Ecommerce business is always changing and evolving. First online sales sites were not very successful and didn’t have a big revenue. People were afraid to buy something via the Internet because there was a risk of being deceived. These days, the best ecommerce sites, like Amazon, have incredible revenues and they keep earning more and more. Thus, many entrepreneurs keep wondering how to start an online store and what products to sell online.
Top Popular Ways to Hire a Developer
First of all, there are many ways to build a website. You can do it for free or use web development company services. While building a website with the help of WordPress or something alike is for free, you won’t get a solution that is customized for your business goals. On the other hand, web design and development services are usually pretty expensive. This is why startups tend to hire remote developers to save on the website development and still get a customized and optimized solution. You can also learn how to build an online store yourself but you’d need to master HTML, JS and CSS. While these technologies would let you build a simple website, online stores are more complex and usually require a big database and good loading speed. You would also need to be strong in back-end development.
Building a mobile app is a much more complicated process and it would take you even more time to be able to do so on your own. If you are not planning to become a full stack or mobile app developer, it’s not worth your while. In any case, here are top 3 ways to hire a developer who would build an online shop or help you with your app development for you:
Freelance. This model would let you hire a dev for the lowes price. Unfortunately, hiring a freelancer would not give you enough control over the development process. Moreover, you won’t get a dedicated specialist interested in your business goals. Sometimes, a freelancer doesn’t provide a necessary solution, the quality does not meet the requirements or the project is left unfinished at all. It’s the cheapest but the riskiest way.
Outsourcing/outstaffing. Using this model gives you more control over the project but you still can’t manage the development process. This way is also more expensive than freelancing. It’s also worth mentioning that there’s a newer approach that is called outstaffing. With this model, your service provider finds and hires a developer or a team for you and does the management as well. What makes it different is that you are able to communicate with your developers and manage the process remotely. This is the best solution on the market and it’s reliable as well.
Local software development company. This approach is the oldest one and it’s probably the most reliable one. On the other hand, it can be very costly. It really depends on your location. For example, if you are leaving in Switzerland, a software developer salary is very big and, as a result, you’d have to pay a lot to get your store built.
Do I Need a Website or a Mobile App?
Having a website is like having a visit card, it’s essential for a business. However, ecommerce website is totally another thing. It is complicated, has big databases, many pages and so on. Nevertheless, a website is the first step to start some serious selling online.
Web Hosting
Once you have your website developed, you need to place it on the web. This is called web hosting. There are many options, you can have a free web hosting and you can pay for it. Of course, free options like GoDaddy have their limitations. Moreover, you can face some serious problems. First of all, free web hosting providers are not reliable, there’s no customer support, there’s a lack of customization and your website would not really belong to you.
Mobile Ecommerce Increasing Popularity
Another important thing here is that the majority of consumers spend a lot of their time on mobile devices, at least, in the U.S.
Thus, your website should be mobile-friendly and it would be even better if you have a mobile app. According to Statista, mobile ecommerce already has a big share in retail business but it is predicted to reach a sensational level of 73%.
No wonder mobile app development has become so demanded and all popular online stores want to have an attractive application with a user-friendly interface. This way, they get more visits and engage more consumers to buy their products.
You can get a website for a start because it’s cheaper than building an app. Don’t forget it should be mobile-friendly though. As soon as your revenue starts to grow, you can spend some money and get a mobile app developed.
Why You Should Care About Your Store Design
No one wants to buy something if it doesn’t look good. The same goes for a website or an app. If your website design is old and it looks like it was painted by a kid, no one will ever want to buy anything there. It may seem like designing a website is not a complicated task but it really is.
Professional web designers know all the hyping trends like what colors make people buy more often, how a menu should look and stuff like that. It really matters. There’s also a trend for responsive web design. User interface (UI) designer would make sure your website or an app look amazing and attractive and, as a result, it would improve user experience (UX) and increase conversion rate.
Build Your Online Presence
Having a website or an app does not ensure people would buy from your store. This is why it’s really important to keep in mind how search engine optimization (SEO) is important. While it’s very difficult to get an online store to appear on top 10 search results, there are other ways to get more customers. For example, you can use Instagram for marketing purposes. It goes not only for Instagram but for any other social media channels. You can also use context advertising and YouTube to promote your business.
Look Up to Your Successful Competitors
The retail business is very competitive. There’s some extremely big “fish” on the market. This should not stop you. On the contrary, keep your eye on them and use something similar to the skyscraper technique. They have already made it to the top, why not use their weapon against them? Of course, it won’t be enough if you just follow them, try to get into the niches that are less competitive or even better, offer something that no one does. You get the point.
Care About Your Customers
Once you have established a successful online store, don’t forget to provide customer support services. This would help you not only to increase customer satisfaction rate but also improve your business and find out your flaws. Make sure you have a rating system, search and filters by different parameters. Integrate different types of encouragements and promotions. Try to put yourself in their position and if you don’t like what you see – make it better.
[Main Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels; Online Shop: Kaisa Nordic Design]
Currently, Myron is working at Mobilunity as a marketing manager. He often interviews programmers to get a better understanding of what they do and how they do it. This gives him the ability to learn about new technologies directly from the experts. Also, Myron is interested in management and keeps improving these skills too. Writing helps him to share the experience and get some feedback from people around the globe.