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10 STEPS TO BUILD YOUR FIRST ECOMMERCE WEBSITES
Baby eCommerce is a promising market experiencing a steady annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2027) of 9.86%, projected to reach a market value of approximately USD 129.40 billion by 2027.
To tap into this market, you’ll need to develop a professional and efficient eCommerce website. Here are 10 steps to create an eCommerce website tailored for maternity and baby products.
Identify objectives
The first step is to identify your business goals and prioritize them, forming a plan tailored to develop an effective Baby eCommerce website.
Concerning long-term goals, you may focus on objectives like establishing a strong brand presence, reaching potential customers, and enhancing the efficiency of both online and offline operations.
For short-term goals, businesses can give priority to activities like monitoring, analyzing customer behavior, assessing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and boosting revenue.
When it comes to timeline, you can decide to deploy quickly to enter the market or proceed gradually to test and adapt to this eCommerce world.
As for the budget, it depends on your business strategy and financial capacity for this Baby eCommerce development project.
Select eCommerce platform
Currently, there are two types of eCommerce platforms to help you build your first Baby website: SaaS (Software as a Service) and Open-Source platform.
Some popular SaaS eCommerce platforms include Shopify, BigCommerce, Squarespace, and Wix.
In addition, there are premium versions of these SaaS platforms such as Shopify Plus, BigCommerce Enterprise, and Goflow.
Some open-source platforms are widely used: Adobe Commerce (Magento), WooCommerce, OpenCart, and PrestaShop.
Typically, some new businesses choose basic SaaS platforms to save time and budget in the initial phase of the Baby eCommerce website development. After a while, they may switch to a premium SaaS or an open-source platform to develop their baby websites more advanced.
In another case, some businesses opt for open-source platforms to build a basic eCommerce website and then gradually upgrade the system over time to minimize the need for platform switching in later phases.
In-house team or development agency?
Typically, most eCommerce businesses decide to initially partner with a professional development agency and gradually build their in-house team.
For establishing an in-house team, you’ll need to recruit and train IT and eCommerce professionals for expertise on the chosen platform. It’ll take you significant time and budget but allow you to have full control over your resources. You can develop and adjust your Baby eCommerce website according to your needs and wants.
When it comes to partnering with an agency, here are some criteria you need to evaluate:
- eCommerce experience
- High-performing development team
- Clear processes
- Deadline meet
Partnering with a professional development agency gains you specialized eCommerce knowledge, enhances your technical skills, and above all, you’ll facilitate the eCommerce website exactly what you need, tailoring it to the unique features of the maternity and baby industry.
Design UI/UX
When it comes to UI/UX design, it’s important to showcase the brand image, products, user guide, etc. There are three popular ways to make your design:
- Using ready-made themes: Optimizing interface design costs may limit the brand positioning as ready-made themes can be similar to other websites.
- Customizing themes: Balancing cost savings and adding some brand identity elements such as color, font, layout, etc. However, you’ll need a specialized team to customize themes effectively.
- Designing unique themes: The design will tailored to your brand, but it’ll take your time and budget.
Develop core features
Some essential features that a Baby eCommerce website should have include
- Catalog Management: Control product data, features, categories, prices, inventory quantities, and images/videos for smooth operations and optimal business performance.
- Store Management: Handle product inventory, control the business activities, and manage personnel for each branch.
- Cart & Checkout: Manage the shopping cart and customer checkout information.
- Customer Management: Manage customer information to improve marketing effectiveness, shopping experience, and overall customer satisfaction.
- Marketing Management: Optimize SEO and implement marketing programs using supporting tools to boost sales for the business.
- Sales Management: Establish and operate sales processes, orders, payments, and shipping.
- Content Management: Develop and optimize all content-related aspects for CMS pages, image storage, theme customization, and website design.
- System Management: Administer user roles, and explore best practices in terms of security, maintenance, and system care for the website.
- Analysis & Reporting: Support track, and measure the performance of the eCommerce system and plan for future strategies.
Some advanced features for the baby eCommerce industry:
- Fast delivery: Provides quick delivery services within 2 hours in major cities.
- Personalized Gift Packaging: Gift packages can be designed based on the preferences and needs of each recipient, such as packages for newborns, packages for children, and packages for mothers.
- Buy Now Pay Later: Shop for essential products/services for children without having to pay the full amount immediately, supporting those who may not have the ability to pay a large sum at once.
- Loyalty Program: Allow customers to earn points for each purchase. These points can be used to redeem benefits such as discounts, gifts, or free services.
Fulfill Legal Procedures
After developing features and ensuring a successful testing and website launch, you’ll need to complete the legal procedures associated with eCommerce operations.
