PART 2 SET UP SHOP BUILD AND LAUNCH AN E-COMMERCE WEBSITE Our definitive guide to selling online ] smarter.telstra.com.au [ POWERED BY TELSTRA INTRODUCTION You’ve done your homework, ordered your stock, selected a shipping provider and chosen an e-commerce platform to power your new online business. If you’re ready to build your The first e-book outlined the research e-commerce website, this e-book and preparation needed to plan your is for you. e-commerce business. The journey Our Definitive Guide is the second in continues here, turning your e-commerce a three-part series, mapping every business plan into an online reality. stage of your e-commerce journey In the third part, you’ll learn how to from idea to launch, and beyond. promote your new e-commerce website, to attract and keep more customers. Time to start building! TECHNICAL TERMS EXPLAINED BY STAY ON TRACK WITH THE TEAM AT NETO [DOWNLOAD NOW] OUR HANDY CHECKLIST 1. WEBSITE DESIGN Your website only has a few seconds to make the right impression before visitors click the back button. Thankfully, you don’t have to be a design genius to have a great-looking site! EXPLORE CURRENT CHOOSE A DESIGN CUSTOMISE TRENDS IN TEMPLATE YOUR DESIGN E-COMMERCE DESIGN Many e-commerce platforms Make the design your own by adding Make a note of your favourite online come with a large library of design your logo and images. Your template retailers. Why do you like them? templates. For a fee, some will help may also have settings to adjust the What would you like to replicate? you to integrate a design template layout, colour scheme and more to from elsewhere. This is extremely suit your branding and preferences. The best e-commerce designs useful if you have an existing website are uncluttered, with plenty of Most visitors will arrive on your and want to use the same design space to show off your products. homepage first. Make a bold with your new online store. Look at other online sites to see statement with an eye-catching what works (and what doesn’t!). Can’t find a template or want banner image and headline. The Threadless and Roku websites, a bespoke design? You may need for example, have simple layouts to hire a designer experienced that focus on the product. with your chosen platform. Neto has 60 free website templates to select from, as well as an in-house custom design service. You can even try out Neto on a free 14-day trial. Good design = More sales Learn how the right website design can make a purchase the most logical conclusion for visitors. 2. BRANDING Before you start designing, think carefully about your brand. It must encapsulate the personality and values you want consumers to have top of mind when they hear your business name. DEFINE YOUR BRAND DOCUMENT YOUR CUSTOMISE YOUR Write down what your BRAND GUIDELINES DESIGN TEMPLATE business stands for and what you For a brand to be effective, its Adjust the design template to want it to achieve. This will inform look and feel needs to be simple, represent your brand, including the 'personality' of your brand. recognisable and consistent. logos and images. Your template l What’s your selling proposition? Create a ‘Brand Guidelines’ document may also have settings to adjust the Is it all-natural products, niche and include the colour palette (with layout and colour scheme to suit expertise or something else? details of the colour breakdown or your branding and preferences. l Who are your ideal customers? specific Pantone colour), font, logo Most visitors will see your Your brand needs to appeal to requirements, any specific design homepage first. Make a bold brand them and align with their values. elements, as well as key messaging. statement with an eye-catching l How will your brand differ from Your Brand Guidelines will make it banner image and headline. your competitors? What will be easier to brief designers and others, the individual ‘personality’ of your reducing the risk of confusion or brand? costly mistakes. Even if you already have a business, how well will your existing brand work online? Is this an opportunity for a rebrand? All your design docs in one place Neto has collated all of the documentation, templates and advice you or your designer will need. Follow tutorials, download templates and learn simple design tweaks. 