Ecommerce Websites Online Store Web Design

Are you building an ecommerce website, or online store front? If you are considering building an online ecommerce website, not only are there many choices to make in terms of ecommerce software and shopping carts, but also the commitment it will take in terms of building, maintaining and promoting your ecommerce website.

Honestly, I have not built many ecommerce websites, but I have built a few and know enough about it to be dangerous, but I will be happy to share my knowledge of ecommerce websites with you.

A simple ecommerce website I built is Dragon Gift Store, and it is a static html site built with Dreamweaver and incorporates a free shopping cart. At that ecommerce website, a visitor can navigate easily, browse products easily and add them to a shopping cart, then checkout and pay online. An online store like that is relatively painless and I enjoy building them, however they are best suited for products that do not change frequently. While additional pages, product categories and product items can be added without much difficulty, it is not feasible to continually change products and prices. This is the perfect low budget ecommerce solution for a company that wants to have their items show up online and allow an easy way to sell online, but it must be maintained by a web designer like me.

Another simple ecommerce website that I built is Silk Tree Warehouse, and is the same concept of a static html site, although that one was built years ago using an online website building software called homestead site builder and it too incorporates the free shopping cart software. The client I built it for has a fairly consistent product offering, (they wholesale silk trees), but their stock levels fluctuate as do prices, so they maintain it themselves now, with the help of an amateur webmaster. They also have an EBay store, which is where the majority of their sales originate and the two stores are strategically linked together. The reason it is important for them to have the two online stores, is that the ecommerce website I built provides them with a company store, (a brand identity), and it provides better organic search exposure to people who are using a search engine to find related products, not necessarily EBay. For example, an interior decorator may jump on Google to find a certain type of silk tree for use in a design and subsequently find the ecommerce site I built. Someone else, (perhaps a homeowner), might regularly use Ebay anyway for buying whatever, so while they are there they look for a silk tree. In summary, the two ecommerce sites are symbiotic and compliment one another in a way that keeps this wholesaler selling goods online.

Yet another ecommerce website I built, is Cyber Gothic Fashion. That particular website is designed primarily to showcase the clothes that this fashion designer makes, but their actual ecommerce shopping site is managed at Etsy, an online resource for crafter's and designers. This solution works well for the fashion designer because their product is continually evolving and stock levels and pricing changes occur frequently depending on market demands. Their online store management at Etsy allows them to upload new photos, alter prices, change descriptions, update product inventory levels, etc all through the online interface that Etsy provides. In many ways, it is very much like the Ebay store, without the auction philosophy and although it is my personal opinion, I find the Etsy shopping experience to be much more user friendly than Ebay's. The fashion designer benefits from having the ease of product management and online sales via Etsy online store, while the ecommerce website that I built gives them a brand identity online and better organic search exposure to people who are using Google, Yahoo or another search engine to look for related wears i.e.; cyber fashions, or cyber club wear, etc. When the visitor reaches the website I built they can learn more about the designer and look through slide shows of products, while the shopping cart button leads them to the fashion designer's online store at Etsy.

There are many, many online store solutions and shopping cart software's available. The difference between the two is that a "shopping cart" is the software that allows people to select items to place into a shopping cart and checkout, while the "store" is basically a product management device which is used to create product categories, add products, upload photos of products, add or edit the product name and description, etc. Think of it this way... An online store is the visible part of your ecommerce website, where people can click through pages and see various products. The shopping cart is the part that allows them to buy and runs behind the scenes, with the only visible element being a "buy button" or "add to cart" button.

General advice when building ecommerce websites:

1. Do you need online exposure for your products in an existing market, like Ebay where people are primarily looking for deals? Or Amazon where they are looking for books? Or Etsy where they are looking for crafts and homemade items? Stick to the most readily available solution for the market you intend on selling in. For example if you sell books you would be best served to setup an Amazon web store. If you sell homemade crafts, supplies or vintage and unique items look at an Etsy storefront. If you are into mass auctions and lowest price bidders, consider EBay stores.
2. Do you need people to trust your online store as a business, or are you just an individual selling stuff personally? If you are a business, then you need a business website that projects a professional image and gives you brand identity and respect. I can build such a site for you and can help showcase your product line, or even sell your products provided they are consistent. Contact me to build an ecommerce website for you.
3. Does your product change frequently? If your product changes frequently, you will need either a webmaster to provide updates, or you will need an online store you, or someone in your company can maintain. If I build an online store for you, I am happy to make updates and changes, provided it does not consume too much of my time.
4. Do you have lots of products? While it may seem silly and most people would not think that an online store with 100 items is a big deal, you have to consider that for each item you sell, you will need to setup that product in your store and in your shopping cart. That means at least 200 photos, (one large and one thumbnail image), 100 product titles, 100 product descriptions, 100 product prices, 100 buy buttons, 100 different tax and shipping options, etc, etc.
5. How many product items should you offer? My advice is to consider one product and all that it takes to set that product up in an online store and then multiply that effort by the number or items you want to sell. There are lots of drop-shippers and Chinese product distributors that would have you sell all 10,000 of their gadgets, but who in the world will build all that data into an online store for you? Unless you are ready to throw down $5000 or more to a web designer, or spend the next three years of spare time dedicated to building your site, you'll need to rethink just how many products you want to offer. Some of these product manufacturers even offer their own online stores, all neatly prepackaged and ready to slap your name on. The trouble with these, is that they do not show up on search engines... And they won't be listed at Ebay, or Amazon, etc. So - You have an ecommerce site with 10,000 products, but what good is it if nobody visits it? Unless you want to spend a truckload of money on pay per click ads stay as far away from those pre-built stores as you can.