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Are you planning to move your offline business to the online platform? If that is the case, then you should know some basics. Business recognition and reputation are all we care about, right! If your business is going well offline, then taking it to the online platform is no harder than flying a rocket.
The biggest challenge while taking your offline business online is building a strong online presence. But it doesn't mean you have to move your offline business completely. The online platform only expands your business's wide range and increases your reach to get more potential customers.
As this digital era is growing too fast, taking your business on an online platform is a smart move. As I mentioned, moving your business online will take time and many resources. Switching from offline to online retail business is not always a simple process. Things that work offline may not work online, so you'll need to adopt new strategies to retain your existing customers and attract new ones. As you think about making this switch, ask yourself if you have the skills to follow through with it. Will you be able to turn your offline experience into online business success?
With the help of live commerce and interactive tools, you can increase sales and provide more efficient customer support. A proper plan and resources successfully bring your business into a whole new realm of online marketing. That's why we have created this guide, which includes 12 steps and will help you successfully set up your business online.
So, if you have decided to make your presence online also, the first step is to set up a server for your online website. A server is the backbone of your online business platform. So it's necessary to choose the best server that allows you to manage your service very easily. The best option is to go for a dedicated server that will contain only the functions you want.
A perfectly set up server supercharged your e-commerce website. To make it easier for you, I have mentioned these 4 fundamentals when choosing a server:
Setting up a server for an e-commerce website is a one-time thing, so as a business owner, you need to consider all the pros and cons and choose your server wisely.
After choosing the best server, it's time to find a unique and suitable domain for your new e-commerce website that will also show your brand value in the online market. If you don't know, let me brief you about the domain and where to buy the website domain? -
So, a domain is an online business name of your website. When you register for a new website, it asks you to add a domain to your website. Buying a domain name for your website depends on you. Some important factors qualify your domain name, and some best domain providers' names are mentioned below.
Choosing the right domain register saves you from any future problems. Domains help you protect your brand name and make it easier to move your website to a new host or service provider.
Here are the top trusted domain registrars to buy your domain name.
Are domains costly?
All of them are not; it all depends on which domain you are buying. For example, normal domains' costs can be between $15 to $25 per year, but the premium domains are expensive; their cost depends on the domain services they provide.
Cloud hosting is a storage platform where all your website data is stored. Choosing the best cloud hosting offers some amazing features that are beneficial for your eCommerce websites, such as:
These services make cloud hosting a completely reliable solution for your website hosting.
We have covered all three starting packages- setting up a server, buying a domain, and cloud hosting. Now choosing the best eCommerce framework or platform is another great deal while developing your online eCommerce store. The framework is on which your website will be built. And speaking of the best e-commerce framework, we recommend you to go with SaaS eCommerce Framework, which is far better than any other eCommerce platform.
Saas framework is one of the best software for building eCommerce stores. Its feature-rich functionality and easy-to-manage feature provide reliability and performance-boosting for e-commerce websites. Let's discuss its pros and cons that will clear your mind about why choose the SaaS framework.
Pros:
Cons:
Your website presentation is a crucial part when showing it to the world. As it has been said, your first impression is your last impression. Your ecommerce has the best server, domain, and cloud storage, but failing to deliver an immense design website will bring your reputation down. Therefore, put your time into designing your website that showcases your products and information and provides a complete ecommerce website package.
Contact us if you want someone to design your ecommerce website with all advanced and outstanding feature-riched functionality. We are proficient in developing such solutions for ecommerce businesses.
But if you are planning to do it yourself, then below, we have mentioned some key factors that you should consider while designing your website:
Integrating such features and designs can easily make you flawless in taking your business online. However, building such things can cost you too much, so for a start, not adding unnecessarily unwanted features and designs will cost you less and make your website way more responsive. If you need help in developing your whole e-commerce platform then you can also approach an ecommerce app development company that can build your website in no time.
