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The global e-commerce industry’s sale is in trillions, earlier the online shopping and e-commerce were considered to be a convenience and a luxury, now a days, every small and large business is also offering e-commerce portals for online purchase. Especially after the last year the e-commerce businesses got a new boom. People prefer to shop online rather visiting a local store. Another big reason of the new online shopping trend is because here in Dubai and all around the UAE the consumers are more familiar with the digital and online platforms, whenever people have an option to choose between online or visit to store almost around seventy percent of the people’s first choice isthe online. This also makes e-commerce more important and beneficial. Another big advantage of e-commerce website is that it could help you exploring new markets, and it can reach to the new audiences without any additional cost or efforts. The startup cost is not much either. With a decent amount of time, efforts and budget invested in the marketing the e-commerce website can be turned into your business’s primary source of income.

A physical business is limited by its location, capacity to handle customers, limited infrastructure and many other reasons. However, the e-commerce website is not limited to any of such thing, you can have customers and prospects landing at your online store from anywhere in the world. There is no limit of handling a finite number of customers at a time, no need of paying additional expenses or the maintenance like a physical outlet/store. From operational cost’s point of view the e-commerce is still very cost-efficient comparing to opening up a new physical store. This is what makes e-commerce to dominate over the physical stores. One can safely say that the future is e-commerce, at least for consumer markets.

The very first thing which is obvious is to obtain a trade license and permit for your e-commerce business as per the UAE laws. You can compare various free zones and mainland authorities for licensing and then chose the best option or simply contact your existing service provider and do the process. Once the trade license and permits are done the next step is to build and establish the e-commerce business. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to start an e-commerce business:

Step 1: Make a Plan for E-Commerce Business

Before starting any project it is important to have a practical plan and set goals accordingly. In case of an e-commerce website, you must have a plan. You must have a list of products that you want to sell and their cost. Then you must have to estimate the cost of developing the e-commerce website and then all other costs, such as integrating payment gateways, shipping & imports and all that. Most of the logistics and courier companies offer their dedicated APIs and portal which can be integrated with the website in order to enable the online purchasing and costing mechanisms. Each payment gateway service provider charges you for their services and similarly the courier will too. You should have all those details and costing beforehand. Apart from that many businesses also plan for the digital marketing and awareness campaigns, which is also great but if you have limited budget or you are just a small local store, than you can skip this for now. However, sooner or later you might going to need a digital marketing campaign to promote your e-commerce business.

The SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a great digital marketing strategy for generating organic traffic for your e-commerce website. Make sure it is also part of your plan. As you are starting an e-commerce business, you should also think about the inventory management and accounts. It entirely depends upon you that how you would want to manage your inventory. If it is a very small business, the inventory is not an issue, if it is a medium sized or large business then the inventory management and accounts management could be an issue. Some e-commerce websites got everything integrated and then automate various processes to make the entire operational process faster and reduce the chances of errors and such other management problems. Here are some importing things which should be planned carefully:

1. Products Types and Categories
2. Integration of Payment Gateways
3. Integration of Courier Dashboard or Gateway
4. CMS and Hosting
5. Web Design and User Interface
6. Integration of Other Relevant Systems and Platforms
7. Cost Estimation
8. Digital Marketing Plan
9. SEO or Search Engine Optimization

Whatever the case is, it is extremely important to plan all those things beforehand and then proceed with the actual e-commerce website designing and development.

Step 2: Select a Domain Name for Your E-Commerce Business

The very first step should be selection of a domain name. In the beginning the domain names were free, then in 1995 the domain name got paid, now everyone has to pay for a decent domain name. A domain name can value from USD 15 to an unbelievable USD 872 Millions, yes you read it right and there is no typo, check for yourself World’s Most Expensive Domain Name – cars.com valued at USD 872 Million. That will give you a prospective of how important a domain name is for your business. Studies have showed that there are almost 400 Million active websites today, and over or around 2 billion domain names are registered.

This doesn’t mean your option for choosing a good domain name are very low, in fact there are too many new extensions such as .Store, .NET, .Org, .Online and thousands of more. However, it is important that you choose an appropriate extension which resonates with your actual business. For example the .Org is usually used by organizations, and .store is exclusively used by online stores and e-commerce websites. Anyway, here are some tips on how to choose a good domain name for your e-commerce business website:

1. Use your brand name in the domain name
2. Keep your domain name simple, memorable and unique
3. Do not use special characters, numbers and hyphens
4. Avoid regional languages, use English language only
5. Try to use a keyword in your domain name, it could help you get higher ranks in search
6. Never use another trade mark or registered business’s name in your domain name
7. Consider the smartphones and auto-correct, long domains or domains with special characters could get confused by auto-correct
8. Use an appropriate domain name extension (.com, .store, .online, .ae, .org, etc.)

