2015

Namrata Choudhary

SITESSIMPLY PTY LTD

http://www.sitessimply.com.au/

28-Sep-15

Things to do Before Launching an E-commerce Business

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Things to do Before Launching an E-commerce Business

If you are planning to launch your online e-commerce business, then must have completed or in the process of building the e-commerce website with the help of an e-commerce website builder software.

After evaluating the product idea and finalizing the product that you want to sell online, things gets excited.

The next step is to search for the supplier, order the initial inventory, and order samples. What’s next?

There is still a lot to do!

This is just a pre-launch phase. This is very critical time for the online store and for the business owner. Before launching the business, a lot of preparations have to be done to help the business. Let’s get started with the points to be discussed and done before getting the e-commerce store online either with the help of website builder software or a company for the same.

1. Prepare Your Social Networks Social media has become the lifeblood for so many businesses that helps in bringing a constant flow of online traffic to the websites. On social media, you can easily find the right amount of audience that may be interested in your business and brand. Before launching your social media channels, keep these things in mind: Claim your name It should be a thumb rule to cover the basis with the two giant names in social media, Facebook and Twitter. It is not necessary that you should immediately start working on the two, just claim the name first and then start working later. It is recommended so that someone else won’t take your name after you launch the store. Choose the social networks wisely The list of social media platforms doesn’t end at Twitter and Facebook. There are many more. However, some of them are good for some other business and some are good for yours. Understand the specialties of every platform and then chose accordingly. It may also happen that you discover a platform after spending some time on them. Set up your profile and cover photos All the social media profiles need a profile picture and a cover photo of different-different sizes. Set a profile picture that is same on all the profiles. Also, post few images or text so that users won’t feel awkward visiting the page.

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2. Get your email marketing ready After getting all the social media profiles ready to be used, it is time to get active on the most used communication channel, Email. Email marketing is termed as the best method of online marketing. The ROI from email marketing is much higher than any other platform. For managing the email accounts, a lot of options are available in the online marketplace. Make sure that you choose the best one for your business. To start with email marketing, consider which e-commerce platform you will be using and to look at which email providers integrate with that platform.

3. Install Google Analytics Google Analytics is also very important for online businesses. It is free analytic tool provided by Google the giant. It helps in tracking the online website traffic. After using analytics for your website, you can easily get insights about the visitors that are visiting the website, from which geographical area they are from, what their age is, which platform they are using, and much more. To integrate the Analytics for your website, follow these 4 steps:

• Sign up on Google Analytics using a Gmail account

• Connect the account to your website

• Activating tracking for your e-commerce website

• Ste up the goals and funnels

4. Do the keyword research Before setting up the online store, doing a deep keyword research is very important. It will also help in the process of SEO. If you are using the right keywords then Google and other search engines can easily understand what the business is all about and what the products that you are selling are. It will further help in getting on the top pages of the Search Engine Result Page (SERP) so that potential customers can see your site and look for the products you are selling.

5. Build the online store The essentials are done now and it is the right time to start with working on the e-commerce store. It is not an easy task and you will have to work day and night. Below mentioned are a few points you should consider:

• Pick the right theme for your store

• Pay full attention on the overall design of the store

• The product photographs should be of good quality

• Write the descriptions of products in a way that they make sense and includes keywords as well

• Plan for an app of the store

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If you are suing the e-commerce builder software from Sites Simply, then you can also contact the experts to set up the account for you.

6. Make the Shipping Strategy For an e-commerce business, shipping strategy is a very important part. These are the factors you should include in the shipping strategy:

• Material and the packaging option

• What are the shipping carriers you would be using

• What would be the cost of shipping and the cost

7. How would you promote the launch Before launching the store, make a plane of the promotion platforms to be used to promote the launch itself. Also, make a strategy to offer a discount for the first time users or something like that. You can also offer the audience free shipping or sweepstakes. For promotion, you can use press release and social media platforms.

Finally, it’s time to launch!

The pre-planning of the launch is done and you are also done with strategizing the further activities. It is time to launch the online store. After following all these steps, you will be ready to face every disaster. The social media platforms will soon start having a number of followers increasing day by day, with this, the list of email will also be ready for email marketing.

Building an e-commerce is surely a hard work, but strategizing everything will definitely help you in getting all the tasks done smoothly.

For more help, you can also contact the experts at Sites Simply.