We have built quite a few ecommerce websites and online shops over the years. The thing that stands out for me is that site owners often underestimate the amount of work they will need to do.

E-commerce websites are often complicated and require a lot of thought and planning, then a fair amount of work to implement, then a lot of work to make successful. Don’t be misled by the advertising claims you see about getting an online store up and running in a matter of hours.

Ecommerce website software packages

Typically online shops are built with purpose built ecommerce software packages or use an online service that you rent monthly.

The web shop design component is relatively straight-forward from my perspective because most online shops use a similar layout (it is what people expect) and so use a template designed for the software package. The product graphics are usually the main design element.

An example of a software package is the rather good Woocommerce for WordPress which is free to use in its standard form. This is a well developed, mature e-commerce package that provides most of the standard features required for a straight-forward shop built in and a large range of extensions (plugins) to provide extra features (some at a modest annual cost).

To get ready to sell online

There are all the requirements of a normal website plus a whole heap more. This is a big project that will require a lot of effort from you and it will take time to get up and running. I can of course lead you through, provide help where you need it and do the technical stuff for you.

Marketing your online shop

Then when your web shop goes live the real work will start. Do not assume that setting up a web shop will automatically mean customers will just arrive at your site and purchase. It is not like that – a lot of marketing then needs to be done to carve your niche.