THE POWER OF E-COMMERCE

You are ready to start selling online and don’t know where to begin? It’s no secret that you need an eyecatcher of a website and a solid e-commerce platform. These two make the base of your online presence and offer limitless possibilities to market your business. Here are the key components of the future success online:

  • Reliable e-commerce platform
  • Domain name
  • Website design
  • Correct inventory
  • Trusted payment provider
  • Website marketing

How to decide what e-commerce platform suits your vision and needs?

When choosing a platform you want to consider price, ease of integrations, features and secure payment gateway – these components will ensure flexibility and support growth of your business. Here at BATMAN we swear by two platforms: Shopify and WordPress/WooCommerce.

Shopify is an e-commerce giant. User friendly and robust, it offers more than 1000 plug-ins and integrations. It supports multiple transactional currencies and customer service can be reached 24/7. The disadvantage is that Shopify is less flexible when it comes to customization: adapting plug-ins to your needs is next to impossible and writing custom code can be a challenge.

WooCommerce is an e-commerce plug-in that works with WordPress websites. The plug-in is for free and customer support is available 24/7 as well. WooCommerce allows you to write custom code and create your own plug-ins. The commission is transactions based and depends on payment provider (e.g. Mollie).

Domain name​

A domain is your business’ website address, for instance, wearebatman.be. Make sure it’s easy to remember and it reflects your offer – goods or services. It helps with your business’ branding! Do you want to purchase a domain, or you can’t decide whether to buy a .be or .com domain? Reach out to us and we’ll help you.

Website design

Consider what theme resonates the best with your business. A theme is a pre-designed template that you can use for your website. Free or Premium (paid) theme? The choice is fully yours! But do know that if you want a custom design that extends your brand to your website, then BATMAN can offer you web design service.

Inventory solution

Look for Point-of-Sale (POS) systems that can synch your online stock levels with your offline inventory. Ease of POS system integration with your business setup is key.

Payment provider

A payment provider is a system used to process customer transactions. Good payment provider accepts major payment methods and integrates with your e-commerce platform (f.ex Stripe, Shopify payments, PayPal).

Tip: instant pop-up promotions on your website or a discount for signing up for newsletter will help boost sales and increase customer attraction to your business.

And last but not the least… online branding

Consistency of your font style, size, color and logo across the website and on social media are a must as they ensure your brand recognition in an online world. It’s a good idea to use favicons and hashtags, e.g. #wearebatman.

Make sure your business is present in major online directories (Google My Business, Facebook Business Page etc.) and the information is correct.

Eager to finally launch that e-commerce website?

Dive right in! BATMAN is there to support you every step of the journey. Contact us and together we explore ways to set up and optimize your website and find best solutions for payments and shipping. We make sure you get noticed online and help you drive traffic to your website.

(Source: https://digitalmainstreet.ca/)