A POS system is a digital solution allowing orders and transactions in various channels. When configuring a POS system, it's important to look at some important factors of the POS system,
Integrate multiple payment gateways that make users' shopping experience even more seamless. Behind every successful ecommerce website, payment gateways always play a big role, among other functions. Therefore, integrating popular payment methods in your ecommerce store is so crucial. These online markets can provide many payment gateway solutions for your ecommerce store; if you don't want to use those services, you can build a payment gateway on your own.
Registration: Register your payment gateway service for providing authorization to make payments flaw legal on your ecommerce store.
Contracting with banks: To have a payment processor, you must deal with different banks. They offer you miscellaneous charges for transactions and international transfers.
API development: You need an API for your gateway. At this stage, you'll also have to deal with any documentation.
PCI DSS Support: To secure your payment gateways from fraud on your ecommerce store.
Management tool development: For managing payment, You will need an admin panel to control transaction operations easily.
Add more payment methods: Integrate various payment methods such as PayPal, Bitcoin, or mobile wallets (such as Apple Pay) with the help of your API.
Including multiple payment gateways reduces the cart abandonment rate of any online website. As a seller, it becomes your responsibility to analyze the payment patterns of your target audience thoroughly. Based on that, you should include every possible payment gateway, so no customer is missed.
Create accounts with major transportations, and offer a consistent shipping fee or let your customers estimate shipping when they purchase a product from you. Simplifying the checkout shopping rates by calculating it for domestic and international shipments. To become a successful online seller, you must have the right shipping and delivery services.
Selling your product only through your ecommerce website is not enough to increase your reach and target a wide range of users across all platforms, including mobile users. 10 out of 6 users shop using their mobile phones because it saves time. Using PWA technology, you can build your ecommerce mobile app the same as an ecommerce website.
The most important thing to consider is proper licensing for your ecommerce business. No separate licenses are required for your website store; just a few things to check out first, such as renewing your licenses and any other documentation to eliminate future issues.
Licenses may not give too much difficulty, but with tax compliances, you must understand how these things work. To make taxation eligible for your ecommerce online store transactions via IRS, you need to apply for an Employee Identification number that should be unique. After doing this, you can also start collecting sales tax and value-added tax for the sale of goods and services.
Have you almost finished building your website, right? Are you not forgetting something? Let me answer- adding content to your website. Okay, you already read the heading; that's why you know. If you know about content, you must know the power and what content can do for you.
Online business is almost 35-60 percent about content. Therefore, writing good quality content about your services and products can briefly give clear and better information. Add informative information so your users can also understand your business and you. You must know that in the online era, content is king, and you can get high traffic through it.
And last but not least, marketing your new ecommerce website. Once you have done everything right, from setting up your website server to approving licensing and adding content, you have to advertise your online store. Now I must be thinking, why do you need marketing and SEO planning for your website? If you already have offline business going well, and everybody knows you, then why?
In the offline business, you are running only local people or regular customers who know about you. Still, with the power of the online platform, you can get many benefits, such as increasing traffic which means more customers, higher-level recognition, wide visibility, and much more.
But offline marketing business is different from marketing your online ecommerce website. Your online platform needs many marketing strategies, and to get a higher ranking for your website, you need to do SEO integration.
Either you can do it yourself or hire a professional digital marketing company to do it for you; the choice is yours. You can easily double your revenue by implementing SEO strategies and advertising your new ecommerce store.
You may have understood how you can benefit your offline business or even more just by taking it on an online platform. We hope that these 12 step-by-step guides to successfully taking your offline business online can help you reach your potential targets and increase your traffic even more. One can take any offline business online, but you need to work hard for a successful launch.
If you have any further doubts regarding these steps to take your offline business online, we can help you. Contact us to build your first ever ecommerce website that completes your set goals. We are a trusted brand that helps all types of businesses to move their business online successfully in no time.
DC Kumawat is the CEO of Orion InfoSolutions, a leading provider of IT solutions to businesses of all sizes. He has over 14+ years of experience in the IT industry. He is a passionate advocate for the use of technology to improve business performance.