Want to create an Online Store and don't know where to start? These are some of the aspects to take into account when launching an Online Store. Fasten your seat belt and come on!

Internet domain name 🌐

If your company already has an institutional website on its own domain (for example, a-sua-empresa.pt), you have the following alternatives:

1 - Transform your institutional website into a hybrid website, half institutional website, half online store, all in the same domain.

2 - Keep your institutional website on your main domain (for example, a-sua-empresa.pt) and have your store on a subdomain (for example, loja.a-sua-empresa.pt).

3 - Register a specific new domain for your store.

If you still don't have a website, the decision is easy: register a new domain for your store.

In either case, think carefully about the store's domain/online address as it will have a strong impact on your customers, search engines and your Marketing strategy.

Ensuring compliance with applicable legislation ⚖️

Before launching your online business, you should:

- Find out about the legislation applicable to online sales and consumer rights.

- Define online transaction procedures: roles and responsibilities for both your business and the customer.

- GDPR: surely this acronym is not strange to you; your business must be in line with the legislation of the General Data Protection Regulation, applicable to the collection and processing of personal data of holders in the European Union.

- Because unfortunately not all stories have a happy ending, it is necessary to define where and how eventual conflicts will be resolved. The customer is always entitled to complain.

- If you collect personal data from visitors to your Online Store, you must clearly indicate how this information is collected and processed. The same applies to Cookies, files in which data are stored for later use (example: Account login, visits to the Store, etc).

If you have any doubts, do not hesitate to contact a jurist/lawyer as non-compliance with the legislation can bring you very negative consequences.

Payment options 💰

You will have to decide which means of payment to adopt, necessarily recognized and secure, to receive from your customers. In Portugal, Multibanco References, MBWay and Bank Transfer are used as means of payment for online purchases, but also PayPal, Credit Card and Payshop. For this purpose, use a trusted supplier, as no one buys where they do not trust; we recommend IfThenPay of whom we are partners.

Carriers 🚚

Depending on the type and size of the products you are going to sell, you can send your customers' orders by regular mail or you may need to enter into a contract with one or more carriers. Ask for quotes from several, as in your online store you can use different carriers depending on the countries/regions of destination and delivery times.

Internal logistics 🧩

Selling products online implies having physical logistics created behind it. Look at your company's human resources and define:

–  Quem processa e faz expedição da encomenda.

–  Quem mantém atualizado o catálogo de produtos (incluindo, por exemplo, tirar fotos e pesagem) e faz a gestão do stock.

–  Como vai ter disponíveis embalagens adequadas aos vários produtos, eventualmente personalizadas com a imagem da empresa.

Billing Software 🛒

You will need to have a software solution for processing your online store's invoices. You can use the same software that you already use in your physical store, but if your online store is going to have a high number of movements or if you want to properly separate sales between the physical store and the online store, we suggest that you use specific software for the online sales, of which we recommend the software Moloni.

Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam, Anti-Ransomware, Backups 💉

As your Online Store will be closely related to the computerization of your business, it will be important to protect yourself from attacks and vulnerabilities associated with your presence on the Internet. Believe me, it's better to prevent. Once it happens it may be too late. Protect your business with Cloud Backups!

Customer Support 👨‍💻

Define who will support customers in the ordering process (response on social networks, chat, email) and post-sales.

Presence on social media to promote your Store 📣

You've heard this a thousand times, haven't you? And it makes sense, because it is essential to have a presence on social networks, a channel of interaction with your customers. Do not try to sell there directly as this is unprofessional, does not meet legal requirements and will consume all your time. Sell ​​in your online store, and use social media only to promote your store and promote your products, but always direct your customers to buy from your online store. But having an effective social media presence means investing time and effort; you will have to define who handles this promotion.

Requirements to consider when choosing your Online Store software 💻

An Online Store, obviously, is not an Online Store if it does not have its own website, namely, a website specially designed and dedicated to selling online. We are talking about an e-commerce software/platform and it should, at a minimum, allow you to do the following:

- Manage Products, Orders and Customers.

- Configure multiple shipping costs.

- Configure multiple payment methods.

- Be compatible with Search Engines (mainly Google, essential to give visibility to your business).

- Be compatible with Smartphones and Tablets.

In addition to the website itself, the hosting service you hire to have your online store 24 hours a day must also provide you at no extra cost:

- Technical support.

- Ownership of the source code and the information you enter in the store (for example, allowing you to export the data and images of all your products).

Now, the time has come to choose the specific solution where you will create your Online Store. Read HERE the article we wrote on this topic and where we recommend the open source  solutions WooCommerce and PrestaShop.

Are you ready to move forward with your Online Store? ✔️

Count on our 20 years of experience! We have a “turnkey” Online Store solution, already with hosting, domain and several pre-configurations, so you can focus on the most important thing: your business!

Check our offer in detail here: https://www.iflexi.pt/openshop/