The domain name and its extension both are extremely important, a memorable and unique domain name gets more traffic. An appropriate extension help building trust, an irrelevant or long extension can cause distrust or confusion among your audience.

Step 3: Chose a CMS Platform and Hosting For E-Commerce Website

A CMS (content management system) is a software tool that allows the webmasters to easily update and manage the content of the website without any dependency of a web developer. The content management system has an administrative dashboard which is an interactive control panel of your website, from this dashboard you can easily upload new products, do edits, and manage all sorts of contents on your e-commerce website. It is very important that the CMS you are choosing for your e-commerce website fits your requirements and needs.

Here are some popular e-commerce CMS platforms:

1. WooCommerce: It is a WordPress Plugin/Module. WordPress is a free CMS available for everyone, the WooCommerce get installed on your WordPress and enables all e-commerce CMS features.
2. Shopify: It is a very popular e-commerce content management system with tons of integration and add-ons options. It is very popular and also offers integrations and customizations.
3. Magento: It is an open-source e-commerce content management system by Adobe. It is an enterprise-level system with tons of plugins and compatibility for integration and customization.
4. Open-Cart: It is also an open-source platform which allows easy customization and tons of ready-to-use extensions with unlimited number of product listings and much more.
5. Big-Commerce: It is a cloud based e-commerce content management system, easy-to-setup with in-built CMS features to support all types and sizes of online stores and much more.

These are so many other options too, but the above listed are the most popular e-commerce content management system in UAE.

Make sure the CMS you are choosing offers a simple and easy-to-use user interface and the functionalities are optimized to let the user perform their tasks efficiently. Here are some important points to consider while choosing an e-commerce content management system:

• The cost is the most important thing, each platform have different costing mechanisms
• Integrations and Plugins are most important and enables additional features on your store
• SEO or Search Engine Optimization is extremely important for an e-commerce website
• More than 52% of the users are surfing the internet from smartphones, the mobile compatibility is must to have for an e-commerce website
• Consider your hosting requirements, the e-commerce CMS comes in either SaaS (software as a service) or In-premises hosting, some support both environments
• The e-commerce CMS should be able to have an administrative hierarchy to set up different roles and permissions as per the job role of your employees and staff
• Scalability and Upgrades are extremely important for an e-commerce CMS, as the market is continuously evolving and growing, the CMS should be flexible enough to allow easy upgrades
• Security is a must to have feature in today’s world, especially for a platform which asks their customers to fill-in their personal and banking information the security is the top priority
• Make sure your web hosting has SSL Security Certificate and the Payment Gateway and all purchase process is done through the SSL URLs
• The e-commerce CMS must have in-built SEO support to ensure the website will be SEO friendly and will help you getting more organic traffic from search engines

These are some points that you should consider while choosing a CMS or content management system for your e-commerce website.

The hosting is also very important for an e-commerce website. The website which take more than 3 seconds to load will lose their most of the traffic, as people don’t like to wait any longer than that for a website to load on their screens. The payments and personal data of your customers will be stored in your system so the hosting environment should be secure enough to secure all the data and should be able to receive regular updates to keep the system secure and protected. Some e-commerce CMS comes with the hosting plan as a package, make sure in that case you are subscribing for the optimum security patches and add-ons.

Step 4: Web Design of the E-Commerce Website

The web design of any company or business is the very first impression of the brand on their audience. It has to be flawless. The studies have shown that it requires only a fraction of second to build an impression of a website in visitor’s subconscious mind. This impression is what compel or repel a visitor to scroll further to the page or through the website. For an e-commerce website the web design is completely different than any other ordinary website. For the e-commerce web design it should list all the important products and their categories along with other marketing sections, such as offers, deals, daily offers, stock clearance sales, etc. Such sections increase customer engagements and compel them to explore further in the website. Another most important thing that any e-commerce web design should have is the trust indicators. These trust indicators are the security badges, partner’s logos, reviews, ratings, etc. The reason for these indicators is to improve the user trust.

