What Skills Do You Need to Build a Successful eCommerce Website?

Building successful eCommerce websites takes a lot of skill and effort.

If you’re a complete beginner, it can be overwhelming to try and learn it all in one go — I’ve been there. Luckily, it’s not impossible to master these eCommerce skills yourself.

In this article, I’m going to share some of the essential skills needed to build a highly converting eCommerce site:

1. Website building and design. Starting an eCommerce website can be expensive. Knowing what to do and which tools to use can significantly reduce the startup costs.
2. Inventory management and order fulfillment. Learn how to manage and run an appropriate inventory system to avoid overstocking or understocking your products.
3. Marketing. This includes promoting on social media, optimizing your website’s SEO, writing excellent copy, and mastering data analysis as well as marketing automation software.

1. Website building and design

Website building and web design will ensure that your website offers a good user experience and that your conversion rate is optimized.

Website building

Hiring a web designer to create your online store is not an affordable solution, especially if you need to create an eCommerce site with intricate design and a lot of integrations. I wouldn’t recommend this option if you’re new to online business.

By learning how to create an eCommerce site yourself, you’ll have complete control over the layout, functions, and features. Moreover, it’ll be easier to run and manage the store down the line if you know the site’s ins and outs right from the start.

There are a few ways you can go about this: either learn how to code or use or a website builder.

If you’re new to the website building scene, I recommend using website builders. It’s easy, efficient, and super affordable.

My favorite pick for a website builder is Zyro.

It has all of the essential features needed to kick off your online selling journey: unlimited bandwidth and storage, order tracking, multiple payment options, and so much more. Best of all, it’s 100% commission-free.

In the admin dashboard, there’s a dedicated settings page to set up and manage your store. You can easily add products, set your country and currency, shipping couriers, and payment options. Tracking and eCommerce reporting are also available.

However, if you have a little bit of technical knowledge, building a website through coding and CMS platforms such as WordPress might be better still.

You can add more functions and features through custom code and build it from scratch.

Web design

When building an online store, having robust eCommerce features is not enough. The website must look beautiful to attract visitors and encourage them to make a purchase.

Here are the essential factors of what makes a good web design:

• A simple font. Most eCommerce websites use sans serif fonts. They are versatile, modern, and won’t distract your customers from the content.
• A beautiful color palette. The best practice here is to use white for the background and black for text. You can use other colors for headers, footers, and accents.
• Attractive visuals. Upload captivating images and videos of your products. Don’t forget to take a picture of the details since your customers can’t see them at first glance.
• Easy navigation. Make it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for by adding a search or a filter feature.
• Strong call-to-action buttons (CTAs). Use your site’s accent color for the CTAs and incorporate effective CTA phrases like “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart.”
• Responsive design. With more than 5.1 billion mobile internet users, a design that works well across all devices is a must for eCommerce.

To add more features and functions to a website, you can design the frontend by coding or using a website builder. Should you choose the first option, you will need an understanding of various coding languages like HTML, CSS, or JavaScript.

Of course, learning how to code takes a lot of time, so I find it easier to use a website builder like Zyro. There are lots of eCommerce templates to try on for size, and all you need to do is edit one of them by using the drag-and-drop builder.

Right now, I’m using one of the free templates from Zyro that I’ve modified to fit my business needs.

User Experience (UX)

UX design skills are especially important in the eCommerce business since it’s user-centered. Did you know, 8 out of 10 customers are willing to pay more just to have a positive experience, and 70% of customers will abandon their cart if the website does not meet their expectations.

Needless to say, you have a lot to lose if you don’t take user experience seriously.

Some things you can do to improve your site’s user experience is to provide a clear navigation menu, keep the design consistent across all pages, and optimize your page loading speed.

Be mindful of the checkout form as well. Make it as simple as possible to encourage purchases, much like Amazon’s one-click ordering.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

A conversion rate is the percentage of users who take the desired action on your website, be it clicking on a link, making a purchase, or something else.

