How to Start and Grow a Successful Online Store

Customers have completely embraced online shopping and ordering, and there is no turning back. Retailers indicated that online sales account for 43% of their revenue, while restaurants with online ordering reported that 40% of their revenue came from online or app-based channels.

It’s more vital than ever to meet customers where they browse and buy online. Are you considering opening an online store? Here are ten easy steps to get you started selling right away.

1. Define your E-Commerce plan

Whether you have a physical business location or wish to start an online store as your first business venture, you must first identify what you want to sell online and develop a business plan.

Analyze your target market, establish which clients you want to reach with an online platform, conduct a competitive analysis, and estimate any costs associated to improve your plans for an online store.

2. Choose an eCommerce platform

An internet store isn’t just for the technically adept. Many eCommerce platforms are simple to use and will assist you in building, customizing, and using your store for your specific needs – no coding, technical, or design knowledge is required.

Aside from the website builder, you should select an online store platform that will assist you in running and managing all parts of your business, from inventory management and payments to marketing and growth. When selecting an online store platform, consider the following tools:

• Inventory management: Is there a way to manage, sync, and track your inventory on the eCommerce platform? This is especially useful if you have a physical store as well as an online store.
• Shipping, pickup, and delivery: If you offer physical products or commodities that must be delivered to clients quickly, it is critical to select an eCommerce platform that connects with shipping, pickup, and delivery.
• Marketing and SEO tools: Ecommerce platforms that provide marketing and SEO capabilities can assist you in increasing the visibility, reach, and sales of your online store.
• Checkout options: It’s critical to provide a flawless checkout experience for customers, so choose an eCommerce platform with a simple checkout procedure and several payment options, such as credit cards and digital wallet payments.
• Scalability: Most essential, you want to select an eCommerce platform that provides tools and omnichannel solutions to assist you in scaling your business as it grows, regardless of where you sell.

3. Customize your online store layout

Whether you’re a retailer, a restaurateur, or a professional services provider, it’s critical to develop a website that reflects your identity and makes sense for your business. Customizations can emphasize featured products, display your brand and story, and engage new buyers.

Customizable website templates offer versatile designs to help you develop the perfect layout for your company. You can select colors, typefaces, and other components that make the most sense for your company and your customers, especially since the majority of internet buying is done on consumers’ phones.

4. Photograph items and set up product listings

Because images are one of the first things clients see when they visit your online store, having high-quality photos on your website is critical. Photography apps like the Square Photo Studio App make it simple to capture studio-quality images directly from your phone.

After that, upload your images to your web store. This step should be made simple by the website builder you’re using. Square Online allows customers to simply create, amend, and manage item listings, as well as inventories. To facilitate the purchasing process, you can also include buy buttons, pricing information, and customer review choices.

Make sure to write product descriptions after you’ve included product photographs and made item listings. They provide customers a better understanding of what you sell, and the keywords you use to describe your products can help with SEO and make it simpler for customers to locate you online.

5. Sync your online store with social platforms

Integrate your online store with social media networks to increase the reach of your business. Customers shop and buy through social media channels, so having your products available on these platforms can boost visibility, brand awareness, and sales.

6. Enhance your online store’s SEO

Aside from social platforms, you should ensure that your online store is SEO-optimized so that more buyers can find you online. Syncing your store with platforms like Google Product Listings allows customers to find your store and products in Google Search, Shopping, and Images. 

If Square hosts your online store, you may change, update, and optimize SEO information for your entire store and its specific pages to be seen by more potential customers.

7. Set up secure payments and customize checkout

Accepting online payments is a crucial function for every online company, and most eCommerce platforms support online payments with built-in, PCI-compliant payment processing. Because many clients prefer to pay digitally, having digital payment methods available might increase your chances of making an online sale. Customers can pay using Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cash App, and After pay in installments when they use Square Online.

It’s also critical to personalize and simplify the checkout process. A difficult-to-navigate checkout page or one that requests too much client information might result in abandoned cart items, so customizing and simplifying your online checkout page will assist improve transactions.

8. Manage your online inventory

Once you’ve established yourself online, you’ll want to ensure that your inventory management is consistent across channels so that you don’t sell out-of-stock.

Square Online integrates with Square Point of Sale and Square Dashboard to automatically sync online and in-person orders, goods, and inventory. This prevents from overselling inventory across different locations and allows you to quickly track fulfillment and shipment.

9. Set up shipping, pickup, and delivery

Customers who buy tangible things from your online business will need a way to obtain them, whether through shipping, pickup, or delivery.

If you ship things to clients, especially if you ship outside of your local area, you should set up shipping areas and rates on your online store to show which locations you ship to, how much you charge, and how you ship the items.

If you sell locally, you can set up in-store and curbside pickup to remove the need for shipping and allow customers to receive their things more quickly. You can also set up delivery options, which are most commonly used by restaurants and food and beverage retailers.

10. Create a marketing plan

With a marketing strategy in place, the effort you put into your online store will go a lot further. Email and text message marketing tools enable you communicate and interact with customers, inform them about promotions or deals, and remind them when they’ve left goods in their cart or when a product, they’ve searched for is back in stock.

You may produce coupon codes, gift cards, and payment links that sync with your online store to keep customers coming back. To encourage online purchases, you can even set up a client loyalty program.

Finally, you may keep an eye on your online store’s analytics to get a sense of how well your business is doing. The Square Online Reporting feature provides a complete breakdown of site traffic, site activity, online sales, best-selling items, and the effectiveness of automated marketing emails and coupon codes.