According to Decree 52/2013/ND-CP by the Government of Vietnam, any individual or organization owning an eCommerce website for sales is required to notify or register with the Ministry of Industry and Trade through the online public service portal of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Note: Websites that operate beyond the specified period or fail to register/notify the authorized management agency within the designated timeframe may be subject to administrative penalties as per regulations.
QC/Testing
When QC/testing your eCommerce website, you can leverage either the Waterfall or Agile model to test the entire system.
Using these models helps you review and test your entire eCommerce system, functions, and features within a specified timeframe, ensuring optimal order processing speed and overall website stability. In case of any issues, your in-house team or development partner will help you to address them before officially going live.
Go-live
When the QC/testing process is done, your baby eCommerce website is ready to launch. To ensure a smooth go-live process, here are three steps you should prepare:
- Define the go-live objectives: The aims could be system stability, data backup and recovery capabilities, and customer shopping experience.
- Perform testing and error resolution: Conduct comprehensive system testing to identify and rectify functional errors, security issues, and performance issues.
- Create backup plans: Despite conducting testing and resolving errors, unforeseen issues may still arise during the go-live process. To address these issues, backup plans are a must.
Operate the eCommerce system
Running a baby website is an ongoing effort aimed at ensuring the steady and effective functioning of the system. This involves various activities, including:
- Resource management: Managing the system’s resources, including hardware, software, data, and personnel.
- Process management: Managing all processes within the system, including development, deployment, operation, and maintenance processes.
- Error management: Identifying the causes of errors, quickly and effectively resolving issues, and implementing preventive measures to avoid recurrence.
- Modification management: Assessing the impact of changes on the system and executing modifications safely and efficiently.
Furthermore, you should regularly maintain, update, and upgrade the website system to achieve sustainable growth, adapting quickly to shifts in the eCommerce world or the maternity and baby products market.
Boost eCommerce growth
After a period of operation, you should shift your focus toward eCommerce marketing strategies or Omnichannel to expand your online presence in the market of maternity and baby products
businesses should redirect their focus toward implementing eCommerce marketing strategies or embracing Omnichannel approaches to expand their online presence in the market of mother and baby products.
Implementing Omnichannel involves setting up a seamless sales, marketing, and management system across channels such as the website, social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Zalo, TikTok Shop), and online marketplaces (Shopee, Tiki, Lazada, Sendo) to optimize the customer experience and boost business efficiency.
Developing a comprehensive marketing strategy, centered around key eCommerce marketing channels like Content Marketing, SEO/SEM, Email Marketing, and Affiliate Marketing, becomes crucial for achieving rapid sales growth.
The Bottom Line
In general, the journey of building a baby eCommerce website for the Vietnamese market isn’t an easy task. It requires you to invest a significant amount of time and budget in researching the most fitting strategies tailored to each phase of your eCommerce development.
Understanding the difficulties and challenges that businesses may encounter when building a baby eCommerce website, SECOMM is ready to provide free consultation on detailed eCommerce solutions.
Reach out or call the SECOMM hotline at 028 7108 9908 to get started!
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28/12/2023
THE BOUNDLESS POTENTIAL OF THE BABY ECOMMERCE INDUSTRY
Recent statistics indicate that Vietnam has a population of 24.7 million children and roughly 24.2 million women of childbearing age. Moreover, with an annual birth rate of approximately 1.5 million children, Vietnam stands out as a prospective market for the baby industry. As a result, it comes as no surprise that many baby brands have been progressively establishing and expanding their stores year by year. Additionally, the industry benefits from the momentum created by the pandemic and the evolving trend of transitioning from offline to online shopping.
3 reasons for baby brands to get on board with eCommerce
Adapt to market trends
While offline businesses experienced a downturn during the period of social distancing, leading to the contraction of many retail chains, online commerce has been flourishing. Even as society progresses towards a “reopening” phase in the post-pandemic world, the preference for online shopping remains strong. The demand for various products, spanning from timepieces, cosmetics, and groceries, to mom-and-baby essentials, on eCommerce websites and marketplaces continues to steadily surge.
Hence, the solution for Baby enterprises to align with market trends involves the implementation of an O2O (Online to Offline) model. This approach integrates offline sales (leveraging existing physical store networks) with online channels. Among these channels, establishing an eCommerce website is paramount for businesses to promptly deploy sales and marketing strategies, attracting customers and preventing potential loss to competitors.
Expand to customer outreach
When physical stores are constrained by location, staffing, and operating hours, online stores remain open and accessible from anywhere worldwide. This offers Baby businesses the opportunity to extend their reach to a large pool of potential customers on the Internet.
