A self-hosted eCommerce website designing or building process is a systematic method or workflow in which includes product listing, content creation, domain booking, hosting, website creation, support and marketing activities.
It’s also the process for the shopkeeper to follow to automate selling by using the eCommerce website.
While running an eCommerce website you also need to build and use finance, marketing, production, HR, Customer Support and website maintenance process and system.
An eCommerce or online store is a method (shop) in which the whole selling, stock management, financial, and marketing system works automatically without the presence of the owner (shopkeeper).
1. Create the list of products, images, prices, short descriptions, target customer detail in a spreadsheet that is in stock or drop-shipping.
2. Domain name research for the website or the same name as per your business.
3. Hosting: Specialized eCommerce website hosting services. What is Web Hosting Service, How to Find Best Hosting Plan
4. Web Development: Specialized eCommerce website development services. It can be CMS (premium eCommerce WordPress themes + WooCommerce) or a completely new website from scratch (self-coded/ by web developer).
5. Things are included: logo design, user interface design, payment gateway integration, product page creation, blog page creation, contact page, partner pages, and many more other parts, based on the goals of the website.
6. Content Creation and uploading: Product images, product page descriptions, price setting and addition of various content as per the website design.
7. Search Engine Optimization: Ownership verification and submission of website sitemap.xml in Google Webmaster tools, creation or positioning of roboto.txt and .htaccess files in hosting control panel, keyword addition in products title, images, and meta description after using keyword research tools and the addition of google analytics tracking code and many more SEO things.
Related: Ecommerce Website SEO Best Practices: WordPress
8. Testing: Site map submission tracking, website speed test, mobile responsibility, and user experience test and any other HTML, theme, program bugs and SEO errors.
9. Promotion and Advertising: Use of pay per click ads, content marketing, social media marketing, video marketing, mobile marketing and advertising, data analysis in google analytics.
10. Selling: Order tracking, delivery, instant payment, cash on delivery.
11.Performance Analysis: Most purchased products, highly ranked keywords, top landing pages, targeted customers, landing page bounce rate, per customer cost analysis.
Related: How can business benefit from using analytics on their website
In this system, each process or task is assigned to an employee (team member or technology. For example, to receive payment from customers on your online store or eCommerce website through debit cards, credit cards, net banking, and many others, you’re using payment gateway services.
Use courier or delivery services by the integration of third-party product delivery services API or code in your online store. It when the customer paid and orders the product, the delivery department or services automatically receives the notification and address to deliver the parcel.
But remember, after the creation of the process. You have to create another process that will grow your eCommerce website.
For example:
You can create a process to showcase new product lines in the showroom or website. It can be defined like this:
- The marketing team and data analysis team, share a sheet in which demands for new products are written. And created a product sheet to follow.
- Top management + finance department cleared the payments.
- Supplier or supply management staff followed that sheet and bring the new products into the stock.
- A stock manager or finance department verified and listed the products in a sheet and shared them with the promoter or website admin or showroom manager.
eCommerce website creation and management processes are different than the eCommerce website growth process.
But this is an example, in which I think you have learned some important steps such as marketing and technical aspects of the eCommerce website. Now you have to think and create similar business production and marketing processes for your eCommerce business.
For a successful process, it needs discipline, time management, clear goals, a skilled workforce, and the use of modern eCommerce technologies.