This article is intended as a planning guide for anyone opening an online store. It will outline some key areas that can help you better prepare to open your new store. Follow the guide step-by-step, or just pick out the topics of interest.

Opening an online store is really not much different than opening a brick and mortar store. There are plenty of things to do and prepare for, in anticipation of opening your new store.

First of all, don’t rush. Sure there are sites that suggest you can open an online store in 15 minutes, but is that the approach you really want to take? This is going to be your business and by taking the time to plan and think things through will help increase the chances that your online store will be a success.

Products

We will divide our planning and preparation into a few different sections, starting with your products. Since this is the core of your business, it’s important for you to spend some extra time focusing on this area.

At this point you probably already have a product line of some degree. It isn’t necessary to have dozens or 100s of products to operate a successful online store. Many thriving businesses have been built on a small product line, so opening with only a few is perfectly fine.

Start by organizing your products. It will be much easier to enter and build your product catalog if all the information has been well thought-out and ready to go.

For each of your products:

1. Create a title. It should be short and to the point, but descriptive enough for the buyer to understand exactly what you are selling.
2. Write a short description. Product descriptions should expand from the title and include additional information that the buyer may not be able to distinguish from the title or product image. Use the description to point out important features that you want the buyer to be aware of, and include text for any accessories that might be part of the item. Try to include keywords that buyers may use when searching for your type of item.
3. Pricing. You may already have set your pricing, but do a quick review to ensure that your items are competitively priced.
4. Images. Arguably one of the most important aspects of your product catalog is the product images. Make sure they look professional and really represent your product. Keep the file size as small as possible for fast downloading. Crop any unwanted areas and try to keep them uniform.
5. Classify.  Assign categories, subcategories and aisles to each of your products. This information will be used to build your store’s menu system. Make sure that items are located where shoppers expect to find them.

Store Basics
 
Once you have all of your products organized it’s time to do a little design work. Here are some basic areas that need to be addressed.

1. Store Name. (This one is self explanatory) You probably already have a name for your store, but if not, it’s time to think of one.
2. Business Slogan. Along with the store name, create a short catchy slogan or tag line to help people remember your store.
3. Business Description. You also want to write a short description of your business. In a single paragraph or two, summarize what your business is about. Think of it this way, if someone asked you to tell them about your business, how would you respond.
4. Logo.  Do you have a logo for your business? People often visually identify businesses by some type of icon. Consider something simple that can still be identifiable in different sizes. If you don’t have the ability to create a logo on your own, think about using a graphic artist. They will be able to help you design a professional logo and deliver it in different types of sizes and formats to use anywhere in your store. If you want to keep things simple and save a few dollars, find an image that’s a good representation of your products and services. You can even use an existing image from one of your products.

Contact Information
What options will buyers have to contact you? Is it only through your online store messaging and email, or will you provide other information? Remember trust is a big factor for online selling so consider including additional contact information when possible such as a phone number and mailing address. Even though they may never use it, buyers like to know that they can pick up the phone to reach a real person if the need arises.

Store Policies
You will need to write a few policies for your store. At a minimum create a payment, return and warranty policy. These policies should be a clear reflection of your store rules and processes and should be easy for customers to understand. Having well defined policies will reduce the chance for any misunderstandings and help to ensure a satisfied customer.

Store Design

Web Pages
Most online stores provide a web page editor to accomplish the task of creating web pages, and you’ll want to take advantage of this tool to create a few pages in your store. It isn’t critical that you have lot of different pages, but at the very least you should include an ‘About’ and a ‘Contact Us’ page. The ‘About’ page can include useful information such as company history, biography or business philosophy. It’s also a good idea to dedicate another page as an overall view of your store policies. Beyond that it’s up to you to what other types of information and content that you think is important to share with shoppers.

This will conclude part 1. I hope you continue on to Part 2, in it we will begin to address some of the configuration required for your store’s shopping cart.

Click here to read part 2