How to build an eCommerce Website from Scratch

An eCommerce website has many functionalities and depends on how big you plan it to be. Displaying products, integrating payment gateways, and communicating with logistics companies are some modules you must develop on the website. Website development can be tricky if the basics are not correct. We have seen many e-commerce sites that look good on the outside, but when you go into the details, you see botched-up website development work. Let’s look at the steps one should follow to get a good e-commerce website that gives a good user experience and helps you sell.

Get a Good Domain:

A good domain name that represents your business helps establish your brand. If the domain has keywords, it further helps in SEO, but it should not be forced into the domain just to get ranked easily on SEO.

One should have a catchy domain name that users can remember rather than having a forced keyword-stuffed domain.

Technology Stack

After finalizing the domain name, you need to complete the technology stack. It is a crucial decision as it directs the whole website, its SEO, and user experience, among other factors. I would give a long hard look at the factors that help me decide on the technology stack and understand its pros and cons. There are many languages and frameworks available in the market that can help you develop a beautiful eCommerce website, and each has its benefits and gaps.

Of all the languages and frameworks that one can use for developing an e-commerce website, we always advise Laravel. You can design almost anything with this from scratch, give an outstanding user experience, and achieve SEO results.

Finalizing the Functionalities

Once the technology is final, you need to finalize the functionalities that will go on on the website. Below are some of the basic functionalities you need to have. You can expand your website further as the business grows, depending on the framework you are using.

Product Management

The website should have an easy-to-use product creation and updating system. It should also take care of images that form the bulk of a page and are crucial for user experience. We need to optimize images for various screen sizes to improve page speed.

The panel should have scope for sales and description, among other options.

Payment Gateway Integration

Get a well-established payment gateway that has a sound support system. Do check the rates that they offer per transaction before finalizing one. You should also make provisions for Cash on Delivery mode to boost sales.

Logistics API

You will need to integrate a shipping company API with your website to facilitate the delivery of your products. Many logistics aggregators bring together various shipping companies through their beautifully developed APIs. Depending on your business sense, you can make changes to select the one that charges less or delivers fast.

The shipping companies also take care of the cash-on-delivery payment.

Discounts and Offers

You will need to run a discount and offers campaign as a part of your eCommerce SEO and marketing. Provisions need to be there to create discount codes that users can avail of easily. These discount codes will have discounts either in the form of percentage or amount and come with their validity period.

Email and SMS system

You will need a good email and SMS system to communicate the orders purchased. A good template that shows recently added products and extra discount codes will help users make repeated purchases.

You also want to send the invoices by mail and provide for GST ad other charges that users can avail for their business.

Order System

 Users and you as admin would like to see the order history and its status. The order history generally has an invoice generation system to take easy printouts.

Refer and Earn System

As an e-commerce player, you would love your users to refer the website to someone and reward them for this. A referral code is generated when a user registers with you, identifying new purchases or users. It also helps users to create word-of-mouth publicity for you. We have developed many referrals for digital ocean servers, which we highly recommend to our users. We have been awarded hundreds of dollars worth of server time in this process.

SEO System

The e-commerce website should have a robust SEO system for you to add meta tags easily. The SEO system should highlight the URLs with missing meta tags along with their character length. Generally, website developers need to pay more attention to this aspect of e-commerce development as they need SEO knowledge.

Blog System

A good blog system is a must for every website to target new keywords and bring traffic to the products. You should be able to create categories and tags for blogs and products quickly through the admin panel. 

The blogs are also displayed through the website to help in the internal linking of pages.

SSL and Server

Once the website development process is complete, you will need a good SSL and server to launch the website. An SSL helps browsers identify whether the site is secure and is also an essential part of SEO. Buy a good dedicated server instead of going for shared hosting. Shared hosting is generally vulnerable to attacks from hackers and can destroy all the SEO work.

Running an e-commerce website has challenges, but most of them get sorted once you have all the basics in place. SEO of the website is always the center of development. Our team develops out-of-the-world e-commerce from scratch as per your requirement. We ensure all the functionalities are working correctly and tested.

If you want an eCommerce website from scratch, connect with a leading eCommerce website development company in Toronto today.

Author: Amit Kumar Khare

Amit is a tech enthusiast and loves writing about it. He is a senior developer with good hands-on experience in digital marketing.