How To Create an E-Commerce Website (for Beginners)

An e-commerce business will require an attractive and easy-to-navigate website. But what if you’re not a programmer? Luckily, there are plenty of solutions out there that allow online sellers to create fully functional websites without expert help.

This article offers a step-by-step guide on how to develop a website for sales so that you can establish your online store as soon as possible.

Key Factors To Consider

First off, let’s look at the factors you need to consider before you settle on a method for creating a website.

Budget

Depending on your available resources, you may have access to different website creation methods.

When working with a limited budget, as is the case for most new businesses, you can opt to use pre-made templates since they require a far lower investment, and simply customize them to your needs.

In-house Staff

If your company or network has its own front-end developers, graphic designers, and copywriters, the website creation process may look a little different.

In other words, you can calibrate your approach depending on the availability of qualified experts who can assist you.

Time

Sometimes the success of a product depends on its timely launch on the market. If one method for website development requires an extended time commitment, you may do well to consider alternative options.

Product Specifications

Some website architectures heavily depend on the product’s specifications or your business niche.

For example, a fashion website requires the creation of a large database to maintain a wide selection of products. At the same time, stores offering only a few products do not need such a complex infrastructure.

Scale

Most large businesses with access to considerable funds and long-term business development strategies prefer to invest significant resources and efforts into creating highly personalized websites.

On the other hand, small businesses, especially those run by one person or just a few people, choose more affordable methods that permit them to launch their websites in hassle-free ways that don’t require much technical know-how.

Types of E-Commerce Website Development Approaches

There is no one-size-fits-all method for website development. If you don’t have any web design experience, you may find the sheer variety of options overwhelming. In fact, your choice depends entirely on the circumstances of your business.

There are two main options to choose from: ready-made platforms or custom development, with some interim variations. Let’s examine what each method is, along with its pros and cons.

SaaS Online Store Platforms

SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions grant you access to an online platform that you can use to develop your website. It offers pre-made templates and a user-friendly interface.

In short, these platforms enable you to create a professional-looking website, regardless of whether you have any programming experience.

Advantages of SaaS Platforms

The advantages of using ready-made platforms include:

• Low investment. Using a SaaS platform allows you to start your business on a smaller budget. This option is the most affordable one, with monthly subscriptions typically costing between $25 and $300, with the option to pay extra for additional features, should you have need of them.
• Independence. It’s entirely possible for a single person to build a whole online store on their own. You can establish your business online without any expert assistance.
• Ready-to-use templates. One of the chief advantages of using this kind of platform is the availability of templates. These are ready-to-use modules that you can assemble and customize to your liking to reflect your store’s needs and branding. Templates can be immensely helpful as they allow you to skip a few steps ahead and use ready-made designs perfect for an online store.
• Sufficient for most businesses. High-quality SaaS platforms usually guarantee excellent website development conditions. Moreover, they can work so well that a number of extremely successful online businesses see them as the optimal development option. Some examples of websites developed this way include Jeffree Star Cosmetics, Gymshark, and Decathlon.

Disadvantages of SaaS Platforms

Some of the potential disadvantages of using ready-made website platforms are:

• Technical limitations. Since they are made for people without front-end or back-end development skills, SaaS platforms come with some limitations, which may be difficult or technically impossible to resolve.
• Scalability could be difficult. Due to the lack of total freedom, in case your business expands, the website may not be able to take advantage of the infrastructure required to sustain its exponential growth, at least not without expert help.
• Migration issues. If you decide to develop your own website later on or move to another SaaS platform, the odds that you would be able to transfer client, financial, or design data are low. One of the reasons for this is that these websites are usually built using code unique to them. 

• The security and reliability are not up to you. SaaS platforms pay special attention to the security of your website. That being said, the code and hosting of the website do not belong to you, so your website’s functioning depends entirely on the platform.

Custom-made Website  

The second method is creating a website from scratch. This requires the expertise of professional web designers and programmers, as well as a detailed strategy for the overall structure of the website.

