HOW TO BUILD A VENDOR E-COMMERCE WEBSITE

 How to Build a Multi-Vendor E-Commerce Website

Creating an e-commerce website allows you to sell your products and services online, but building one isn’t always easy. However, with the proper tools and resources, building an e-commerce website can be done relatively quickly and easily with the right strategy. In this guide, we’ll provide you with everything you need to know about creating a multi-vendor e-commerce website so that you can start earning online sales today!

Choose a Theme :

Before you begin building your site, it’s important to choose a theme that will match your needs. There are countless sites online that offer free themes, or paid themes that cost anywhere from $50 to $100. Free themes can be great but keep in mind that many of them have limited functionality and design flexibility. Investing in your site upfront will allow you more customization options down the road. Once you've chosen a theme, installing it is as simple as clicking on an installation file and inputting some basic information (it’s usually around five minutes).

Pick the perfect domain name :

If you’re just getting started with your ecommerce business, take some time to pick out an awesome domain name. By keeping your business name and future goals in mind, you can find a memorable address that stays true to your brand. Once you’ve picked one out, look into securing it as soon as possible—if someone else gets there first, you could lose all kinds of web traffic and new customer opportunities. Investing in protecting your domain is often more cost effective than having to market your company on different websites later down the road.

Opt for an ecommerce plugin :

While you can technically build your own custom ecommerce site from scratch, it’s a lot easier (and more cost effective) to start with an ecommerce plugin. The most popular is WooCommerce, which powers roughly 30% of all online stores . This particular platform costs $59 for one website. There are also free and premium add-ons available on top of that (along with additional business plans), but in short: It’s far cheaper than building your own store from scratch.

Find a good hosting provider :

An easy way to ensure your e-commerce website is available and can handle your traffic is to host it yourself on shared hosting. Shared hosting is, as its name suggests, a method of web hosting in which multiple websites share one server. Hosting companies offer their clients many different plans that offer varying levels of features and capabilities, so you’ll need to determine how much space you need for your website and what options you want.

Register your brand as soon as possible :

If you’re going to build an e-commerce business, then it’s critical that you take steps to protect your brand right away. Start by filing an application for a federal trademark—something that should be done as soon as you pick your company name. You can also get a head start on protecting your online presence by creating and registering your website domain names.

Select payment gateways and shipping companies :

You’ll want to select your payment gateway, shipping companies and any other third parties that may be involved with your ecommerce business at an early stage of your website’s development. This is so you can ensure everything will work smoothly together when you eventually go live. If you don’t choose correctly, it could cause delays or even cause customers not to make a purchase. Researching and selecting these elements will help save time, money and frustrations later on in the process.

Choose multi-vendor software (3rd party or self made) :

There are many third party ecommerce platforms that support multiple vendors, but if you’re serious about your ecommerce business and want complete control of your inventory, there are several multi vendor ecommerce software platforms out there. For example: Magneto is one such platform that has been in development for over 15 years, and is used by many top brands.

Create product listings, taxonomies and attributes :

Once you’ve decided on your vendors, take some time to understand how their products are classified. This will help when you build out product listings and taxonomies for search engines. Are there certain categories or terms that your vendors use? For example, if one vendor refers to baseball caps as hats, does another vendor use that term too? If so, it makes sense for you to set up your taxonomy in a similar way.

Set up your shipping zones :

With that in mind, it’s important to carefully consider your shipping policies before setting up your store. You should decide how much you’re willing to spend on each order, what fees you will apply for buyers who use certain payment methods (for example, credit cards over debit cards) and where you will ship orders from (your store or your supplier). Before adding any items, take some time with Google Maps or Google Street View to get an idea of exactly how far away buyers are likely to be.

Test thoroughly before you go live :

Once you’ve finished your site, test it thoroughly before you go live with it. Make sure all product pages work correctly and that they display correctly on mobile and other devices. Test your shopping cart functionality, as well as any advanced features of your payment processing system. Don’t go live until everything works perfectly!

Customize it with CSS, HTML and/or Java script code from scratch :

Creating unique design elements for your e-commerce website allows you to distinguish yourself from your competitors. With CSS, HTML and/or Java script, you can tailor every inch of your site—including buttons, links and text boxes—to fit with your brand. Not only does it make for an impressive e-commerce website, but also allows customers to engage more effectively with your brand as they’ll know it’s something that was uniquely created by you.

Grow your business by focusing on marketing & sales :

The most important thing you can do right now is grow your business by focusing on marketing and sales. This means hiring more reps, knocking on more doors, pushing that send button harder, and making sure you have a high NPS score! If you don’t know what an NPS (net promoter score) is or how to calculate it, check out one of our previous posts here.