So you want to set up an online shop. Now what?

As the saying goes, failure to plan is planning to fail. Like any other business initiative, an online store needs to be backed up by a business plan. This plan need not be a long-winded and formalised document but it needs to cover the main points of how the online activity will be operated.

The following questions need to be addressed: What are we selling online? Does the product /service fall under some specific laws or regulations? How will the whole cycle of selling online occur? How will delivery process be provided? Are you catering for local and/or international sales? How will you market your online store?

An online store with product catalogue, shopping cart and checkout is much more complex to build than a simple website. A good online store system needs to provide facilities that cover stock management, flexible shopping cart, product catalogues and payment facilities. Without these basic facilities an online store cannot work. It is therefore paramount that the merchant identifies a web-development agency that can provide a solution from a to z, possibly including payment gateway and hosting solutions too.

When it comes to bricks-and-mortar stores, retailers know the importance of a good setup, a good location and good shop window. In the online world, the same rules apply. One needs an aesthetically pleasing store, which can provide self-service browsing and shopping with ease. It is vital to think about how clients are bound to ask and look for the products. Categorisation of the products has to be done from the point of view of the customer. Likewise a search mechanism cannot be avoided. Merchants have to ensure that products are described as realistically as possible and where needed provide more than one photo. Information about measurements, colours, sizes, weight and other criteria has to be provided if it is relevant for the products.

Have you ever been to a supermarket where the aisles are jammed with trolleys, the items high up on the shelves, the checkout all queued up and there is no customer care officer in site to answer your query? People shop online because it is more convenient and thus every merchant needs to ensure that the site does not create frustration.

While the site is being built, one has to check with the web developer the whole process of shopping. Finding time to test an online store thoroughly is very important. A page of frequently asked questions should not be missing and if customers send in queries, it is vital that merchants answer the query in a timely manner. The ultimate solution for customer service is having online chat, but this can be rather difficult to man on 24/7 basis. Customer complaints have to be taken up seriously and followed up until resolved.

Launching a store online is very different from opening an outlet in the real world. No one can find an online store unless they know about it. Marketing an online store needs to be a two-pronged approach. Apart from the traditional channels like print and radio, one has to consider the online channels. In this regard there are two areas to consider: adverts on sites that are used by the target market and search engines. Failure to ignore search engines is a costly mistake for an online merchant because if his or her site is not being ranked in the Google search results, a hoard of other competitors is!

Many online stores fail to take their store to the next level. An online store should be alive and fresh. Banner adverts on the own main page can highlight hot products of the season, present special offers or items on sale according to the season. One can keep the site sticky by having new content added to the site on a regular basis. Offers should be placed on key pages that are associated with seducible moments, i.e. the point in time, where one is most likely to tempt the customer to investigate the offer or promotion.

There are basic online shops and complex online stores. Success is not dependent on having an online store with the same level of functionality like Amazon.com from day one. It is better to add more functionality in phases (as long as this has been discussed with the web developer beforehand). In this way, further investment can be matched up with the success and growth rate.

Once a store is growing and it has a number of customers, it's time to start thinking about membership facilities, order tracking, referral schemes, online competitions, gift-giving, wish-lists, automatic reminders and personalisation.

Ms Bishop is business development manager at Alert Communications.