5 questions to ask yourself before creating your e-commerce site
Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2024 10:14 am
Having grown steadily for five years, online commerce exploded in 2020. It is a market that is now worth 112 billion euros. Retail alone accounted for 13.4% of sales, 4 points more than the previous year*.
Whether it's food, household appliances or garden items, shopping online has never been easier. To meet growing customer demand, the number of e-commerce sites has multiplied. A new merchant site is created approximately every half hour.
If you want to get started in turn, your project must be carefully thought out to take advantage of this growth. Making the right decisions from the start determines the long-term success of your e-commerce business. Here are the five essential questions to ask yourself before creating your online store.
1) What is your target?
Understanding your target is fundamental to building an effective e-commerce site and web marketing strategy. To help you, you can define your personas : these are semi-fictional portraits of your target customers. In these identity sheets, you gather all the relevant information to understand the needs and expectations of your ideal customers. You indicate, for example, their age, their profession, details about their daily life, their favorite social networks or their online shopping habits.
Thanks to your personas , it will be easier to establish the editorial line laos telegram phone number list and visual identity of your e-commerce site . The editorial line includes the level of language, the tone (humorous, informative, neutral, etc.), the wording (i.e. the words that will come up frequently on your site) and the type of content that you will publish. The visual identity is all the graphic elements that represent your brand (logo, colors, fonts, visuals, etc.). If, for example, your target is passionate about extreme sports, the design of your site will be different from that intended for manga fans.
2) Who are your competitors?
Before creating your e-commerce site, you need to know your market: its size, its potential and the competing offer. On the Internet, comparison is easy and competition is even fiercer. Differentiation is therefore more essential than ever. Your site will be your best argument to convince a customer to buy from your e-shop rather than elsewhere.
To visualize your place in a market, you can establish a competitive mapping . This graphic tool defines your positioning in relation to the competition. The more important the latter is, the more your site will have to highlight the arguments that differentiate you. This could be, for example, your ethics, a selection of atypical products or your quality of service. This competitive advantage obviously occupies a central place in your marketing strategy.
3) What will be the content of your e-commerce site?
Once you have defined your target and market, it is time to think about the content of your e-commerce site. In addition to your product catalog, what information will you share? This could be, for example, an FAQ, a presentation of your company, a portfolio or a blog . Content management is crucial because it helps generate traffic to your e-commerce site . Each element you add must be relevant, not only for your target, but also for search engines.
These latter, like Google, "read" your website to evaluate and index it. The more your content is optimized and your keywords are well placed, the more your store gains visibility. This natural referencing work ("Search Engine Optimization" or SEO) aims to make your site appear among the first search results.
Google is your main source of traffic: it is therefore a privileged channel for acquiring new customers. You can also rely on paid referencing ("Search Engine Advertising" or SEA), thanks to Google Ads, or sponsored advertising on social networks. You thus multiply the points of contact to increase visits to the site and, a fortiori, your turnover.
4) How will you manage logistics?
Ensuring stock replenishment, delivering to customers on time, offering a persuasive return policy: in e-commerce, logistics is at the heart of your business plan. Inventory management often appears complex. However, it is decisive, because it affects your cash flow and your sales. You must therefore find the inventory management method best suited to your business (“just in time”, first in, first out”, “last in, first out”…).
Your logistics approach must also include the delivery phase: if well managed, the latter becomes a real lever for growth. Internet users tend to favor e-commerce sites that offer several delivery options (express, click and collect , etc.), because this offers more flexibility. Conversely, if delivery is restrictive or shipping costs are too high, this becomes a barrier to sales. This is why, before creating the site, you must compare the offers of carriers. They must be able to respond to your issues, such as shipping times or costs. Optimizing these expenses is essential to remain competitive and preserve your margin.
Whether it's food, household appliances or garden items, shopping online has never been easier. To meet growing customer demand, the number of e-commerce sites has multiplied. A new merchant site is created approximately every half hour.
If you want to get started in turn, your project must be carefully thought out to take advantage of this growth. Making the right decisions from the start determines the long-term success of your e-commerce business. Here are the five essential questions to ask yourself before creating your online store.
1) What is your target?
Understanding your target is fundamental to building an effective e-commerce site and web marketing strategy. To help you, you can define your personas : these are semi-fictional portraits of your target customers. In these identity sheets, you gather all the relevant information to understand the needs and expectations of your ideal customers. You indicate, for example, their age, their profession, details about their daily life, their favorite social networks or their online shopping habits.
Thanks to your personas , it will be easier to establish the editorial line laos telegram phone number list and visual identity of your e-commerce site . The editorial line includes the level of language, the tone (humorous, informative, neutral, etc.), the wording (i.e. the words that will come up frequently on your site) and the type of content that you will publish. The visual identity is all the graphic elements that represent your brand (logo, colors, fonts, visuals, etc.). If, for example, your target is passionate about extreme sports, the design of your site will be different from that intended for manga fans.
2) Who are your competitors?
Before creating your e-commerce site, you need to know your market: its size, its potential and the competing offer. On the Internet, comparison is easy and competition is even fiercer. Differentiation is therefore more essential than ever. Your site will be your best argument to convince a customer to buy from your e-shop rather than elsewhere.
To visualize your place in a market, you can establish a competitive mapping . This graphic tool defines your positioning in relation to the competition. The more important the latter is, the more your site will have to highlight the arguments that differentiate you. This could be, for example, your ethics, a selection of atypical products or your quality of service. This competitive advantage obviously occupies a central place in your marketing strategy.
3) What will be the content of your e-commerce site?
Once you have defined your target and market, it is time to think about the content of your e-commerce site. In addition to your product catalog, what information will you share? This could be, for example, an FAQ, a presentation of your company, a portfolio or a blog . Content management is crucial because it helps generate traffic to your e-commerce site . Each element you add must be relevant, not only for your target, but also for search engines.
These latter, like Google, "read" your website to evaluate and index it. The more your content is optimized and your keywords are well placed, the more your store gains visibility. This natural referencing work ("Search Engine Optimization" or SEO) aims to make your site appear among the first search results.
Google is your main source of traffic: it is therefore a privileged channel for acquiring new customers. You can also rely on paid referencing ("Search Engine Advertising" or SEA), thanks to Google Ads, or sponsored advertising on social networks. You thus multiply the points of contact to increase visits to the site and, a fortiori, your turnover.
4) How will you manage logistics?
Ensuring stock replenishment, delivering to customers on time, offering a persuasive return policy: in e-commerce, logistics is at the heart of your business plan. Inventory management often appears complex. However, it is decisive, because it affects your cash flow and your sales. You must therefore find the inventory management method best suited to your business (“just in time”, first in, first out”, “last in, first out”…).
Your logistics approach must also include the delivery phase: if well managed, the latter becomes a real lever for growth. Internet users tend to favor e-commerce sites that offer several delivery options (express, click and collect , etc.), because this offers more flexibility. Conversely, if delivery is restrictive or shipping costs are too high, this becomes a barrier to sales. This is why, before creating the site, you must compare the offers of carriers. They must be able to respond to your issues, such as shipping times or costs. Optimizing these expenses is essential to remain competitive and preserve your margin.