When building a new e-commerce store, the sellers have to take note of everything they need to have and include in their e-commerce store. The e-commerce checklists can be helpful as you may miss a step or two while trying to work on all the tasks simultaneously.
Hence, to help you set up your e-commerce store without any delays, I have created an e-commerce checklist to assist you in the smoother journey of building your store.
So, without further delay, let’s get started.
Why Do You Need An E-Commerce Checklist?
Several e-commerce store owners feel overwhelmed by the initial steps they need to take. They have many questions and concerns about the launch of their online store.
An e-commerce checklist comes in handy in this situation. It will help you map out the process of setting up your store, avoiding the chances of skipping any step.
Plus, the sellers get to complete their setup hassle-free
Your E-Commerce Store Launch Checklist
It is crucial to create an e-commerce checklist that includes all the steps and minute details to avoid any mistakes while creating your e-commerce store.
Let’s look at the e-commerce checklist you must follow while setting up your new e-commerce business.
1. Choose An E-commerce Platform
When creating an e-commerce store, the first and most crucial step is choosing an e-commerce platform. An e-commerce platform makes it easy to set up your store by providing several impressive features to improve your overall performance.
These platforms also allow you to use various pre-designed templates to create a website with built-in eCommerce functionality. Furthermore, you can customize these templates to add your branding and integrate it with the necessary plugins, like currency converters, contact forms, etc., to add more functionality.
Shopify, BigCommerce, WOOCommerce, and more are some of the top platforms you can use to build your e-commerce store. You can also claim the Shopify free trial and start your online store for free.
2. Select A Domain Name And Hosting Provider
Once you have chosen an e-commerce platform, you must find a domain name and host for your shop.
Choosing a domain name is crucial as it helps you build brand recognition and makes your website address easier to remember. It is advisable to pick a domain name that is short, remarkable, and easy to remember.
BlueHost, GoDaddy, and more are some of the top domain providers you must consider when choosing and registering your domain name.
Similarly, choosing a hosting provider is also significant, as these providers are responsible for taking your website online. They will provide a space on a server to store your website files and data.
You can purchase hosting from a domain name provider or e-commerce platform. Shopify, Bluehost, DreamHost, and more are some of the top hosting providers you can choose from.
3. Create Your Home Page And All Standard Pages
After purchasing a domain and hosting provider, the next step is creating essential pages for your e-commerce website. Designing a homepage and other standard pages is important in building an e-commerce store. Hence, to help you, we have compiled a list of the most crucial pages that you must add to your website before jumping into the product listing:
- Home Page:
The homepage of your e-commerce store contributes to the overall appearance and feel. Moreover, ensuring that your homepage allows for easy navigation to other pages is critical.
You should also add a link to your product pages and category pages on your homepage.
- Contact Page:
The contact page is another essential page on a website that helps customers get in touch with your business. You can list a physical address on the map, a phone number, an email address, or a contact form.
- About Us:
About Us is the most crucial page that lets customers learn everything about your business. It is recommended to include your brand story and overall understanding of your business on this page.
- FAQ Page:
If you receive several common questions from your loyal customers, creating a FAQ page is the best way to save your or their time by answering all of these questions on this page.
- Privacy Policy:
The privacy policy page highlights how you use your customer’s information. You can contact lawyers to get advice on how to write your privacy policy for compliance purposes.
- Terms Of Service:
Terms of service highlight the words you include in your product or services. It also gives information about legal policies you have in place to protect yourself.
4. Create Category Or Collection Pages To Organize All Products
Creating category or collection pages allows anyone to organize their products within their store. The category page should be intuitive, organized, and designed for a positive experience, serving as an online store’s base.
The most critical aspect of creating a category is determining the order of the elements or visual hierarchy. This factor is the absolute foundation for creating a website. The content on this page should be organized to make it easy for your site visitors to find what they’re looking for.
5. Optimize Your Checkout Process
Another important consideration when developing an eCommerce website is the checkout process, which can increase or decrease your chances of making a sale. The process must be as user-friendly as possible to reduce cart abandonment.
When creating a checkout process, ensure the following things:
- Allow shoppers to edit the content of their cart.
- Easy to apply discount codes.
- Shipping rates appear during checkout.
- Provide various payment methods, including Paypal.
- The contact page is easy to access
- Send an email notification to confirm the purchase
- Language and currency switching, if possible,
- Users can quickly enter the shipping details.
6. Choose Your Sales Channels
Nowadays, customers use several channels to buy a product for themselves. It means you must spread your effort through numerous channels to improve your chances of getting more sales.
