23, Jan 2021
Categories
Blu Ocean Digital Internet Marketing E-Commerce Uncategorized Website Development

Launching your Very Own Ecommerce Site Made Simple and Easy

Published On: 23, Jan, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has played a significant role in changing customer behavior to a great extent. Many customers, who used to buy from the neighborhood market, now prefer an Ecommerce platform even for buying the most basic goods and services, to avoid contact and maintain social distancing. Given this, traditional business owners are most likely to lose out on potential as well as existing customers, if they do not adopt the online path and upgrade their business models. This is why, you must build your online shop, to adapt to the ‘new normal’ of shopping, that is, via the internet.

Worried about how to do it? Well, a professional web development agency will do it for you in the most structured and result-driven manner. But first things first. Before you contact an established agency, let’s understand how an Ecommerce website can change your world. 

Advantages of An Ecommerce Website

The online marketplace is one of the best places to expand your business and make profitable gains right now. For those who are not very sure as to why being a ‘digital businessman’ is important, here are some of the main advantages of owning and operating an Ecommerce website:

  • Ecommerce has made the buying process much faster (and also safer in this COVID environment). Suppose you are selling kids’ dresses through your traditional store. Buyers (in this case, mostly mothers) need to interact manually with you or any appointed salesperson to choose and purchase the dress of preferred color, size, and design. This same activity can be completed without any manual interaction when you go for Ecommerce website development and organize your products in your online shop instead of your physical store. No contact and no middleman, doesn’t that mean safer and faster respectively?  
  • Have you ever wondered how much it takes for you to run your physical store? From maintenance, rent, salesperson salary and commission, inventory to janitorial work, and more, you spend much on it. However, with an online store, you can cut down on such costs completely and be able to run your store from the comfort of your own house.  
  • It has been estimated that by the year 2040, around 95% of transactions will be on Ecommerce platforms. Can you imagine the number of existing buyers (not to mention potential ones) you might lose just because you don’t have an online store? It’s high time you build an effective Ecommerce platform now and give your customers the freedom to shop any time and from anywhere they want.
  • It is a fact that promoting an Ecommerce store costs less and you also have a greater number of promotional options at your hands. With proper professional guidance in digital internet marketing for Ecommerce, you can surely reach out to a larger portion of the target audience as compared to traditional marketing, by paying a reasonable charge.

Things to Bear in Mind When Building an Ecommerce Website

While it may be exciting to build your Ecommerce website, you need to keep in mind that this is not an easy task. One of the major things to take into consideration is the Ecommerce platform to use- while WooCommerce might suit small businesses, medium and larger ones may opt for OpenCart or Magento.

It is advised that you take the help of an experienced web development agency to get every step right, instead of hiring a random freelancer. A freelancer might settle for offering services at a much lower rate, but you are unaware of the person’s qualifications and might face performance issues with the end-product. An acclaimed agency will have certified and experienced developers, who undergo a series of tests and trials before being recruited.

As you connect with a professional service provider for Ecommerce website development, here are some of the things that you should be mindful of:  

  • Your homepage must represent you and your brand: You must have taken the utmost care to ensure a presentable front view for your physical store. In an online store, the home page in this front view. So, communicate to your agency how you would want the front page to look like. Experienced developers can guide you to build a proper home page that represents your business or brand in the right light, and also engages the customer to browse product or service pages, so that he or she completes the buying process.
  • Pay attention to the small details: Get involved in the process of Ecommerce website development along with the developers who are assisting you, to get the best results. Try to focus on the minutest of things to get the desired outcome. For instance, in the case of a kids’ apparel portal, you will have to sort and present the products according to different parameters such as size, color, etc. Be clear in communicating these aspects (like what colors or sizes your inventory has) to your development agency to ensure that the user interface takes care of the smallest of details that will resonate with your client. Remember one thumb rule, even the most naïve user should never be confused while browsing your portal.
  • Make the checkout process effective: Your Ecommerce portal must have several online payment options. This ensures that everyone interested in buying your products/services can complete the checkout process with ease. Through professional guidance from a reputed agency, you will be able to ensure that your customer buys your product in minimum time, without getting into unnecessary hassles such as filling up a long list of details, and the like. The entire process should also be seamless and well sorted.  

