10 Must Dos BEFORE Building an eStore

So you’ve decided to open an eStore. Maybe you already have a static HTML site that has been out there and you want to add eCommerce or you have a nifty idea you think you can turn into a profitable online endeavor. Congratulations! Now, don’t make the mistake of not having the basics prepared and planned for before you get a developer or consultant involved or sign up for an eStore or Shopping Cart application.

Some of these issues may seem like common sense, but the truth be told, I get inquiries every single day from those contemplating a new eStore venture who when I ask about these issues, the silence on the other end of the phone is deafening.

1. Make sure your product or service is über niche. Sites selling bunches of unrelated items or products that are not topically related in some way will be all the much harder to market online. Putting up a “me too” site where the online market has been saturated is a waste of your time and money unless you have a different angle or idea. The best ideas are born from hobbies, interests and passions where the eStore owner saw an opportunity because no one else was catering to that specific niche. Don’t underestimate the power of niche!
2. Research your competition. Do a search at your favorite search engine for a handful of 2-3 word keyword phrases you believe your target market will use to find your new eStore.  Then make note of the hundreds of thousands or millions of pages already online doing the same.  Either get “nichier” to try and minimize your competition or plan on being a rabidly aggressive marketer which will cost you both in $$ and time. Look at what your competitors are already doing successfully and how you can integrate those concepts in a unique or different way.
3. Create your shipping program. What carriers will you offer?  Will you be shipping based on weight and location or will flat rate work for you?  What about a handling fee?  Shipping should not be a profit center and needs to be reasonable.  The perception of overly high shipping fees in one of the top reasons customers abandon their shopping carts. Will you be shipping globally?  You will then need to know what customs paperwork and policies will need to be considered.
4. Create your return policy. This needs to be clear, detailed and practical so that if you do experience returns, your customers can easily find what you need them to do and what your criteria are for a return to be accepted.
5. Create your privacy policy. You must have a policy visibly posted that states what you do with your customer’s information so that you can build trust.  Never put one thing in this policy and then do another.  Be honest, up front and state exactly how you will manage, distribute and use customer information.
6. Create your security policy. Your security policy should explain what you do, in detail, to protect your customer’s payment information.  Are you on secure servers? Do you use SSL?  Are you verified by a third party verification service?  The more information you can provide the better to give your customers that warm fuzzy they need to trust you.
7. Product photos. When it comes to selling online, visuals will make or break you.  Ensure all your products have quality photos.  If you do not have experience taking product photos for the Web — they won’t be good enough.  Check with your suppliers to see if they have photos you can use or hire someone who can guarantee top image quality.
8. Product descriptions. One line generic descriptions won’t cut it.  You need details, sizes, colors, dimensions along with some good marketing verbiage that makes the potential customer realize they need, want, must have that item(s).  Will you be entering your products yourself?  If not, you need to plan on paying someone to create an uploadable spreadsheet or do your data entry for you.  Your products won’t get entered by osmosis.
9. Marketing plan and budget. You need to have a plan and budget both in time and $$s to market your new eStore.  Search engines have a trust box waiting period of several months or more before they will even look your way.  What are you going to do in that time frame to get your site “out there?”  There is no “build it and they will come” online — you’ll be lucky if you ever get found with that approach.  Pay Per Click campaigns can run from a few hundred to thousands of dollars a month depending on how competitive your market is and will require massive time for you to test, tune and run effective campaigns.   Don’t want to deal with PPC campaigns? Then plan on spending tons of time networking on and off-line.  Without either your new eStore will remain a spec of sand in the desert.
10. Customer Service plan of action.  You need to look at your schedule and plan for the printing, processing and packing of orders.  This in of itself can be very time consuming when done properly. You’ll need to spend time answering customer e-mail inquiries, updating order status, entering shipping details and ETAs so you can send customers that much desired shipping confirmation.  How will you handle phone inquiries?  Will you accept orders by fax?  Do you have a merchant account to accept credit cards?  What forms of payment will you accept? Visa, MasterCard, Check, Wire Transfer, Money Orders?   How about PayPal?  Do you have a payment gateway to verify, approve and process charges real-time?

I could go on…these are the core basics you have to plan for before you move forward. You’ve heard the saying “fail to plan; plan to fail.”  Do yourself a big favor and do not proceed until you have the above issues all nailed down and ready to integrate.

At your service,
Judith