Eshop construction

The e-shop is an electronic store. That is, a digital store that operates on the internet regardless of whether or not the owning company also has physical stores. The user can visit the e-shop from his computer, tablet or smartphone, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, no matter where he is or what time it is.

He can see and possibly compare products, add them to the shopping cart and complete his purchase by choosing one of the available remote payment methods. He also chooses whether he will pick up the product from the store or whether it will be delivered to him at his place.

The creation of an eshop expands the sales methods and network of a business and enables it to address a wider audience without time, geographical or other limitations. It is a store of the business that – under conditions – can increase its customers and sales exponentially.

The e-shop is not a powerful promotional tool for sales of products and services, only during the period of the pandemic, but it offers a company enormous possibilities for developing its customer base, while reducing its expenses and offering the possibility to launch its sales.

Classic e-shops are those that sell products either in the retail market (B2C) or in the wholesale market (B2B) or in both the retail and wholesale markets. However, any website that has the possibility of online shopping and payments could be characterized as an e-shop, although it literally belongs to the broader category of e-commerce. Such websites are those that sell online services (eg a tutorial that offers the possibility of online purchase of e-learning courses).

The design process is particularly important since it will determine the style, the aesthetic impression and the functionality of your e-shop.

That is why a detailed discussion with the customer must be preceded in order to determine the goals, the specifics and functions that will characterize the new eshop, the categories and subcategories of the products, the number and the way of posting the products as well as the audience we want to address and sell.

At Marketup we design eshops in three ways, depending on our customer’s needs and choices:

By purchasing a quality template (design standard) and faithfully observing its aesthetics and functionality. Of course, in this case it is not actually about designing the e-shop, since we are applying the design of the template we chose and bought, but about building the e-shop with a design template.
By purchasing a quality template (design standard) and custom design and functional adaptation from us, so that it is suitable for the requirements (aesthetic and functional) of the new online store and makes it Unique.
Custom design of your e-shop from scratch (this option has multiple costs and is aimed at very few companies).

There are many ways to build an e-shop. With an open software platform (Woocommerce, Magento, Prestashop, Virtuemart, Opencart, Cs-cart and many others), with a closed software platform (built and used only by a specific company) or custom.

Marketup has chosen to build eshops with Woocommerce or Magento or with Custom code depending on the needs of each business, so that the best ratio of maximum performance to construction and support costs can be achieved.

And here the answer depends on the type and size of the e-shop and the number of products it hosts. How much are the products? Are they produced in-house or sourced from a supplier?

If it is a small e-shop that has a relatively limited number of products, it is best to post the products one by one by hand, so that special attention is paid to the photos, the title, the characteristics of the product, its connection with its filters e-shop, the correct description of metadata and metatags.

If it is an e-shop with thousands of products, it matters if they are registered (and how) in some commercial program of the company or if they come from a supplier (or suppliers) that has xml or json files that can be connected to the e-shop . In any case, some kind of one-way or two-way online connection (bridge) will be needed.

The shopping cart in the eshop works almost the same as in physical stores. You can use the “Add to cart” button to place any product you are interested in buying there, but also remove it with the “Delete” button if you regret it.

In other words, it is the place where you temporarily touch the products you choose to buy. In the basket you can see what you have chosen and how much each product costs separately, but also all together. To complete the purchase, proceed to the order to select the method of payment, receipt and completion of the procedures.

Each eshop can have the following collection methods:

1. Delivery at the place of the customer’s choice via courier.
2. Pick up by carrier at the location of the customer’s choice or at the carrier’s offices.
3. Pickup from the store (if the business also has a physical store).
4. Collection by ClickAway method (outside the store in conditions of special measures such as with Covid-19).

There is no answer because the question is too vague. The cost of an eshop is determined by many factors related to the real needs of each business. It matters which way of design will be chosen, how the products will be posted, which functionalities of the eshop, if there will be compositions (bridges) that will interact with external software and much more.

Of course, in addition to the cost of construction, there is the cost of SEO promotional work to be positively evaluated by Google and the ranking engines, the cost of all promotional actions (digital marketing) and of course the cost of management and support. In a few words, an e-shop can cost little and another tens of thousands of euros, as is also the case in physical stores.

• An e-shop must present its products in an impressive way, by categories and subcategories (and usually with special search filters).
  It must be easy to use for its visitors and potential customers and convince of the security of the transactions it provides and the reliability of the company it belongs to.
• It must be easy to use for its visitors and potential customers and convince of the security of the transactions it provides and the reliability of the company it belongs to.
• It must clearly inform its customers about the options they have in terms of payments, receiving products, shipping costs, the possibility of returns, etc. It can be a retail or wholesale e-shop or both.