3. CREATE CONTENT: COPYWRITING How hard can it be to add a few words to a website? Beware: Careless or rushed copy can undermine all your hard work. Don’t leave it too late! PRODUCT COPY history of the business and explain your values. Great product copy is brief, simple and informative. It takes skill Maybe there’s a story about why and time to say so much in so few you chose to only sell sustainable words. You can write it yourself or recycled products. Or perhaps pay a copywriter to do it. A web your love of vintage troll dolls will search for ‘copywriter’ will return a prove to other collectors that you Avoid vague long list of possibilities. Choose one understand them and their needs. statements and hyperbole. whose style matches your brand. l Break up copy with descriptive TERMS AND headings and subheadings CONDITIONS l Use bullets to summarise While often necessary, guarantees, important information legal disclaimers and other l Keep sentences short fine print content can be long, l Always include a ‘call to action’ confusing and intimidating for – a statement to motivate the customers. reader to take the next step Such important copy shouldn’t TIP Avoid vague statements be a chore to read, never mind and hyperbole. Why is it “high understand. Summarise or quality”? Is this really the “sale highlight the most important of the year”? points. Use plain English; avoid jargon, legalese or complex sentence structures. And get BRAND PAGES a lawyer to check it’s correct. Customers like to know who TIP Terms and conditions are they’re buying from. A short ‘About legally binding, so you should get Us’ page is where you can tell the a legal expert to check your copy. 4. CREATE CONTENT: IMAGES The right picture can be worth a thousand words. Give every page of your website plenty of visual appeal with eye-catching and relevant images. COLLECT TAKE OPTIMISE UPLOAD APPROVED YOUR OWN YOUR IMAGES IMAGES TO IMAGES PRODUCT Before uploading, crop THE WEBSITE Your product suppliers will PHOTOS each image to the correct Once uploaded to the probably have a library If you sell handcrafted, display size and aspect platform, you can add of approved images for bespoke or second-hand ratio to avoid distortion. more information to each you to use. For instance, items, it may be time to Large image files and image. A descriptive title a book publisher will get out the camera. Unless formats take longer to helps search engines index usually have cover images you have professional download, slowing down your content. ‘Alt text’ prepared for retailers. equipment, consider your webpages. Optimise describes the image for Also check if there are any hiring an experienced each image for the web to screen text readers used guidelines or restrictions photographer. While more achieve the best quality at by the blind. you need to observe. expensive, a studio shoot the lowest possible size. If you need a few ensures every image is Learn more about image non-product images, consistent and every formats and how to buy credits from a stock product looks its best. optimise your images. image library, such TIP Make sure you retain as istockphoto.com or all commercial rights in 123rf.com. your photographs and TIP Don’t breach images to avoid possible copyright by downloading disputes later. product images from Google, other retailers or related websites. THE IMPORTANCE OF PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY Learn how brands such as McDonald's and Airbnb achieve great images. 5. THE PRODUCT CATALOGUE Time to stock those shelves! Product pages will make up the bulk of your website, so it is vital that you plan your page structures and categories correctly. CREATE PRODUCT ADD PRODUCTS TO CATEGORIES THE WEBSITE STOCK CONTROL Too many categories can become Some e-commerce platforms have It can be extremely frustrating confusing. Keep the website simple several methods for creating product to buy a product online only to with as few categories as possible. pages on your website. Your choice learn that it’s out of stock. A good will most likely depend on how many Give your categories a logical e-commerce platform allows you to products you have to sell. You could: structure or hierarchy by grouping set stock levels so customers always l them under a few relevant parent Add each product page know if the product is available. categories. For example, a parent individually via the web interface category of ‘Menswear’ might have l Import products in bulk with subcategories of ‘Shirts’, ‘Trousers’, a .csv spreadsheet ‘Shoes’ and so on. l Use the platform’s API TIP Some products may appear (Application Programming in more than one category, giving Interface) to import from another customers multiple ways to find it. system (advanced) l Integrate and import from a MANAGING compatible inventory system CATEGORIES IS l Integrate and import from eBay SIMPLE WITH NETO (see section 10) Learn more about setting up your Regularly adding large amounts category structure, including a few of new products manually is not examples, with Neto. sustainable. The web interface is not intended for large stores. 6. GOING MOBILE While your design may look great on a desktop or laptop screen, more customers now use mobile devices to shop online.