Advantages of Personalized Websites

The pros of this approach are as follows:

• Complete technical freedom. Developing a custom-made website is only limited by the programmers’ skills and the designers’ creativity. In other words, you can create a website that perfectly matches the needs of your business.
• Scalability may be costly, but entirely possible. There is no chance for your business to outgrow the potential of your bespoke infrastructure. Regardless of the scale, your independent website can always be optimized for user experience, comfort, and complexity.
• You’re in control and have access to the site’s analytics. SaaS platforms usually offer some general data about many aspects of your site. However, custom-made websites grant you complete control over the site’s analytics, making them a more reliable option for analyzing consumer behavior, sales, and all other key business processes.

Disadvantages of Personalized Websites

Here are the potential risks if you choose to develop your own custom-made e-commerce website:

• Higher initial investment. You will need experts. This requirement goes beyond the need for professionals to develop and understand the relevant software or programming language necessary. Your budget also needs to cover hiring designers and copywriters, buying a domain and hosting, as well as investing in the website’s security.
• Longer development time. Depending on the scale and functionalities of the website, its development may take from a few weeks up to a few months. You could use templates here as well, but the process is significantly more complicated.
• Manual support. You may need to hire a web developer to maintain the website, add new products, or make all sorts of dynamic changes that an online store may require over time. Even in the best-case scenario, you’d still need to pay annual maintenance fees.

Personalized Website Based on a SaaS Platform

Another option is to develop a personalized website using a SaaS platform. This process requires the involvement of experts who can tailor the platform to your needs as closely as possible. This way, you can create a website that meets the specific requirements of your product without the huge investment in a site developed from scratch.

Advantages of the Combined Approach

Some of the positive aspects of this method are:

• Easy maintenance. Aside from including all of the advantages of the SaaS platform, this option requires professional help only during the implementation of the custom changes. From that point on, you can easily maintain your website on your own.
• Low budget requirements. You can personalize your website by including additional paid modules or paying developers to work on extra features. In any case, this option is more budget-friendly than developing an entire website from scratch.

Disadvantages of the Combined Approach

The main drawback is the limited freedom. Even though you can scale the features of your chosen SaaS platform, you still do not have the complete freedom to integrate absolutely everything that your business may potentially need in the long term.

What You Need To Get Started

Before creating the website, you need to provide the important items listed below.

Domain and Hosting

The domain is your website’s name. For example, abcde.com is a domain name. Most commonly, the domain corresponds to the name of your business. Strong domains are short, clear, and don’t contain special characters such as hyphens.

Hosting is the service that keeps your website online. Hosting companies store your website’s files – its code, images, and other audio-visual elements, making them accessible to site visitors.

Usually, domain and hosting services are offered by different companies. However, some SaaS platforms can provide them for you. These two items are fundamental and mandatory to launch a website.

Design and Branding

The design is the visual identity of your website. It is part of branding. Moreover, it’s crucial that elements such as color schemes, typefaces, and photos match the theme and character of your website. The color choices of the world’s most successful brands are intentional.

Other branding components include the style of writing, brand positioning, and USP (unique selling proposition), which all help you stand out from the competition.

Building strong branding from the get-go is important because it will affect your business’ presence on social media.

The design must also include the structure of your website, the call to action for users, and the positioning of photos, videos, or other content that improves the user experience.

Most often, the architecture of a website is mapped out in advance in the form of a wireframe. It includes every step of the order process, including the final email confirmation that customers receive.

Content

You need to prepare product categories, descriptions, prices, and other details that matter to customers.

Part of your content strategy includes planning and publishing blog articles, as well as doing keyword research to aid you in your SEO strategy.

Terms of Use and Privacy

From a legal standpoint, every online store needs to have terms of use, privacy, and return policies.

You can find templates for these kinds of long agreements online, but make sure to edit them to reflect the specific terms and conditions of your business.

Can You Do It All by Yourself?

