How to Start A Business Course – Planning Your Business: Website Builders And E-Commerce – Part 9/27

Now that we have covered the basics of website design, it’s time to talk about what an e-commerce site is and the different elements that you need to consider when creating one.

During this topic, we’ll be discussing how to use Wix and WordPress – two very popular website builders. Your introduction to website design will conclude with a section on the most frequently asked questions around this subject.

Let’s recap some of the key points within Usability. Remember that usability describes how easy it is to interact with the website. In my previous blog, I discussed:

• Effectiveness – How successful is your site in producing the desired result or even the intended result that your customer is looking for?

• Safety – How safe do your customers feel when putting their personal information or their card details on your site?

• Learnability – This is how easy it is for new users to learn about your sites and make use of it correctly.

• Memorability – How memorable is your site and users are returning to your site rather than looking at your competitors.

What is E-commerce?

Electronic commerce or more simply buying or selling products or services over the internet.  

• Money & data is used to manage these transactions

As a process, it uses money and data to manage your different transactions. And this is going to be mainly used by many of your retailers and your different marketplaces. A site like this includes the like of Amazon, where you’re trying to make people buy online rather than going to the stores.

• Used by online retailers & marketplaces

In our sample here of an e-commerce store, you can see that they are selling clothes. You can see that it got the Call To Action button there in black so it stands out nicely there and is telling them to add to cart.

 

There are 4 types of e-commerce models.

1. Business to Consumer

This is when a business sells to an individual consumer a specific product or service.  This could be someone buying from Amazon website, for example.

2. Consumer to Consumer

This could be the sale of second-hand goods and can be done on platforms like eBay. So one consumer selling to another.

3. Business to Business

This is when a business sells its product or service to another business. This is something like getting someone to code for your website or even an accounting firm doing your books for you.

4.  Consumer to Business

This is when a consumer sells a product or service to a business. This is something like for example, a celebrity doing endorsements or photographs.

These are the 4 e-commerce models that you will see and you can then go ahead and choose which one applies to your business.

This is an interesting infographic that I want to share with you. This is the Global retail e-commerce sales projections from 2014-2023. This graph shows in billions of US dollars. By 2023, they are expecting that e-commerce sales globally to reach $6542 billion.

I think that is a good enough reason for everyone to get organize their e-commerce set-up so that you can get a nice slice of those projections.

I would like to share with you some e-commerce fun facts from the e-commerce guide.

Fun Facts:

• It is expected that by 2040, 95% of all purchases will be via e-commerce.
• The US has the highest e-commerce penetration rates, with around 80% of all internet users making at least one purchase.
• The top reason why people make online purchases is that they can shop whenever they want, 24/7.

Now, remember, websites do not need to be manned 24 hours a day and that’s what makes it so convenient for people everywhere. People around the globe can visit your website. A virtual shop is different from a physical shop because you don’t have to have someone monitoring it all the time.

 

 

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

• What is HTML?

Stands for Hypertext Markup Language. This is what allows your designer to structure websites in a user-friendly way. And it also creates the documents to be shown on a website. Your HTML is where everything happens on your website. This is where you choose to put your forms, or where your navigation goes. This is all made up of HTML. It is the structure under which your website is built with.

• What is CSS?

Cascading Style Sheets. This is going to determine what your HTML will appear like in your web browser. What CSS does is it includes your fonts, borders, image formatting, customizing different elements on your site, etc. It is like turning your very basic and black-and-white website into something amazing. CSS is where your creativity can really come alive.

• What is Rule of Seven?

The idea is that your brain can only scan 7 items at a time so you want to limit your items to 7 or less.

Your general guidelines here are:

Short paragraphs containing 2-3 sentences and separated by white spaces. An example of a white space is a gap after the word or sentence. I would also like to point out to use bullet points whenever possible because they are short and more direct to the point .Users won’t invest their time reading on paragraphs. At least not initially. 

And then you want to ensure that you have a clear hierarchy with headings and subheadings. Now a prime example of this is using bold key words on to the key elements so that you would know what the most important sections are.

 

DOMAIN NAME

We spent a lot of time talking about hosting, websites, and using website builders but you have to come up with your domain name. Your domain name is where people go to see your site. For example, www. Amazon.com. When choosing your domain name, there are rules to follow.

What are the rules in selecting a domain name?

• Only include letters, numbers, and hyphens.

What this means is that you cant throw any hashtag, stars, or any symbols.

• Your Domain name should not exceed 63 characters and may not be less than 3.

You want to avoid long names for people to remember or to type in.

• You may not breach another trademark or risk legal action.

Make sure to do your research and make sure that your name is unique before going online and trying to register your domain name because it can get you into a lot of trouble.

 

 

COMMONLY USED WEBSITE BUILDERS

 

WIX

Wix.com Ltd. is an Israeli software company, publicly listed in the US, that provides cloud-based web development services. It allows users to create HTML5 websites and mobile sites through the use of online drag-and-drop tools.Wikipedia

Steps In Creating a Website

1. CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT.

2.  YOU WILL BE ASKED WHAT KIND OF WEBSITE YOU WANT TO CREATE.

3. NEXT, CHOOSE HOW YOU WANT TO CREATE YOUR WEBSITE.

OPTION1: Let WIX ADI create a website for you
OPTION 2: Create your website with the WIX editor

In this case, we choose the second option which is having a template.

4. PICK THE WEBSITE TEMPLATE THAT YOU LOVE.

There are tons of different categories and templates available here.  Choose the template that suits your business type. When choosing your template, consider the functionalities that you would need for your business like the price, the fonts, images, and layout.

5. EDIT YOUR CHOSEN TEMPLATE.

You want to draw the most attention to your center panel because that’s where the bulk of the information is usually is. Remember to get rid of the template’s logo and change it to yours. You can change the images by adding your own photos. You can upload them or drag them into the panel.

You can also change and edit the texts in your template. Make sure to choose simple and easy-to-read fonts. You can also add fonts if you already have your own fonts that you are using. You can also edit and change colors. You can edit the button’s shapes, sizes, and colors, too. You can move around the texts and images and buttons, to your liking, around the page.

6. PREVIEW YOUR WORK AND APPLY THE TEMPLATE.

In this part, you want to check your design before finalizing it. You can also check what it will look like on mobile and it will show you how it would look on your customer’s mobile. Once all the section of your website is done and edited and you liked what you have done, then you can now ready to create your website!

 

 

WORDPRESS

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system, referred to within WordPress as Themes.Wikipedia

This is very similar to WIX in terms of creating your website but with WordPress, you have to pay for your domain before you can use it.

For starters, you will see quick links, and blog posts, manage comments, add a page, edit menus, customize theme, change theme and even add a domain. On the left side of the panel shows additional tools and dashboard. 

If we want to go change our theme, you can click on change theme. It will take you to the template section just like with Wix. You can preview tons of templates and choose from there.

After choosing a template, you can preview it or choose to play a demo so that you can customize it or you can skip the demo and just activate it.

Using WordPress is very similar to Wix but of course, they have their own advantages and disadvantages.