In particular, for the e-shop to be really effective, it should:

1. To be aesthetically attractive, impressive and their design to uniquely reflect the brand name it represents
2. To be easy to use and functional for its visitors
3. Be interactive to interact multiple times with visitors and potential customers
4. To contain rich, if possible original and properly structured content
5. Have a top mobile version or be automatically adaptable for mobiles and tablets (responsive)
6. Have researched what the competition is facing online based on the goals of its owners
7. Investigate how internet users search for the products or product categories it includes
8. Have effectively implemented comprehensive and page-specific and category-specific SEO promotion work
9. To have a correct and easy-to-use categorization of its products (by categories and subcategories)
10. Its menu should be clear, unambiguous and functional
11. To have correct, necessary filters per product type
12. Have pages on the appropriate social media, be connected to them
    Be equipped with all digital marketing modules (and of course use them)
13. To post special attractive offers or offer packages
14. Be safe and show it
15. To convince about the reliability of the business
16. To renew the content with the frequency required by its type
17. Be supported in terms of SEO work and social media posts
18. Be technically supported with appropriate upgrades to remain up-to-date and secure
19. To be fully adapted to the requirements of the European GDPR personal data protection regulation
20. To utilize newsletter marketing in an organized and systematic manner
21. To implement targeted digital marketing campaigns
22. To be easy to use for its administrators

• The security of an e-shop is related to two different parameters:
  
  • The security the user feels to trust the e-shop and buy

  n order to feel safe, the user must be convinced that he is in the online store of an organized and legal business. That is, there must be all the company’s contact details, the e-shop must have SSL, there must be all the legal texts that describe the terms of use, the privacy policy, the cookies policy, the terms of product returns, product shipping policy, etc.

  Also when preparing to pay with his credit or debit card he should make sure that his card details are filled in the secure environment of the Bank or Neobank or Paypal.

  • The security of the e-shop from viruses and other malware risks
    

  The e-shop and the server on which it is hosted should have all the required security software. Strong Captcha, Hardware & Software Firewalls, frequent updates and 24-hour dynamic monitoring of connections to provide the highest possible security against hacking, intrusion, brute forcing and spamming.

  Of course, there is no such thing as 100% security on the internet, that’s why all security systems promise 99% security.

  The iservices new generation servers are equipped with all of the above to provide security at the highest level.

• The creation of an e-shop does not ensure or guarantee its efficiency and performance. In short, it does not mean that once you have an e-shop, customers will line up and sales will come. Several conditions need to be met for your eshop to perform. This also applies to a physical store. Just as your store must be located on a main street – market, have a beautifully decorated window, have good organization and layout in the way the products are presented, if it has good and helpful salespeople and of course competitive prices, accordingly your e-shop should take care of it and make it reliable, competitive, recognizable and with a strong brand name.

  What your e-shop needs to perform:

  • It should be properly designed, attractive, with an identity and impress at first glance
    
  • Have well-written, well-structured code with all the information Google needs
    
  • To be easy to use and functional for both administrators and visitors – customers
    
  • To have a correct and easy-to-use categorization of its products (by categories and subcategories)
    
  • Its menu should be clear, unambiguous and functional
    
  • To have correct, necessary filters per product type
    
  • Be safe and show it
    
  • Convince visitors that this is the e-shop of an organized and reliable business that they can rely on no matter what happens
    
  • The terms of use, privacy policy, returns, payments, costs and shipping methods, etc., must be clear and easily visible.
    
  • Be automatically adaptable for mobiles and tablets (responsive) or have a special mobile version
    
  • To have researched and evaluated how internet users search for the products or services it offers
    
  • Have effectively implemented comprehensive and page-specific SEO work
    
  • To be equipped with all e-marketing modules (and of course to use them)
    
  • Have pages on the appropriate social media, be connected to them
    
  • To update its content with the frequency required for the types of products it sells.
    
  • Have researched what the competition is facing online based on the goals of its owners
    
  • Its pricing policy should be adjusted based on the company’s strategic goals and taking into account the competition
    
  • To configure, display and promote discounts (per item, per time period), offers, offer packages, etc.
    
  • To plan and implement appropriate and targeted advertising campaigns in Google adwords and Facebook ads