By implementing effective strategies like optimizing SEO, running advertising campaigns, or leveraging social media, Baby businesses can swiftly boost their brand recognition, attract a diverse clientele to their eCommerce website, and facilitate round-the-clock product sales.
Top Vietnamese Baby eCommerce sites
Con Cung
Launched in 2011, the Con Cung retail chain quickly gained recognition and became the top choice for many Vietnamese families to shop for mom-and-baby products, offering a catalog of over 2000 items. In 2016, with the investments received, Con Cung significantly expanded its store chain from 100 in 2016 to 400 in 2020 (currently at 700 stores).
Recognizing the evolving consumer landscape with a shift from offline to online shopping, the brand proactively intensified its online retail efforts through its eCommerce website and mobile app, enriching the shopping experience for its customers. With this in mind, Con Cung has set an ambitious target of reaching 1 billion USD in revenue by 2023 and aims to capture a 30% market share, envisioning a 2 billion USD in revenue by 2025, with at least 30% coming from eCommerce.
Therefore, in recent times, Con Cung has made an effort to attract customers to its eCommerce website. They consistently promote various enticing programs, including “Monday Freeship Day” and the “Stuffed Animal Fiesta for 99K.”
Additionally, Con Cung has kept pace with the Mobile Commerce trend by introducing the ‘Con Cung’ mobile app, available on both App Store and Google Play. This app has garnered highly positive user feedback and currently ranks 24th in the Shopping category.
Particularly, this retailer’s delivery service has earned high praise from customers. With a network of over 700 stores across the country. Con Cung offers lighting-fast 1-hour delivery through its “Pink Warrior” delivery team. Beyond partnering with third-party delivery providers such as Grab Expres, Giao Hang Nhanh, Giao Hang Tiet Kiem, the brand also maintains a dedicated team of delivery warriors who cater to customer’s specific time preferences.
Kids Plaza
Established in 2009, Kids Plaza offers more than 10,000 mom-and-baby products, certified safe for babies from top-notch brands in Vietnam and around the world. In the competitive race, Kids Plaza has consistently fortified its position by embracing the O2O business model.
This strategy involves harmoniously blending traditional in-store retail with a variety of online channels, including a dedicated website, eCommerce platforms, Zalo stores, mobile applications, and more. Kids Plaza has rolled out enticing customer loyalty programs such as Kicoin, the convenient Freeship policy covering a 7km radius for all purchasing channels, and exclusive discounts for expectant mothers when shopping in brick-and-mortar stores.
Customers aren’t only satisfied by the seamless shopping experience, affordable prices, and appealing promotional offers but also by exceptional product quality. All products undergo strict quality control before being officially offered for sale to provide the best experience and service, ensuring customers’ peace of mind while shopping.
Kids Plaza also demonstrates its care for expectant moms and babies through programs like the free antenatal classes, which have been conducted for over a decade and have successfully aided numerous mothers during their childbirth journeys. Moreover, the brand hosts annual community events and maintains an insightful knowledge-sharing blog to help elevate health awareness among both mothers and children.
Bibo Mart
The mom-and-baby retail chain, Bibo Mart, was established in 2006 and specializes in offering a wide range of products for mothers and babies, including maternity clothing, diapers, formula, and strollers. Similar to Con Cung and Kids Plaza, Bibo Mart hasn’t lagged behind in the eCommerce race. After years of operation and growth, Bibo Mart has identified a new vision for investing in an eCommerce system to meet the online shopping needs of its customers.
Currently, online sales at Bibo Mart account for 14.5% of the total revenue and are expected to increase to over 30% in the next five years. Beyond frequently offering attractive incentives to encourage customers to shop on their website and app, Bibo Mart has introduced a loyalty program with four tiers: Loyal, Silver, Gold, and Diamond. Customers are assigned membership ranks based on their specified spending levels and earn BiXu points for continued exclusive benefits.
Notably, customers can use a QR code on the app to scan for product info or accumulate points when shopping in physical stores. Bibo Mart also demonstrates its commitment to its customers by providing maternal and childcare knowledge through blogs and free online seminars and classes for mothers as well as those caring for their health during pregnancy and postpartum.
The potential of the Baby eCommerce market in Vietnam is enormous, and the success of major players like Con Cung, Kids Plaza, and Bibo Mart has encouraged the participation of other businesses. However, for a Baby eCommerce business to succeed, it’s important to build a comprehensive and feasible strategy, both short-term and long-term. Particularly, eCommerce websites and mobile apps are the two crucial keys that determine the success or failure of a business in the eCommerce race.
Having partnered with many businesses in implementing eCommerce websites and apps over the years, SECOMM has accumulated practical experience to assist businesses in swift and effective deployment.
Feel free to contact us or call SECOMM’s hotline at (02871089908) for a free consultation.
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