The United States saw around 15.8 percent year-over-year increase in eCommerce sales in 2Q2014, compared to only 4.4 percent in overall retail sales, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
With online retail sales increasing, more and more retailers are nowadays planning to launch eCommerce shops to sell their products online. If you are one of those retailers, you are definitely on the right track. However, building a successful eCommerce store is no easy feat. It requires a lot of time and planning. Here are some important things to consider before taking the plunge.
3 Things to Consider before Launching an Online Store
What to Sell
The success or failure of your eCommerce business depends largely on what you choose to sell online. For instance, products that are highly sought after, yet not available in local stores are likely to get sold more quickly. When choosing products for your online store, you should also consider important factors, such as, pricing of the product, your profit margin, ease of shipping, and your target customers. No matter what you choose to sell, you should update your product catalogs regularly. If you do not want to use your valuable resources in mundane product data entry tasks, consider outsourcing product data entry services to professional data entry operators.
Where to Sell
The next step is to choose a suitable eCommerce platform that would allow you to manage your products, categories, and other backend processes like order processing and inventory management in your preferred way. Make a selection, depending on what you are planning to sell, your stock size, your preferred payment methods, etc. For instance, if you want to setup and manage your store easily and quickly, you can choose an open source shopping cart like Magento or OpenCart development. On the other hand, if you need to sell massive volumes, and require advanced features for website design, online marketing, product merchandising, and order processing, you should opt for Volusion store development. Once you setup your online store, you need to keep your product catalogs updated. Whether you need building a new catalog, adding product descriptions, or optimizing product images, it is always a good idea to outsource catalog processing services to reliable third party vendor.
How to Optimize
If you do not optimize your website for top search engines like Google, no one would find your website through generic search. Simple things like how you name your products, insert keywords in your product descriptions, and choose image files can play a major role in optimizing your eCommerce site for search engines. For best results, consider getting professional help for product description writing, enhanced product photographs, and search engine optimization.
How QuikTek can Help You?
QuikTek provides a wide range of eCommerce catalog management services, including catalog processing services, product data entry services, and eCommerce order processing services. If you are seeking professional help to keep your eCommerce product catalogs updated, please contact us right away!
