Selling online opens your business up to customers far beyond your local area, and they can shop with you any time of the day or night. But a successful online shop takes more than just putting products on a website.
From choosing a platform to delivering orders and keeping customers coming back, there’s a lot to think about. To make it simpler, we’ve broken the process down into four key steps.
Step 1: The Basics – Your Website and Marketing
To have an online shop, you obviously need a website. If you don’t have one yet, there are three main things you’ll need:
- A domain name: your website address, such as www.myonlineshop.ie
- Hosting: the server your website lives on. Options include shared, dedicated and cloud hosting, so talk to your web designer about what suits your business best.
- An eCommerce website: a fully responsive website that works on every device, built on a reliable platform such as WooCommerce or Shopify
Once your shop is live, you need a marketing strategy so people know it exists. Take the time to identify your target audience and how best to reach them, using SEO, social media, Google Ads, Meta Ads, email marketing or a combination of these.
Step 2: The Logistics – Payments, Delivery and Returns
Payments: security is vital when dealing with customers’ card details. Your website needs an SSL certificate, which encrypts the information passing between your website and your customers. This is the padlock and “https” in the address bar, and it’s essential for building trust.
You should never store card details on your own website. Instead, use a trusted payment provider such as Stripe, PayPal or Shopify Payments. They handle the security of the transaction for you and let customers pay with cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Delivery: After someone buys from you, how their order reaches them is just as important. Will you offer free delivery, charge a flat fee or charge based on the size and weight of the order? Will you offer next-day delivery? Choose reliable couriers, such as An Post or DPD Ireland, and set out a clear delivery policy with costs and timescales.
If you plan to sell abroad, think about currencies, delivery times, and customs and duties, which now apply to orders going to Great Britain and to countries outside the EU.
Returns: under Irish and EU consumer law, customers buying online generally have the right to cancel their order within 14 days of receiving it. Make sure you have a clear returns policy that’s easy to find on your website.
Step 3: Capturing Information – Email Addresses and Analytics
While your online shop is your main focus, capturing the right information will help it grow.
Email addresses: when customers create an account or check out, give them the option to join your mailing list. Under GDPR and the ePrivacy Regulations, you can usually send marketing emails to existing customers about similar products, as long as you gave them a clear chance to opt out when you collected their details and in every email after that. For anyone else, you’ll need their consent. Your email list lets you tell people about new products, sales and promotions, and bring them back to your shop.
Analytics: Google Analytics 4 is your friend here. It shows you which products and pages are most popular, how people find your shop, how long they stay and where they leave. Set up eCommerce tracking to see which products sell best and where people drop out of the checkout. Use this information to keep improving your shop by building on its strengths and fixing its weak spots.
Step 4: Content – Keep It Fresh
Just like any website, an online shop benefits from fresh content. Keep your product photos, descriptions and videos up to date, add new products regularly and refresh your homepage for seasonal sales and promotions.
This shows Google that your website is active and worth sending visitors to. It also shows customers that your shop is well looked after and a safe, trustworthy place to buy from.
Ready to Start Selling Online?
Setting up an online shop takes some planning, but with the right website, secure payments, a clear delivery and returns policy, smart use of data and fresh content, you’ll be well on your way to online success.
If you’d like help setting up your online shop, get in touch with Whelan Web Design. We’re a Waterford-based web design agency helping businesses across Ireland build eCommerce websites that look great and sell more.
