The art of building an e-commerce site
One of the newest locally based e-commerce sites to go live is MovArt (ateliermovart.com), created by the Stratford-based artist known by the mononym Voltori as the digital storefront for his paintings. Launched on May 18, it was created by the artist in what he described as a trial-and-error manner.
“I’ve worked on the website for about a year,” he recalled. “It was all a learning curve for me. I constantly stumbled upon obstacles and had to research and teach myself how to overcome them.”
Voltori taught himself enough about building an e-commerce site that he felt comfortable to premiere MovArt after an extended beta testing period. Nonetheless, the artist-turned-entrepreneur is going into a challenging market with his MovArt site.
According to data from WPForms.com, a software company focused on the WordPress platform, there are between 12 million and 24 million e-commerce sites worldwide, but less than one million of these websites make more than $1,000 in revenue each year. That is hardly due to a lack of demand – Statista reported there were 900 million more online buyers in 2021 than there were in 2020.
And, of course, there is that digital elephant in the room: Amazon. Statista also reported 59% of consumers say they always or often begin their purchases with a trip to Amazon.
So, what can businesses and entrepreneurs do to ensure their standalone e-commerce sites find online buyers?
For starters, it helps to have a thorough understanding of where the new e-commerce site will fit within the digital scheme of things.
“Starting from fresh, you need to do a lot of research on the buying patterns of your target consumers and the type of marketing that your competitors are doing,” said Scott Johnson, president of Brookfield-headquartered Mack Media Group.
After looking at the wider environment, the next step is to consider the e-commerce site’s goals.
“You have to think about what you’re going to sell and how you want your customers to be able to buy,” explained Michael Loewenberg, principal at New City-based MESH Business Solutions Inc. “It’€™s more interesting to think about how customers buy than how you sell, because that’s what’s really going to make or break your website.”
Loewenberg noted that it doesn’t matter what is being sold because the basic principles of e-commerce span the full online retail spectrum.
“I built sites for restaurants selling food that’s being delivered, and I build websites for clients who want to sell things, widgets,” he said. “What you have to talk about are the products that you have and how you build them ”” whether they”™re simple products that you buy something as it stands by itself, or whether that has variations, options to those products. And that increases the complexity and also the way that the products are displayed on a website about how people buy.”
In Voltori”™s case, the reasons why people would want to buy his artwork weighed in his decision on how to present his output for potential purchasing.
“I uploaded all of my artwork and showcased them in different environments,” Voltori said. “Since everyone”™s home or office is different and unique, I figured I”™d show viewers what my work might look like in different types of room settings. If you look at the website, you can see that ”” I”™m super happy about it.”
Inventory Issues
For businesses selling a complex product line, Loewenberg recommended having a website that can accommodate a wide inventory, especially with merchandise with diverse variations.
“If you”™ve got a shirt with two sizes and five colors, that”™s 10 products,” he said. “And if it”™s long and short sleeve, that”™s 20 products. And then you have five kinds of trim, that”™s 100 products. And if you”™ve got 10 sizes, that”™s 1,000 products ”” and each one of those things is an individual product.”
With a wider inventory, Loewenberg suggested moving beyond the do-it-yourself aspects of sites like Wix or Shopify and work with “someone who understands the mechanisms of building more than just simple products.”
Of course, there is more to e-commerce than the online store. Rob Kissner, the GaelVentures program manager at Iona College”™s Hynes Institute in New Rochelle, raised the caution that things can become thorny when the process moves offline.
“I”™ve seen the real inhibitor to growth for an e-commerce site that”™s selling anything physical as the fulfillment side of it,” said Kissner. “Let”™s say you”™re selling handmade jewelry and somebody purchases an item ”” obviously you want to make sure you have the items in stock. Are you packaging that up? How is it being wrapped? You have to get it to the post office in a timely manner, and all of the materials used for packaging, and shipping those products have a cost associated with them.”
Kissner sparked the question of whether the e-commerce site owner will need to hire a fulfillment company to handle the packing and shipping if the site takes off in popularity, adding the costs of shipping and handling need to be considered before any sales take place.
“In terms of selling one piece of jewelry, how much does it cost to make, pack and ship, and is the sale of that one piece of jewelry greater than all of those expenses put together?” he asked. “Because if you”™re just making even or breaking even or making a couple of percentages of a profit margin on that, it”™s probably not worth it to even do this in the first place. Whereas if you have a good profit margin built into that, then obviously it”™s worth it. But that requires the foresight to plan out what all of those expenses, including your time, are going to include.”
If You Build It
Another off-site issue for the e-commerce site owner to consider is getting the site to stand out from the competition.”
“People still search Google for a lot of their products, but the Google search volume is still insane,” said Mack Media Group”™s Johnson. “There is the digital marketing stuff ”” social media, SEO, Google AdWords, Google Display ”” and you want to drive all them into your buying pattern.”
For applicable products that could fit into Amazon”™s product universe, Johnson recommended setting up a store on that site ”” noting that even though Amazon”™s hefty cut on the percentage of sales would dilute any immediate profit rush, it would nonetheless help build brand awareness.
“I find myself just going to Amazon for the pure convenience of it,” Johnson admitted.
And then, there is the issue of cybersecurity ”” after all, no one will want to shop on a site where financial data can be easily hacked.
“Every website should have an SSL certificate that makes it HTTPS,” said Loewenberg. “Google negatively impacts your search engine result page ranking if you don”™t have HTTPS. If you”™re going to give your credit card on a site that doesn”™t have HTTPS in the URL, I wouldn”™t do it.
“And credit card processing needs to be PCI compliant. That”™s handled by the credit card processors, and they are compliant ”” they”™ve got security built in.”
Another financial element to consider involves taxes on items sold from the site.
“The IRS is really cracking down on general transactions that are in collecting sales tax,” said Kissner. “For a new business that”™s just starting up an e-commerce site or for somebody that may be starting up a side hustle, that may not be something they want to have to think about.”
For the artist Voltori, one piece of advice he shared based on his experience in building an e-commerce site was to bring a positive emotional element to the forefront.
“This is huge: you need to have love for the product and enjoy the process of creating everything,” he said. “The reason I say this is because you will come across obstacles, whether business related or personal. There will be days where you”™ll want to give up on the project. If you enjoy the process and love your product, you won”™t give up. But a lot of people do give up because their number one goal when starting is the money, and it shouldn”™t be.”