With the growing increase in online sales taking your store or business online is the most sensible and logical decision. Businesses which do not offer products or services online stand a risk of losing their online market share to their competitors.
Once you decide to take your store online the most logical question is : which is the best platform for developing the ecommerce site with user friendly built in features for a shopping cart, e-payments, CMS and site administration.
There are quite a few options available but we recommend Magento for an online store as Magento is a feature-rich eCommerce platform built on open-source technology that provides online merchants with unprecedented flexibility and control over the look, content and functionality of their eCommerce store.
Magento’s intuitive administration interface features powerful marketing, search engine optimization and catalog-management tools to give merchants the power to create sites that are tailored to their unique business needs. Designed to be completely scalable and backed by Varien's support network, Magento offers companies the ultimate eCommerce solution.
You can read the FAQs related to Magento on http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/faq
Once you have an online business its not the end but the beginning for establishing that business. As the online competition , marketing and management are also issues which have to be given attention to.
- Advertising the URL is crucial initially till you gain a substantial WOM (Word Of Mouth). Locally you may be a brand and quite famous but when you go online you need to establish that brand as you in real time when you first started your business.
- Most of the people will find your store via the search engines – Hence, optimizing your site for the search engines is something which cannot be taken lightly. Next is to generate a good online reputation so that it generates a favorable WOM is important.
- Social media presence helps you to have a voice on the web. You can start engaging with your existing clients via social media which in turn will help you to get additional genuine fans and followers and help you have a wider reach.
- Encourage existing regular customers to buy online so that they can share their user experience (UX) with their friends and followers via reviews, emails and by posting on their social media profiles. Make all these options available on the site itself so that they can send the message easily online.
- Create a blog which gives you the platform for sharing your ideas, promos, advice, etc. thereby helping you to establish an online brand image and persona.
- The online market scene is no different than the real time market but the online markets help you to have a faster and wider reach.