Here are some important points that you should consider while preparing or selecting a web design for your e-commerce website:

• The brand identity should be visible throughout the entire website
• The most important content and most popular products should be placed above the fold in the homepage
• The menu and navigation should be designed for convenience and easy access
• Organize all the categories in main and sub-sets for easy access
• Use Important buttons/links at the top (Language, Country, Login & Sign-up Menu, Orders, Cart, etc.)
• All important categories, offers and deals should be placed under the fold at the homepage
• The product listing should have basic features and functionalities such as:
  • Name
  • Price
  • Photo
  • Add to Cart Function
  • Favorite Function
  • Important Badges (Sale, Discount, Offer, Deal, etc.)
• Add Product Suggestion Section
• Exclusive Suggestion based on Customer’s History and Past/Recent Searches
• Popular Products and Top Selling Items Section
• Use well-known and commonly used symbols, badges, icons and visuals elements
• Use large footer, a full scale footer is also good, but the footer must not cover more than 70% of the screen
• Include important links in the footer
  • About the Company Pages
  • Customer Account and Quick Links (Login, Sign-up, Orders, Returns, etc.)
  • Include Customer Support Links
  • Add Privacy Policy, Return Policy, Terms of Use and such pages in the footer
  • Add Customer Support Links in the footer
• Design the product page with at least 30 to 40 percent of the screen covered by the photos/media of the product and rest with the details above the fold
• Place CTA (Call to Action) on a visible location
• Design the Customer Journey to Minimize the Efforts
• Design Dedicated Customer Dashboard
• Design Dedicated Complaint and Customer Support Section
• Design a Dedicated FAQs section and other information pages
• Design a Dedicated Search Section to improve User Interaction
• Include micro interactions and avoid too intensive designs or visual effects

Above are just the most important factors that a business should consider while designing an e-commerce web design. The main objective is maintain a great customer experience and customer journey throughout. The customer should be able to get the required information easily all the information and factors that can influence the purchase decision should be given special care while designing. The customer journey should be short and clear instruction should be provided for each step, this will improve conversion rate.

As the mobile internet users have already surpassed the traditional computer and laptop users, it is very important to consider the smartphones as well. For that a responsive web design approach should be followed. These days in UAE most e-commerce businesses are offering smartphone applications too. But initially only the responsive website is enough, the smartphone applications can be added later if needed. For small businesses only the responsive web design is enough and no need for dedicated smartphone applications. A responsive web design is the website which programmed in a particular way that it has ability to recognize the screen size and platform before loading the page and then it automatically render the design elements and sections of the website according to the screen size the website is being accessed from. This is very important that your website is compatible with all modern smartphones and platforms.

Similarly the SEO or search engine optimization is also a very powerful medium to improve your online presence. Make sure the website is designed and programmed as per the SEO standards and is very SEO friendly. Add relevant SEO tags and structured data or schema which is very helpful for improving SEO of the website. People tend to search in search engines such as Google, MSN or Yahoo, these search engines scan and read the websites, than rank them as per their standards and rules and once anyone search for a particular information the search engines go to their index repository and pull out the most relevant website for the users. SEO is a great source of absolutely free organic web traffic. Especially for small and medium size e-commerce businesses who have limited marketing budget, the SEO could do wonders.

Step 5: Integrate Relevant Systems and APIs

Integration is very helpful for e-commerce businesses, it automates various processes. Especially for small and medium size businesses where the resources are limited, the automation could be a great help. It saves a lot of time, help in managing various processes with ease and convenience, and also help improving customer experience. Some integrations are specific for the customers and some are only for the internal processes or internal management. Here are some integration types, some are mandatory and some are optional. But we recommend doing all these integrations for better customer journey and business management:

1. Gmail & Social Media Integration for Customer Signups
2. Social Media Integrations for Sharing Products/Services and Pages
3. Payment Gateway Integration (It is good to have multiple payment options for the customers)
   1. Credit/Debit Card
   2. Digital Payment Methods
4. Inventory Management System (In-built or Integrated)
5. Shipment Gateway Integration to Process Orders and Returns

The Gmail and social media integration is not necessary but helpful for easy sign-up process. It improves customer experience. The Social Media integration will integrate popular social media platforms with the website and allows the customers and visitors to easily share products and pages through their social media profiles. If people will share your products and web pages on social media it will bring more traffic to the website and will help improving the conversion rates. The payment gateway integration will help you to enable online purchase and payment feature. It is important to choose a good payment gateway with simpler and easier purchase process and high availability. If a customer is quitting during the payment phase then the chances are they might never return. This will give a very bad impression and in some cases the customers do share their bad experience with their friends, family and colleagues which will promote a negative brand identity and will harm your business’s reputation. The cost of the payment gateway is also very important, study the pricing plan of all available payment gateway service providers and then decide which plan suits you the best.

