If you are a small business owner I bet you have heard that having an online store for your business is essential. But would if you don’t understand how online stores work? would if you think it is a super scary and expensive process and you can’t afford it? well hopefully I can teach you about how an online store works and why you should consider having one for your business.
An online store can help you sell more of your product to more people, who doesn’t want to have that?
How Does An Online Store Work – Product Section
You first need to have products to sell online 🙂 your store will need to have a section where customers can browse and read about your products. The product section of your online store should be clean, organized and simple to use. Each product should be have detailed information, possibly a rating system so people can rate your product and leave reviews.
Add To Cart button
Each product needs to have a button that says buy now or add to cart. The key is to let your customers keep browsing your online store and add more product to their online “shopping cart”.
How Does An Online Store Work – Shopping Cart
Your store shopping cart will allow customers to keep all of their products in one place so that they can see the total price and shipping costs (if any). Shopping carts on websites usually have an icon of a shopping cart so your users can click it anytime to see what they have. Your shopping cart should allow customers to easily take away products they don’t want and add new products, I always hate shopping online and the store makes it hard to remove products from my cart, I always give up and go to another store so keep that in mind, you want things to be simple and easy or people will leave!
How Does An Online Store Work – Check Out
Every online store needs to have a check out section so you can collect billing information, shipping information, emails for marketing and charge their card. We don’t want to scare customers away at this point of the process or we will have a situation what they call “cart abandonment”, this is every online store’s biggest fear and it can become a big pain if you don’t fix it. Make sure make the check out process super easy and simple, If your store has the cart abadonment problem you can get a follow up software that email your customer and basically tries to sell the product to them again, this is a good way to fix and follow up with your customers.
How Does An Online Store Work – Payment Gateway
Every online store needs to have a payment gateway. According to Wikipedia A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes credit card payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets. There are many option for payment gateways for your online store, we won’t go into much detail about that ( maybe for another post). Payment gateways are important and you want to choose one that is a good fit for your online store.
Security & SSL Certificates For Online Shops
Every online store needs to be maintained properly so hackers can’t access your site and any important information on your site. All website software needs to be updated on a monthly basis so hackers can’t find vulnerabilities in your site. if you have just hired a company or individual to build your ecommerce site make sure they stick around and maintain the software so you don’t have any issues.
What Is an SSL Certificate?
An SSL certificate (Secure Sockets Layer) authenticates the identity of a store and encrypts data going to the server using SSL technology. SSL keeps your site secure so people can’t steal important information from your online store.
I hope this article gave you an idea about how online stores work and i hope you seriously consider investing in an online store for your small business, it will be an investment that will help you grow your business and reach new customers from all over the globe. If you have questions about building and online store feel free to contact Jordon, Here.