Creating and selling eCommerce Site: Functionality, Design, Marketing

Thousands of online shops open every year, 95% close in the first few months of existence. This happens because the future owners approached the issue spontaneously, without any preparation for future activities. Real business is far from illusory dreams.

Entrepreneurship requires as much time and effort as ordinary work but opens new horizons for a comfortable and secure life. In this article, we will consider how to create an online store to start making a profit and become a reliable sales tool.

The design and structure of the online store consist of only 5 templates:

• home page,
• the catalog,
• product card,
• order form (basket),
• info pages.

Even if there are thousands of pages in the store, you can easily divide them all into these five types. How does the right (ideal) online store look? There is no definite answer because the stores are slightly different from one to another. You can not build a wine boutique, supermarket and clothing store on the same principle. They are all different, both in real life and on the Internet. However, there are universal rules, adherence to which allows you to create a comfortable environment for customers (e.g. Custom Order Number extension for Magento 2) to make purchases and increase the conversion shop.

Below we will consider the universal rules of creating an online store.

A successful online store includes the necessary functionality, attractive appearance (design) and marketing mix (tools correlation).

Therefore, selling online stores have in their staff of experienced programmers, designers and marketing specialists. It is very difficult to find a person who would combine two of the above professions, not to mention altogether.

We will consider the development of online store comprehensively from all sides, without breaking the creation into pieces (technical, marketing), as they are interconnected.

The main page of the online store and the general layout

It is worth remembering that the main page of the online store, in reality, is poorly visited, as 90% of traffic visitors receive product cards. This statement is true if the mainstream of clients comes from search engines. In the case where the online store is involved in media advertising, the main page can receive up to 100% of traffic.

Header and footer of the online store site – these two design elements are duplicated on all pages, as they say, “go draughty”. Their structure should be clearly designed, as half of the site navigation is in them.

Logo of the organization The logo should contain a link to the main page of the site. Under the logo, it is desirable to place a company slogan, or a phrase reflecting the main activity of the organization. For example, “online teddy bear shop”. Typically, the logo is placed in the upper left corner.

Widget basket of orders This item should show how many goods the user has postponed and by what amount. In most cases, the basket is placed in the upper right corner.

The free area between the shopping cart and the logo is filled with contact information: address, phone numbers, working hours, button to call an online consultant or order a callback.

Footer at the bottom is separated by the main menu, this element contains links to information pages containing the most important information for the customer, for example, “About the company”, “Delivery”, “Payment”, “Contacts”, “Our benefits”.

Above the main menu or immediately below it often placed are icons with the main advantages of the online store, such as “Free shipping”, “Free technical support”, “Quality Assurance” and so on. In modern online stores, instead of the main menu, a product catalog is inserted in the form of a pop-up mega-menu.

The second end-to-end design element – footer customers see last but its appearance is just as important as the hats. Looking through the site from top to bottom, the potential buyer should have the impression that your online store can safely buy what he needs. Therefore, the footer should have the information that facilitates the purchase. A good liner is like a good shoe, it is judged on the status of the person, and the liner on the reliability of the store. Usually in the basement of the site put the information of secondary importance or duplicate information from other sections. For example, you can place:

• contact information (address, phone number, travel plan);
• info pages from the main menu;
• display links or widgets to official groups of the online store on social networking sites;
• In each case, the structure of the footer may be different, what will be its structure and filling is fully dependent on the owner and the specifics of the online store.