All the e-commerce content management systems maintain the internal inventory but in case if you want to manage the inventory and mark the products with QR codes, Barcodes or serials, you must either have to include this feature in your CMS or either you will have to integrate a third-party inventory management system with the e-commerce CMS. This will avoid duplicate work and will save you a lot of efforts and cost. The inventory management or integration will also help you managing the business with more accuracy and efficiency. The final integration is the shipment company’s or courier company’s portal integration.

All popular courier and logistics companies provide a dedicated customer dashboard to perform regular processes such as printing of the AWBs, Orders Dispatch, Returns and other regular tasks. The shipment cost is also segregated in ranges, for example from 0+KG to 1 KG the price will be let say AED 20 and for 1+KG to 3KG the cost will be AED 40, similarly the size and volume of the products also impacts the shipment cost. These all details are taken into account when processing the AWBs, and these all information are also added on the website during the product posting. So, if the shipment company’s portal can be linked with the e-commerce website’s CMS via APIs, these all costs can be calculated automatically and the AWBs can be printed with a single command. This can save a lot of efforts and time and it will also increase efficiency and improve customer experience by enabling quicker order processing.

These all integrations are very helpful in improving the overall efficiency and capabilities of the e-commerce business. As for the small and medium sized businesses the resources are limited, so such integrations can save a lot of running cost and time. There are so many other integrations that can also be done to integrate various systems of the business with each other. For example the finance or accounts can also be linked directly with the website and both systems can automatically synchronized. The integration and automation is a great method for cost-reduction, productivity and profitability.

Step 6: System Testing and UAT

Finally when everything is done a final testing session should be held. All the concerned personals from the business and the vendors should be included in this testing phase. Once they all are satisfied, the UAT has to be held. The UAT stands for User Acceptance Test, the business can invite their employees, a few existing customers and also some community members to go through the e-commerce website. Those users should be encouraged to explore as many features as possible and ask them to go through the customer journey and then take their feedback. If anything major is highlighted, rectify it or else prepare for the final launch.

Step 7: Pre-Launch Marketing

Once everything is done and finalized the business should wait for at least 2 weeks for pre-launch marketing activities before announcing the launch data. At this stage the website should be 100% functional and the business should be able to handle all the incoming traffic, orders and activities. The pre-launch marketing usually includes email marketing, social media marketing, brochure or pamphlet distribution, electronic media ads and such marketing activities. Obviously small and medium size businesses might not be able to afford all those activities, but whatever is possible you should do. For example you can print out some pamphlets and attach them with all invoices for the customers who are already visiting your outlet or store.

Step 8: Post-Launch Marketing

The post launch marketing is important for growth and expansion. There are several marketing mediums and platforms which can be utilized for brand awareness campaigns or other marketing activities. As you have started getting customers on your website, so a new revenue stream is also been added. Which will helpful for allocating budget for the marketing activities. Even after the launch you don’t want to invest in the marketing, it is better to improve your social media and online presence. Be active at social media platforms, utilize Whatsapp Business, Facebook, Isntagram, Snapchat and popular social media platforms to promote your e-commerce website. Focus on the SEO of the website and make sure all new products are getting indexed with the search engines. This will start a continuous stream of free and organic website traffic which will definitely increase your conversion rate.

Conclusion

These days the general trends are changing worldwide, the e-commerce industry is witnessing exponential growth. Here in Dubai and other emirates of UAE the local e-commerce industry is growing rapidly, more businesses are entering into e-commerce domains. Especially the small and medium size businesses can benefits a lot from the e-commerce. The first thing is to start with licensing and permit process. Then for setting up your e-commerce business the first thing is to make a plan, do the estimation, list your products and/or services which you want to sell through e-commerce platform. Then select the domain name and hosting, make sure the domain name carry the brand name as well as it should be short and easily memorable. Then comes the CMS and hosting. The CMS and hosting is also very important it should offer all required functionalities and adequate integration compatibility.

The web design is extremely important, it should have to be robust, and the UI/UX should be customer friendly the purchasing process should be simple and easy. The homepage and internal pages should be design with a customer centric approach. Include all the ingredients to improve trust and confidence of the users. Provide easy and simple navigation. All the required information, important links and other details should be visible and easy-to-access. A smart search engine should be there so the visitors can search through the products easily. Make sure you have an intensive UAT before the launch. Plan for pre and post launch marketing activities too. RSI Concepts is a leading name in web design Dubai industry. If you are an e-commerce business who is seeking for improving their e-commerce website or a business who is planning to enter into the e-commerce domain, feel free to reach us out through our Contact Us  page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this blog: How to Design Website for a Small Local Business