Conversion rate optimization ties in tightly with your UX design. It’s all about placement, colors, and the overall design of your website. When users have a good user experience, they’ll convert more.

Optimizing your CRO means you have to have certain features such as clear copy and enticing call-to-action buttons incorporated into the design.

2. Inventory management and order fulfillment

Inventory management is the process of tracking your products. It lets you control the flow of your goods by knowing how many are manufactured, stored, and sold.

Having a clear inventory management system can also forecast the number of items you’ll sell in the future. You’ll be able to minimize losses by ordering or manufacturing the right amount of goods based on the predicted demand.

Use inventory reports to reduce storage costs as well. Get rid of old stock and sell it at a discount, and you’ll have more room for goods that sell better.

Meanwhile, order fulfillment is the process of receiving, processing, and shipping orders to your customers. The core of this task is to ensure that the order is correct, packed well, and delivered on time.

It’s vital to make sure this process goes smoothly as well, since 51% of customers won’t return if they’ve had a negative experience with a brand.

Completing orders by yourself is not an issue when you’re just starting out.

3. Marketing

The third eCommerce skill you want to master is marketing — a crucial skill to have to give your brand more recognition and exposure.

Here are some of the best practices I’ve found useful when building my eCommerce store.

Promotion on digital platforms

Digital marketing is arguably one of the best eCommerce marketing strategies to date.

It’s efficient, cost-effective, and it reaches a wider audience when compared to the traditional forms of marketing.

It might be confusing for beginners to start out in digital platforms, so here are some examples:

• Social media marketing. Post informative content about your products, interact with followers, have a giveaway, and so on. There are so many activities that can get your name out there.
• Paid advertising. If you have the budget for it, buying ad space on popular social media platforms or search engines can drive traffic and generate more sales.
• Referral marketing. Hand out discount codes or other incentives, so that existing customers can promote your store to their friends and family,
• Email marketing. Build email lists via opt-in forms. Attract visitors to sign up by offering discounts and other exclusive deals.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization is essential to boost your site’s visibility and drive organic traffic — get more visitors to find your site via search engines.

More traffic means more sales. Over 44% of shoppers start their online shopping journey with a Google search, and 37.5% of all the traffic to eCommerce sites comes directly from search engines.

Here are some tips to improve your eCommerce site’s SEO:

• Include important keywords in the product descriptions and image alt text.
• Get an SSL certificate to secure payment transactions.
• Use clear URLs to help search engines understand all pages. A great example would be https://yourshop.com/category/product.html.
• Optimize your eCommerce site for mobile devices.
• Display customer reviews on product pages.

Copywriting and sales

Having great web design and applying the right SEO practices will all be in vain without high-quality copy. It’s what gets people engaged and interested in what you have to offer.

The copy can be in the form of posts or just catchy and convincing headlines on your websites.

If you don’t know the first thing about writing, you can easily learn this skill all on your own. Many online platforms such as Udemy, Skillshare, and Coursera, offer copywriting courses.

Data analysis and marketing automation

Web data analytics allow you to understand your users’ behavior and find out which pages are performing well, which methods work and which don’t.

It might seem daunting for newcomers, but you can track your web analytics through helpful tools like Google Analytics and Crazy Egg.

Once you get a hold of your analytics data, consider using marketing automation software to handle the repetitive tasks for you.

A good marketing automation tool identifies your users, creates the right content for them, and automatically sends trigger actions based on those factors.

Marketing automation software is so effective that 49% of companies are using it as part of their strategies. Marketing teams can then use the time they save to have ideation meetings, learn new skills, or collaborate with each other on new projects.

Start building your eCommerce site now

In this article, I’ve shared some skills that I’ve found useful when starting my own eCommerce business.

It might take a while before you master all of the aforementioned eCommerce skills, but it shouldn’t stop you from trying.

I hope this has been helpful, and good luck!

This article includes affiliate links which may provide a small commission to me at no cost to you.