For Ecommerce Success, Plan Before You Build

The Importance of Website Requirements

Unless you already have someone in mind to help you with your ecommerce project, you will want to put together a brief requirements document so that when you contact several potential ecommerce developers, you can give each of them the same basic information about your project.

Your requirements document is valuable for setting forth what your expectations are for the website project, all the features you are looking for and will give your website developer the size and scope of the project so they can give you an accurate estimate or price quote on the project.

The more specific you can be in detailing your requirements, the more accurate the quotes will be from your potential website designers.

The Website Requirements document should contain the following:

The number of categories
The number of products in total
The number of photographs each product page will have
The number of product variations

If possible, estimate the number of products you will have when you launch your website. Keep in mind that you may want to begin with less products, then add more products over time.

You will want to have one product image for each product, and additional photographs if necessary to show special features of the product or to show a different view of the product.

Product Variations are where you have a product that needs the customer to select between different sizes, colors or add on features.

Additional Website Requirements

Most ecommerce systems will essentially be a self contained catalog website, so the ecommerce website will be a free-standing website. However, if you need for the ecommerce website to be integrated into your existing website, be sure to explain this in the requirements document.

While most shopping cart systems today have an Administration system for you to log into and process orders, create specials and coupons and adjust prices, be sure to mention this as a requirement for your project.

If you need a logo developed or if you need your website to have a lot of creativity, flash or other bells and whistles, be sure to list them in the requirements document.

Working with an Website Developer or Consultant

While it may be tempting to try and build your ecommerce website yourself, unless you have both time and the technical expertise, you are better off working with a professional.

A website developer or company that specializes in eCommerce has experience and has solved many of the technical issues that can bog down the do-it-yourselfer.

A consultant can help to explain to you the difference between simple shopping carts and complete shopping cart solutions, and can advise you on what is the best approach for your particular needs.

What Type of eCommerce Website Solutions is Best?

This is like asking, “what type of car is best for you?”

There are many different ecommerce applications that can be purchased and installed on a website server, and for most websites, this approach will be perfectly fine.

The better ecommerce solutions will allow you to “scale” up or add more products and categories, will create an invoice and packing slip, and will integrate with QuickBooks or a other major accounting systems.

Keep in mind, that most ecommerce solutions are designed for selling “standard” products, that is, products that are ready to ship. If you sell products that are custom, you may need a ecommerce solution that can be customized.

To Customize or not

If you need an ecommerce solution that integrates with your existing inventory system, you may need a custom solution so both systems can communicate with each other.

If you have products that require the customer to specify different lengths and widths in order to create an order for a “custom” product size, or if you have a few products that require special freight pricing based on multiple variables for the product, this may require some customization.

Customizing software can be costly in that after the custom software code is created, it must be tested, debugged, and retested, then integrated with the system.

Website Templates

Ecommerce website systems all use an overall website design template to create a consistent look throughout the website.

Many ecommerce systems will come with several templates that can be easily integrated into your website, and can be customized with your logo and color scheme.

For ecommerce projects with modest budgets, this approach will usually work well.

Custom Website Template Design

If you are looking for a totally unique website look and feel, you may want to consider having a custom template design created and integrated into your ecommerce system.

This approach will be both time-consuming and will require additional project budgeting to allow for a design mock-up, actual template creation and coding for your ecommerce system, and finally integrating the template into your system.

If this is a requirement for your project, be sure to add this to the requirements document.

Getting the Most “bang” for Your Buck

While there will clearly be some project work that your web designer will need to be in charge of, there can be some sharing of work in order to make the project move more quickly, and to save your designer a lot of time which will lower the cost of the project.

Here some project tasks that you might want to consider doing yourself, if you have the time and/or expertise:

Photograph organizing, naming and sizing
Meta tag keywords and descriptions for product pages
Providing a spreadsheet with all product data for importing into the new system
Text preparation for informational pages within the website
Website testing, review and product information changes

Lastly, be realistic about your website. If you are a small company with limited internal resources, you will want your web designer to handle most of the project work.

Consider initially building the website with either fewer categories, or fewer products, then add more categories or products in a later phase, after the website has been launched so your internal resources aren’t stretched too thin with the needs of a larger project.

Robert Goodwin has a degree in graphic art and has been involved in website projects since 1997. Robert is a frequent contributor to Expert-Website-Design.com

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/ecommerce-articles/for-ecommerce-success-plan-before-you-build-1594692.html

December 18th, 2009 | Category: ecommerce marketing tips | 1 Comment »
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