A Beginners Guide for Your E-Commerce Website

In today’s post, we introduce you to more tools for your start-up, specifically surrounding e-commerce. We spoke to Liam JE Gerada, cofounder of Krepling, who gave us some tips for e-commerce success.

For those looking to launch their e-commerce start-up promptly, Squarespace and Shogun provide platforms that allow quick, easy set-up for your business. Shopify provides a more complex platform offering features that are not yet available on Squarespace or Shogun for those that need a more comprehensive platform to support their start-up.

These 'no code' platforms allow you to host a professional-looking website that builds brand trust. Another way to increase trust for your brand is the increasing use of social media and influencer marketing. You can read more about social media and our tips and advice for success here.

Many start-ups are creating and retailing their products; Design2Market offers packaged, transparent, and reasonably priced offers for building prototypes of your products. Once created, Centurybox and Pakible are some of the many suppliers that allow you to customise your product packaging before shipping. When shipping your product, Onfleet is a great platform to discover local delivery options for your start-up. However, suppose your chosen business model is dropshipping. In that case, Oberlo has a fantastic platform that allows your start-up to easily import dropshipped products directly into your e-commerce store from any marketplace.

No matter your business model, a reliable payment infrastructure is essential to your start-up’s success. Stripe is considered one of the best payment infrastructures for e-commerce businesses, but other options include Selz and Paypal. In addition, Chargebee or GoCardless have excellent reputations as trustworthy options for B2B and B2C businesses with regards to subscription services.

Alongside a reliable payment infrastructure comes the need for a transparent refund process. Liam suggests using your refund process as a marketing tool; maybe you accept 30-day refunds instead of the usual 14 days? Or perhaps you send unsellable returns to charity? Liam also emphasised the need for refund policies to be outlined in layman's terms to increase transparency and build trust where you can.

Customers are an essential part of any e-commerce start-up, so customer management should be a priority for your business. Platforms such as Memberstack and ActiveCampaign are easy to use platforms that allow you to manage customer relationships and target your marketing efforts. Other platforms like TrustPilot are great free ways to build brand trust via your website, allowing customers to leave reviews.

When thinking about the future of e-commerce, we should all be considering the growing d2c market. Liam states that to compete with the bigger brands in this market, omnichannel selling is the way to go. For example, listing your products on Amazon is a great way to gain traction and expand your audience.

Other ways to compete in the future of e-commerce are voice commerce and VR commerce. More and more people are purchasing through Alexa or Google Echo so ranking on these voice commerce platforms can put you ahead of the competition. For product-based companies, the implementation of VR software can show customers what an item will look like in their home and can reduce the need for returns.

For all e-commerce startups, Liam's best advice is:

Create a Product with a Great Team that Satisfies your Customers.

For more tips and advice around tools for your start-up, join our community and claim your FREE LinkedIn advertising credits: https://www.enterpriseorchard.co.uk/community

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