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!