Top Five Tips for a Startup Online Store

If your startup business includes an online store, the planning stages of how to implement the store are extremely important. Poorly implemented online stores can scare away customers, even if your product or service is the best on the market.

Here are five tips for startup businesses on how to create a success online store:

5. Simple design. Even if a design looks good, that doesn’t necessarily make it suitable for an online store. You want a website design with clear options and that is easy to use. Remember, not everyone on the internet knows as much of you about how websites work. Be sure your navigation is obvious and easy to use.

4. Quality pictures and/or descriptions. Brick and mortar stores have the advantage that they allow customers to look, touch and even try out their products. To overcome, online stores have to provide a lot of information, detailed pictures, reviews, etc. Basically, your potential customers should have no questions about what they would be purchasing.

Credit Cards - Source: Flickr

3. Multiple payment options. This point is especially true if you are going to do global business. Not everyone has a Paypal account or a credit card. Give your potential customers as many payment options as possible.

2. Emphasize safety. Many people are still afraid to shop online. An even bigger percentage are only comfortable shopping with the big name online stores. For this reason, bend over backwards to prove the safety of the transaction. A money-back guarantee is almost always a good idea.

1. Analyze the traffic. This tip oftentimes gets overlooked but it’s the most important tip. You want to see where the traffic to your online store is coming from. You want to see which pages convert the best. You want to see if you are getting any hits straight to your store from search engines. By keeping a close eye on the specifics of your traffic, you can tweak aspects of your online store by using the traffic metrics as your guide.