What is the online store the most important points before starting?
You've definitely come across the term online e-store, and this probably happened while searching for the best ways to showcase and sell your products across the web.
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Online store website |
You may have wondered what an online store is, what are its advantages, as well as the motives that make choosing to display your products in an online store better than traditional displays. This is what we tell you:
- What is an online store?
- What is the difference between an online store and a website?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of an online store?
- What do you need for the success of your online store?
1. What is an online store?
An online store or online store is an e-commerce website where customers can order your products or services, and through which you can showcase your products and services.
It should be noted that you do not have to own an online store, instead, you can display your products on sites dedicated to this, such as “Jumia, Amazon and others”, knowing that they get a certain percentage for it. Sell these products.
In short, this means that the online store is one of the ways to display and market your products, which may avoid the traditional methods if you master the craft of managing your electronic product and know the online store to exploit it. The most convenient way possible.
It should be noted that to own an online store, you need some elements, the first of which is the step-by-step winners' guide to creating an online store, and the second is to recognize the advantages of owning an online store.
2. What is the difference between an online store and a website?
There is a clear relationship between the online store and the website, as the online store is one of the types of websites, the type that was created for the purpose of e-commerce, and therefore you find it characterized by an interface designed specifically for the purpose of shopping and displaying products.
The online store must also have an online payment feature, and be linked to the shipping company's system to deliver the product to the customer in accordance with the system followed in the store.
In short, the difference between an online store and a website; An online store is a website dedicated to a complete sale in all its aspects across the web.
How difficult is it to create an online store?
The difficulty of creating your online store lies in some points: Have an attractive design: The fierce competition between online stores is a challenge
- Design: Thus, he may find it difficult to get a unique idea for the design of your store.
- User's experience: One of the difficulties you may encounter is taking into account the user experience, which requires you to facilitate the user journey and clarify the purchase steps without complications to reach the best results.
- Cost: You can turn to an e-store programmer and ask you for an exorbitant amount to create the site, and this is what you can avoid by knowing the four different ways to create e-stores.
- Continuous updating: New services and products can be added or modified over previously existing products, which requires a continuous updating process for the site, which requires you to follow it up periodically.
3. Online Store Features
There are many advantages that have contributed to the emergence, growth and development of e-commerce, and the most important features of the online store are:
Save time and effort
One of the most important features of the online store is that it allows users to purchase through it at any time and from anywhere in the world, and this gives them great flexibility; Where the customer does not have to go to the store to buy his needs, and adhere to working hours that may not suit his circumstances, and replace that with computer shopping, or smartphone applications from the online store.
Various payment methods
Many online stores provide a range of different payment methods, such as credit card payment, or cash on delivery, which gives the user flexibility when purchasing from the online store and allows the customer to choose the most appropriate method for him.
Buy from anywhere
One of the advantages of the online store is that it allows the user to buy or sell from anywhere in the world, provided that the store provides the delivery of products to this country, and some stores also provide the ability to reserve the product and notify the user of its availability so that he can buy it directly.
Ease of access to the customer
E-marketing and its multiple methods have contributed to the availability of a large number of tools and methods that help reach the target customer easily, through the appearance of the product advertisement at the time the customer needs, which helps to increase demand and raise the percentage of profit.
Knowing the opinions of consumers
Through the store, it is possible to get acquainted with customers' opinions and their evaluation of the product or service, which helps in attracting new customers to deal with this store and to purchase its services and products.
Anticipate customer needs
Through the customer's purchase history in the online store, it is possible to rely on technological means based on the artificial intelligence system, which makes proposals for products or services that the customer can accept their purchase.
Disadvantages of the online store
There are a set of advantages and disadvantages of the online store that you must know and know how to deal with or benefit from.
Whether by the worker in this field or customers and consumers and despite the previous advantages, there are a set of disadvantages of the online store that must be taken into account when purchasing through stores. , the most important of which are:
- Difficulty in gaining the trust of customers especially at the beginning of the project, because some of them were defrauded or defrauded by other stores.
- Difficulty dealing with the store for the first time. The nature and design of each store and the way products are categorized in them, are different.
- The need to add high-level protection means, in order to protect the online store from hacker attacks, which is one of the most prominent disadvantages of the online store; Shows the drug to lose its customers due to lack of security and protection.
- Sometimes the shipping price is high, especially in cases of international shipping, but some online stores provide free shipping if the shipping price exceeds a certain amount.
4. What you need for your online store to succeed
1. Technical requirements
The technical requirements are as follows:
- You need an e-commerce platform, which will enable you to create a professional online store like OpenCart or WooCommerce.
- You also need a domain name which is a direct link to your online store.
- Finally, you need a web host or hosting, one of those services that book a place on the Internet for you to be around seven days a week.
The above requirements vary depending on the method you will use to build your online store, as well as on the platform that you will specifically choose to build the store.
2. Select your store type
Determining the type of your online store is one of the most important points that help you make it a success. You need to be clear from the start about the nature of the store. Really:
- Specialist: i.e. sells only one type of product.
- Miscellaneous: Sells multiple types of products.
It is not enough to make this choice only mental, but you should write it on paper, because your marketing plan after that will depend on this choice, as well as getting to know your competitors in the market and attempts to develop your store later. Depend on this... Please don't neglect this step...
3. Do not neglect the feasibility study
In general, you cannot start a project without a feasibility study in which all the elements of the project are explained, starting with the product and the consumer, passing through the sales channels and the marketing plan, and ending with shipping and after-sales services.
The secret here is the details: the more you pay attention to details like the shipping method, after-sales services, and the tone used to address your audience and describe your product, the higher the chance of your online store's success.
Smart Marketing
Why smart marketing? Is there stupid marketing?
For example, if the majority of your audience is on the Instagram channel, you should pay more attention to marketing your online store on Instagram, and let the rest of the channels get the rest of your marketing plan.. The focus here is very important.
Also, in smart marketing, you should not do the marketing process in isolation from observing your competitors and considering what they are doing in their marketing and sales plans in order to ensure the success of your online store.
4. Keep the interface neat
As mentioned earlier, if you buy a store, start by equipping it with the latest equipment, because you think that the luxury of the store may make the buyer decide to get acquainted with the product amid fierce competition and an abundance of supply. This applies to the online store.
You must maintain the element of attractiveness and luxury within your online store and this is done through the following:
- Pay attention to the product image
Your interest in your product image is the most important component of your online store's success, because - in short - you've created an online store to display product images for your customers to see, and then the purchase is done.
So make sure you choose high-quality images, make them from as many angles as possible, and if you can use 3D technology to control the display of an image from more than one direction, do it right away.
- Get a special product
It is known that there are many ways to get products, including starting to work on products that are widely used among your target audience or getting an innovative product.
And whether you choose this way or that, you must choose a high-quality product and its price is suitable for the level of your economic audience.
- Pay attention to the product description
Choose accurate words to describe your product, present its features and price, as well as all the information your customers are interested in knowing and don't forget to write it in an interesting style free of grammatical errors.
- Make it easy to use
One of the things that may alienate your customers from your store is that it is complicated, and ordering a product requires doing many steps, so make it easy and simple to win a lot of customers.