SaaS platforms exist precisely to enable business owners to learn how to develop and manage a website entirely independently. There are plenty of video guides that can teach us how to build a website in mere days.

Nevertheless, developing a personalized website is impossible without prior technical knowledge. The time it would take you to potentially learn the programming languages you’d need may be better spent making sales and managing your business.

That is why custom-made websites require the aid of experts, who often demand significant compensation for their highly qualified labor.

What Professional Services You May Need

If you have the funds and wish to develop a high-quality website that generates sales, you will need the services of experts in three main areas:

Web and UX/UI Design

The web designer is responsible for the initial sketching and organization of the website in the form of a wireframe. Competent web designers know what makes a website effective and easy to navigate.

Usually, those same experts can also handle the UX/UI design as well. This aspect covers the micro-optimizations that lead to a smooth user experience such as the availability of the correct buttons and menus, visual effects, and links between the pages of a website. 

Web Development

Web developers use the designers’ sketches and turn them into reality. They are in charge of writing the code and creating the actual web pages, as well as adding products to the website.

Copywriting and SEO

Copywriters know how to use language to effectively communicate the brand value and identity to the customers. Language is one of the most powerful elements of branding. Its correct application can significantly increase the potential conversion rate of your store.

SEO experts, on the other hand, help your website rank highly in search engines, which leads to more organic traffic and sales without investing in paid advertising.

How Long Will It Take?

The time it takes to develop a website from start to finish depends on the complexity of the project and the method of development you’ve chosen.

In theory, you can develop a SaaS website in just a few hours. Realistically, if you dive into this without any prior experience, it may actually take you a few weeks to figure everything out. Even so, SaaS platforms remain the fastest option for website development.

On the other hand, the unparalleled freedom of a fully custom-made website may take a while. In most cases, the production of such a website might take months due to the coordination between the different teams of experts working on it.

If the workflow is well organized and quick, launching a functional website could take between 2 and 4 weeks, but that depends on many factors. In the context of an e-commerce website, adding hundreds of individual products with their photos and descriptions could slow down the process significantly.

How Much Does the Development of an E-Commerce Website Cost?

Web development costs vary according to a number of factors, mostly your chosen approach. Let’s look at the average costs for both options.

The Cost of Web Development via a SaaS Platform (Without Expert Help)

Platform subscription -$15-$100 monthly for small businesses (includes the domain, hosting, and security measures)

Additional apps and modules – $0-$20+ (optional)

The Cost of Custom-Made Website Development

Domain – $10-$45 (per year)

Hosting – $3-$10 (per year)

SSL certificate – $0-$200 (improves security; optional)

Web designer and/or developer – $3,000-$10,000+ (as well as $500-$1000 per year for maintenance)

Other external services – $500-$3000+ (per service)

Usually, the average cost of developing your own website varies between $6,000 and $10,000, with additional fees for its long-term maintenance of about $500 to $1,000.

E-Commerce Website Development Best Practices and Tips by NEXT BASKET

Finally, our team has prepared a few precious tips to share with you that will guarantee the smooth and problem-free launch of your e-commerce website.

Study the Market

Each market is a little different. So, elements such as the architecture of your website and your brand’s voice may differ from one industry to the next. It’s highly recommended to stick to the basics and experiment over time.

Get To Know Your Target Audience

To create the perfect user experience on your website, you need to know your users. Where do they live? How old are they? What are their consumer habits? All of these factors will affect the overall look of your website and give you a better idea of what needs you have to meet.

Focus on Security

Security applies both to you as the website owner and to the user data you collect. Invest in the reliability of your website and use an SSL certificate to secure customers’ personal data.

Automate to the Max

From orders to delivery and even your email marketing campaigns, you need to automate as many aspects of your website as possible. This will save you time and effort, which can be better invested in the growth and development of your e-commerce business.

Analyze the Results

Introduce analytical tools to help you optimize your work processes and monitor website traffic. Then, you will learn at what stage of the customer journey your users give up ordering, where most of your traffic comes from, and many other valuable insights.