You can integrate your e-commerce store with popular e-commerce marketplaces, like Amazon or Etsy, to sell your products to other e-commerce vendors. You can even engage yourself in social selling, as several customers prefer to purchase their favorite products on social networking platforms.
7. Work On E-Commerce SEO
Most people start their online shopping journey by entering the product name into a search engine like Google. This makes SEO an essential part of your e-commerce checklist.
Below are the steps you must follow to work on your e-commerce SEO:
- Keyword research- Find and list all keywords and terms someone uses to find your e-commerce store.
- Keyword optimization – Add the targeted keywords in the product description, title description, URLs, and H1s.
- Optimize images – Add image meta descriptions and alt attributes to enhance the chance of ranking high on a specific keyword.
- Create a sitemap – Create a sitemap and submit it to Google for crawlers to navigate, as it can help Google categorize your pages.
- Use content marketing – Add a blog section to your site and write relevant and informative blogs to rank for your targeted keywords and get links to high-value pages through guest posting.
- Schema markup – You can also use Schema markup to improve your chances of getting rich snippets displayed at the top of Google’s search results.
- Optimize website performance – Invest in CDN, select the right hosting, and compress your image file to improve your website visitor experience.
8. Configure Email Notifications
Email is a great tool for welcoming new customers and nurturing existing ones. You can provide excellent customer support, encourage upsells or repeat sales, and keep your business remarkable with the help of email marketing.
Welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, and order confirmation emails are some of the top ones you can set up. For this, you can use tools like Klaviyo or Shopify Email.
9. Install Analytics Tools
Analytics tools are the key to a successful e-commerce store, as they can provide data on what types of products your customers like. You also get details about when they will likely purchase them and more.
Many e-commerce platforms provide built-in reporting and analytics tools to track conversion rates. However, some e-commerce uses third-party analytics tools, like Google Analytics.
If you use a combination of various analytics tools, you can get a more in-depth picture of your customers’ purchase journey, making it easier to determine what you need to do to get more sales from your e-commerce stores.
10. Adjust Your Tax And Shipping Settings
Adjusting your tax and shipping settings is also a crucial factor in building an e-commerce store, as it can impact the overall profit of your business. If your shipping cost is not high, you will likely lose money by paying out of your pocket.
It is crucial to consider whether you must add extra costs for international shipping or the amount you should be charging for express delivery. Also, make sure to verify the taxes and other additional charges you will need.
11. Install The Necessary Apps
Many e-commerce building platforms, like Shopify, provide an app store filled with amazing apps to enhance the functionality and performance of your online stores.
However, there are some categories of Apps that you must focus on that will help your business to grow. Let’s take a look at them.
- Marketing and promotion
- Sales and conversion
- Sales channels
- Finding products and managing inventory
- Customer services
- SEO and site optimization
12. Test Before You Launch
After creating your e-commerce website, it must be tested carefully to avoid any errors and common online shopping hassles. Check that everything works well.
Moreover, you should also ensure that everything works perfectly on all devices, including mobile devices. After launching your online store, you should also conduct A/B testing on the following things to optimize your results:
- Marketing and email campaign
- CTA or call-to-action button, to improve conversion
- Functionality and payment method.
Testing SEO regularly and ensuring your website is compatible with different browsers is also essential.
Reduce Accounting Errors Using AI Tools
In the fast-paced world of e-commerce, managing finances accurately is essential to ensure compliance and maintain healthy business operations. Manual accounting processes often lead to errors, wasted time, and frustration—challenges that can be resolved with the help of AI tools designed specifically for financial management.
AI-powered solutions streamline tasks such as bank statement reconciliation, transaction categorization, and report generation. For example, e-commerce sellers can use Convertbankstatement.ai while filing accounts to convert complex bank statements into accurate, actionable data. This ensures precision during account filing and eliminates discrepancies that could result in compliance issues or penalties.
By adopting AI-driven tools, e-commerce businesses can enhance efficiency, reduce errors, and stay audit-ready without the stress of manual financial management.
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Conclusion: Follow The Steps To Launch Your First eCommerce Store
An e-commerce checklist is a powerful tool to help your online store succeed. However, skipping any of the e-commerce checklist’s steps can negatively affect the overall shopping experience, which makes it a significant reason for an online store to fail. Be sure to follow all the steps mentioned in our e-commerce checklist.
With that, we are wrapping up this post. Hope you will find this information helpful.
Happy Launching!
FAQs
A strong brand identity, high-quality product images, user-friendly design, mobile-friendly websites, and more are essential factors to consider for e-commerce.
The five e-commerce categories are Business to customer, Business to business, Business to Government, Business to business to customer, and Customer to business.
Customer experience, back-end integration, and digital marketing are the three crucial elements of e-commerce.
