Building your own online store

FOR some of us, e- commerce is already a part of our daily life and we could never imagine going back to the old ways of doing things.

However, for most of us, our role in e-commerce may just be as users or consumers rather than as makers, providers or sellers of goods and services online.

If you’re keen on exploring the world of e- commerce as an entrepreneur, there are absolutely endless resources on the Internet on how to go about it so there’s no need for SarawakYES! to delve too deeply into this topic today.

Rather, we’d like to share with you some of the essential items on your checklist, should you decide to take the plunge and open up your own online business.

First of all, you should decide what you want to offer to your customers. Our advice would be to pick a product that you’re passionate about. It should be something that you’re able to produce consistently and with quality. For example, if you’re good at knitting, you could sell what you make online.

Secondly, make sure you possess a domain name for your e- commerce website. Do make sure though that the domain name is the same as, or as close as possible to, the name of the business you’re running. Continuing on from the previous example, you could choose the name sarawakknits.com for your new business.

Once you’ve chosen your domain name, the next step will be to choose a web hosting service that will publish the website online.

Of course, you’ll have to actually build the website, which will be the virtual store for customers to browse through your products and more importantly allow them to buy the items that they like.

Nowadays, it is crucial that the website be mobile-friendly as more and more people shop online through their various mobile devices, be it mobile phones or tablets. If you want to take it a step further, you could also consider creating a mobile app for your customers.

At this point, you would have already created the virtual store for your products but in order to allow your customers to actually buy anything, you will next have to make sure you have your ‘shopping cart’ software ready, as well as a merchant services provider that will serve as the all-important link between your customers, the credit card company and your business.

Once you have checked all these items off your checklist, you’re ready to start your very own online business.

If you find those steps too complicated, there are several ecommerce website builders, such as Shopify and Wix, to name a few, that have made it even easier to build your online store.

This is a weekly column by SarawakYES! – an initiative driven by Faradale Media-M Sdn Bhd and supported by Angkatan ZamanMansang(Azam)Sarawak – to provide advice and stories on the topics of education and careers to support Sarawakians seeking to achieve their dreams. Join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.