Mistakes can cost tens of thousands of dollars: how to properly create and launch an online store

Some clients find it easy to build an e-commerce platform. But mistakes at some stages can cost tens of thousands of dollars in losses.

There are generally two options for building an e-commerce product:

The first – classic, but unsuccessful

Trust your development partner that in three months you will have a working product that brings in a net profit of seven figures, in dollars.

With a high probability, the business will launch in 9-12 months and not as originally planned.

The classic path has this feature: haste, but long decision-making.

• We are in a hurry, but we will give feedback in a week.
• We are in a hurry, but we cannot conduct training in two days, let's open the project as it is, and then anything will happen.
• We are in a hurry to throw some raw product onto the market, where it is impossible to place an order. Where there are no goods that are in the offline store. Where there is no history of my purchases, no personal account, there are still no 33 signs of the service familiar to everyone.

And it is not a fact that you will have a chance to correct and improve. The business has lost money, time, market share.

The second - difficult, but effective

A path that involves a lot of business analysis, processing, descriptions, drawing up characteristics, etc.

Stage 1. Preparatory

Hurry up, but don't rush. Start with a detailed business analysis. Organize 2-3 strategic sessions/workshops and formulate a vision for the future product, define the team and tasks, an approximate plan and budgeting.

The team should have a Product Owner with the right to make decisions and full trust from management.

The result of the stage is the beginning of the formation of a document that records all previous agreements and the results of all strategic sessions. An important point of this document is the programs that will "close" the crm direction, the warehouse accounting system, etc.

For example, the business processes of the online store of pet cleaning products of the Ukrainian brand "LoveGav" were as simple as possible, and we chose WordPress and Woocommerce quite confidently.

The number of products in the assortment up to ten practically does not change the price, all products are constantly in stock. This is an example of a very simple e-commerce.

Stage 2. Choosing technologies and software

At this stage, you should choose software and programs that will manage the warehouse, accounting, customer relations, and backend development platform. All systems should have a proven track record of working and integrating with e-commerce, a documented API, and a solid support service.

Stage 3. Start of implementation

The stage can run in parallel with the second, and here the first prototypes of the most important pages of the future platform are created, the corporate identity and the UX/UI of the project as a whole are developed. All pages of the site are drawn one by one.

Conduct tests of key pages, for example, product cards or checkout (the process of placing an order in an online store, a payment page that gives the buyer the opportunity to choose the most convenient payment method - ed.). Each page and the events that occur on it are entered into the project documentation, discussed and agreed upon by the project team.

Stage 4. Technical implementation

Frontend, backend development, integration of all services together, testing. At this stage, you should have no surprises, because you clearly imagine and know the answers to all questions and understand what and how will work for you.

The result of the first four stages - a working site that meets 95% of your expectations and agreements.

Stage 5. Launch.

Launch your product, but be prepared for the fact that some hypotheses or solutions that we were sure of yesterday will have to be revised.

Plan for redevelopment and first build a watch into the business model for the IT team that will support and develop your project.

PS There is a theory that a product should be launched quickly and sharply, capture the market, and then see how and what happens next. This may be true, but only for startups that solve new user problems or bring a new product to the market.

But when you step into an existing market, users expect from you the usual norms - a convenient product filter, a well-thought-out product card, convenient delivery and payment methods, a good service with notifications, and not raw half-baked solutions.