While the Ecommerce market has grown 23% every year, around 46% of small business owners in the USA do not have a website! Now that you know why an Ecommerce website is needed and how you should go for developing one, it is time to take the correct step and invest in your Ecommerce website now. At BluWebMedia, we have some of the most skilled and talented website developers who will be able to provide quality service to make your endeavors successful. Also, we can provide due assistance in digital internet marketing for Ecommerce to unleash the utmost potential of your business portal with proper online marketing!

04, Mar 2020
Categories
Website Development

WooCommerce – The preferred platform for Startup E-Commerce Companies

Published On: 04, Mar, 2020

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that helps to integrate E-Commerce features in a website developed using WordPress CMS. It is the most suitable way to turn WordPress site into a completely functional E-commerce store. You just need to install and activate the plugin and Voila! You have a fully functional E-Commerce website ready. The basic version of this software is free. However, there are additional costs for features such as subscription pricing, appointment booking and setting up an engine for a product recommendation.

Why WooCommerce is the Suitable Solution for Startup Businesses?

If you have started a new company that sells online, then you would like your E-commerce website development business to achieve success as soon as possible. This means you need to deploy your E-Commerce website as quickly as possible and with minimum investment. This is where WooCommerce scores over other E-Commerce platforms. Its easy to use interface makes it possible to deploy your website in no time. WooCommerce helps both start-ups and small businesses to attain success in the following ways:

  • Provide a free platform – One of the benefits of WooCommerce is that the basic version is free. You don’t need to invest in the software. All you need is a designer who can customize the WooCommerce installation and give your corporate look. There is no recurring cost to pay to an E-Commerce service provider, something that eats into your profit. WooCommerce makes online selling easy and won’t cost you anything at the initial stage. Once you start developing your business, you may use some revenue for integrating additional features and improve other operations. Certain upgrades include – Subscription module, set up appointments and suggest similar products to the users that are worthy enough for your business.
  • Easily extensible with several plugins – WooCommerce has several free as well as paid plugins that help to add extra features. Some examples of WooCommerce add-ons for official and third party are the following:

    • WooCommerce Product Table – This will list WooCommerce products in the form of a sortable table view. It is suitable for product directories, trade, wholesale sites, quick order forms and much more. It is considered to be the perfect way to increase your website’s conversion rates.
    • Multi Currency Support – There are several plugins available that enable your Ecommerce website to support multiple currencies.
    • WooCommerce Private Store and WooCommerce Password Protected Categories – These two plugins allow you to protect or hide parts or all of a WooCommerce store. It is suitable for customer-specific products, complete members-only stores or public stores that have wholesale areas.
    • Table Rate Shipping – This plugin helps to integrate advanced shipping options with WooCommerce, such as weight-based shipping.
    • Woo Subscriptions – This plugin helps you to sell WooCommerce products with recurring payments and with ongoing subscriptions.
    • WooCommerce Bookings – This plugin is very useful for online event booking websites. Complete with Date Pickers and Calendars, this plugin helps you to set up your events and booking system in a jiffy.
    • The Events Calendar – WooCommerce is used for creating events website development with different add-ons that include community and bookable events.
  • Security – In today’s world of online fraud, your customers would like to ensure that their personal details are kept confidential. Their home address and credit cards details should not be accessed by anyone. WooCommerce secures you against this issue with a highly-secure trading platform for the users. Continuous version updates and upgrades ensure that all security breaches and bugs are immediately identified and fixed. The one click update feature makes updating WooCommerce a hassle-free experience.
  • Easy analytics – Being a business owner, you would like to know where most of your sales are coming from or what time of the day most customers want to purchase products. With in-built analytics of WooCommerce, you will be able to maintain a track of valuable data and optimize them to improve overall performance of your website. You can also integrate third party analytics such as Google Analytics easily with WooCommerce.

Thus, Woocommerce makes creating as well as managing online stores in the most convenient way. It provides flexibility and has several features such as secure payments, shipping integration and inventory and tax management that makes it convenient to set up your business for selling products online. By opting for WooCommerce over other website development solutions, any ecommerce site can generate higher revenue and ensure maximum sales with it.