// Development
How to Build an E-Commerce Website from Scratch
// Development
Regardless of whether you’re a newcomer to eCommerce or a successful seller on Amazon, Airbnb, or TaskRabbit, you need your own website. It will help to stand out from the competitors and greatly cut commission costs: 70% of clients would like to purchase goods online or to book rooms in the hotel on the seller’s website and not on the marketplace because it’s cheaper this way. From our article, you will find out how to create your eCommerce website from scratch, how to make it successful, and how much it costs.
At first, you need to define two things: how you will make a profit and how your website will stand out from the competitors. In most cases, answers to these questions depend on whether you are a manufacturer or an intermediary.
If you’re the manufacturer. The creation of an eCommerce website for this group of businessmen is a part of a marketing strategy: presence and sales online. This website is usually made for little money with a focus on design and not on a big number of features or some unique value offer. It’s generally believed that product or service is this unique offer itself. These projects make money on the sales of course: profit = revenue – expenses.
If you’re a commercial intermediary. These are marketplaces, multi-vendor platforms, websites that make money on affiliate programs and other eCommerce projects. These websites seek to stand out from the competitors by means of the unique design and better user experience, that’s why such projects have a higher budget than the websites, which are created by manufacturers of products and services.
Websites-intermediaries make money in many ways:
An example of such a project is the IWanttoDrawaCatForYou website. It’s created by Steve Gadlin. Steve used a sense of humor and drawing skills to create a simple website, where people can order funny cat drawings (for $9.95). Obviously, it was an experiment, nevertheless, as is often the case, people loved it and the experiment became a real business.
Design of IWanttoDrawaCatForYou website is simple and plain, but it works
Another example — landing page of the Muzzle app for Mac (disables screen notifications). The page visitors see the animation that demonstrates spam of notifications and a call-to-action button, which can stop this spam.
Demonstration of the problem, the solution to which Muzzleapp.com sells, is at the core of website design
If there are many products. To create eCommerce platforms, which sell many products or services, you need a catalog, flypages, search and filters, ratings and reviews, profiles for sellers and customers, and other features. Depending on product type, these features are implemented using completely different approaches. Specifically, clothing sales need photos, videogames need videos, WordPress themes — demo-pages, real estate — photos and a map, services — portfolio.
Examples of such websites are not far to seek — these are Craigslist, Airbnb, Upwork, Coursera, Amazon and other marketplaces. When it comes to small businesses, then the good example is the Helbak website, on which Malene Helbak sells her own ceramic and wooden products for kitchen and interior. Both her website and her products combine the simplicity of Scandinavian design and exquisite colors.
Design of Helbak website is created based on the design of products that it sells.
Another example — online store FreshFronks, where you can buy three types of organic nut milk. The website also looks simple, but the jump to the product page here is done by the click on the animated photo of the jar. Simple, beautiful, and interactive – this increases the conversion.
