Part 2 - COVID-19 | How an Online Store is Built

This is Part 2 of our ongoing series of posts to help offline merchants know how we build an online store for them in just 7 days.

The global spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus pandemic) has impacted almost all the industries across. Especially, the offline retail merchants are struggling to combat this situation. As discussed in our previous article now is the right time for offline retailers to go digital.

The basics of offline and online retail are not different, it is the means of engaging customers and making a sale which is different. For example, in a physical store people see the product in person, whereas in a digital store you need to upload pictures so that people can get a clear view of your products.

Like a physical storefront, an online store also requires a lot of preparations. For example, developing a comprehensive list of products, adding images, setting up payment gateways, shipping, etc. If we see the broader aspect of the preparation, website development is a comprehensive process that consists of essential steps that need to be followed. Although the number of steps vary depending on each agency or developer, the basic remains the same.

If you are a physical store owner and willing to shift online then you can navigate around these by working with trusted web development partners. At StorePlace we follow a 7 step process and help retailers turn to e-commerce in just 7 days.

1. Requirement Analysis and Information Gathering

The very first step of developing a website is analysis and gathering necessary information. We listen to you and the information that you provide us helps us in having a solid understanding of your business goals, the goal of developing this site, target audience and how the web can be utilized to help you achieve those goals.

2. Planning

After you give us all the information, we decide on what technologies we will use to develop your site, create a website sitemap followed by creating a wireframe.

Our team creates a sitemap in a manner that makes it easy for your end users to find the information on your website. Next is your website wireframing that gives you a better understanding of how your website will look visually. Once you approve the layout, we go to the next step.

3. Website Design

Our designers keep certain things in mind while they design your website. Like your target audience, branding elements, etc.

We design your website depending on who is going to use your website and strengthen your brand identity by incorporating all the branding elements. After reviewing, tweaking and getting the approval of the designs from you we move the proof across to our developers so that they start to develop the actual site.

4. Web Development

After goal setting, planning and designing, here is how the development on your website begins.

Development involves a lot of programming work, as well as loading content onto the site. The website sitemap that we created for your website guides us to build your website. We begin with the homepage and soon after we add the subpages to your site. Once we finish developing all the functionalities on the website we load the content on your site. On the technical front we do coding that complies to current web standards.

5 . Testing

Once we build the site, we test, verify the links and its functionalities. We check every single page we have created to find if there are any issues. If we find any issues, we fix the issues before we launch the site to avoid unexpected behaviour after launch.

Once your site has been tested, we transfer it to a live web server which is the most exciting step of the web development process – Going LIVE!

6. Beta LIVE

No matter how well developed your site is, there are chances that it is ready for use but just not perfect yet. That is why we go for Beta LIVE. It is like a revisionary process or a small scale test of the functionality and content on the site before the Global LIVE. The test group can include your friends, colleagues, etc. and depending on their feedback we fix things that might not be working well for the site's visitors.

7. Global LIVE

After finally perfecting the site, we put your website LIVE and release it to the public globally.

Our job is not necessarily over though. It is completely up to you, if you want us to be in charge of your web maintenance service we are more than happy to continue working with you.

Having 6+ years of experience, StorePlace has core expertise in some of the top ecommerce platforms like shopify, woocommerce, wix, bigcommerce, etc. We help you digitise your business in just 7 days with platforms purpose-built for commerce. If you are looking for help to sustain and elevate your online business, contact us at <storeplace.com>.