is one of the widely used payment gateways, which saves time and effort for customers as it lets them pay without sharing their financial information with merchants.
2. Stripe: Stripe is the kind of payment gateway specially designed for a developer with features of flexibility and customization, thereby offering various versatile base options.
3. Authorize.NET: Authorize.NET is one of the best and strongest payment gateways, offering different solutions from credit and debit cards to e-checks.
4. Braintree: Braintree is a wholly owned subsidiary of PayPal and a full payment platform for mobile payments and recurring billing.
5. Google Pay: Another universal product in the category of mobile payments is Google Pay, popularly known as GPay, with an account that lets the customers pay from the account.
6. Apple Pay: For users who use an Apple or non-Android device, it is surely a highly secure and easy mobile payment solution.
7. Square: This is a user-friendly gateway to payments of all kinds, both offline and online. Square offers hardware as well as software solutions to answer the needs of any business.

Shipping Methods for Multiple Regions

When you create shopping websites for physical products, shipping becomes one of the core functions. Shipping for e-commerce businesses depicts how your products will reach the customer’s doorstep. 

Depending on the location of your business, you have options of either local shipping, national shipping, or international shipping. Some of the e-commerce sites also have shipping calculators that get incorporated into their e-commerce websites and calculate how much shipping actually will cost. 

To experience a streamlined shipping partner with established shipping carriers, such as FedEx, UPS, or DHL. These are known to offer safe and traceable shipping options. Use tiered shipping, free shipping, flat-rate shipping, or carrier rates updated according to the customer’s requirement or the size of the product. 

SEO and Marketing for Your e-commerce Website

SEO is quite essential in allowing your eCommerce website to rank on the search engine for organic traffic. The basic strategies include the following: 

1. Keyword Research: Identifies relevant keywords that your target audience searches for. 
2. On-Page Optimization: Optimize your product pages, category pages, and homepage with related keywords, meta descriptions, and header tags.
3. Content Marketing: It is the process of developing relevant, high-quality, and meaningful content. This may include, for example, blog posts, guides, and tutorials to attract and engage your targeted audience.
4. Technical SEO: These factors include site speed, mobile friendliness, and XML sitemaps.
5. Local SEO: In case you have a physical location or target geographically localized audiences, then you should ensure that your site is optimized for search in the local market.

– Influencer and Blogger Partnership Activation

Another useful tactic in the process of marketing is engaging with influencers and niche-based bloggers. This will reach a larger audience with the brand. Provide them with discounts or free products, or make them into affiliate members for the promotion of your product.  

– Social Media Marketing

The other vital thing in creating an e-commerce website is its effective social media marketing. This gathers a wide audience reach from various social media websites and apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. 

– Affiliate Marketing

Reaching out to your audience through the chain of affiliates is another affordable way to sell your products. Affiliates help you sell your products and return them; you provide them a commission for each sale. Thus, it not only reduces your efforts but also generates a consistent flow of sales.

– Email and Paid Ad Campaigns for eCommerce

1. Email Marketing: Build an email list with which you can send targeted campaigns that nurture leads into sales.
2. Google Ads: Effective ad copies can be at the top of search engine result pages. It has the ability to run custom ad campaigns on the Google platform.
3. Social media ad campaigns: Run paid ads on Facebook and Instagram to target audiences using a wide number of creative ad formats. Use image-centric and video ads for the Instagram platform. Now that both Instagram and Facebook are run by Meta, you can craft one ideal ad for both platforms.

Testing and Launching Your e-commerce Website

– Testing website functionality: forms, checkout, and payment processes

Being a newbie who has just learned how to create an e-commerce website, you must inspect and fine-tune every feature of your e-commerce website before launching it. 

Test all key forms, such as contact forms, account registration forms, and product inquiry forms. With a thorough form check, you ensure that all fields of the forms capture data correctly and that the submissions are processed and saved properly.

Lastly, get a thorough scan of your preferred checkout flow. When you learn how to build a shopping website, all aspects of a checkout flow. The main goal while building an e-commerce website is to provide a simple, intuitive, and fast checkout process for all your users, no matter their expertise and geographical location. 

To offer a more simplified and easier process, run test transactions through all the payment gateways you offer (PayPal, Stripe, credit card, net banking, etc.) Testing every feature right from form to inventory on all platforms ensures uniformity of the experience across the board in all ways.

– Creating a launch strategy and announcement plan

Launching an e-commerce site does not mean launching the site. A strategic launch plan helps get the whole world excited about it from day one. Your list should start with creating a checklist of all that needs to be finalized for the website, including all of the website content, images, and product details, among others. Create suspense using a countdown across all social media channels, even emailing lists, with sneak peeks or counting up to the launch date.

Make sure that your launch announcement explicitly states what benefits are available on your e-commerce site, along with introductory offers and how to shop online. Strive to target various marketing channels with advertising through social media sites, Google Ads, and email campaigns as well.