Trends in consumer shopping are shifting from offline to online, especially among the younger generation—an important factor impacting the new economy. Building an ecommerce website is crucial for the success of ecommerce businesses in today’s digital economy. So, what should businesses do to build a professional ecommerce website?

Define the goals of the ecommerce website

Objectives:

Businesses need to determine the purpose of the website and the priority of each goal to plan the development of the website according to each stage:

• Increase revenue: Add a sales channel to boost sales activities.
• Brand positioning: Build a brand to establish a strong presence in the ecommerce market.
• Marketing support for the business: Use tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel to analyse customer behaviour, build a suitable Ecommerce Marketing strategy, reach more potential customers, and increase conversion.
• Enhance user experience and interaction: Support payment services and backend services to increase interaction, support, and provide customer advice more efficiently.

Requirements:

The ecommerce website needs to have a powerful configuration, a professional interface, and a diverse system of functions to meet the growing needs of customers. When designing the website, businesses should pay attention to:

• Website performance needs to ensure page load speed, large storage capacity, and compatibility with all devices.
• The interface is considered the face of the brand when customers visit the website. To create a good impression and keep them engaged, the interface must meet basic criteria:
  • Professional and brand-image-conveying interface.
  • Scientifically designed structure, compatible with customer behaviour.

Example: The structure of some common pages of an effective e-commerce website:

• Home page: Program banners and product or service categories.
• Product category page: General description of the category and products in the category.
• Product detail page: Description of product attributes, images/videos, prices, promotions, inventory information, customer reviews, and suggestions for similar products.
• Account registration page: Request basic information (Name, Email, Phone, Gender).
• Account management page: Personal information, password changes, order status.
• Shopping cart page: Avatar, product name, quantity, price, discount code.
• Checkout page: Order information, payment, shipping, invoice generation.
• Contact page: Hotline, email, business branches, contact form.

To maximize the customer experience, the ecommerce website needs to integrate features that support personalized customer experiences, aligning with their shopping behavior.

Example: Some common features:

• Product category management: Unlimited product quantity, multi-level category navigation, custom filters, and extensions supporting SEO indexing.
• Sales management: Order control, payment, shipping, staff responsible for handling.
• Customer management: Update customer information, register/log in through social media accounts such as Facebook/Google.
• Marketing management: Set up supporting tools like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google AdWords.
• Content management: Integrate SEO tools, customize menu layouts, CMS content.
• Inventory management: Use management tools to process orders, inventory management, and distribution systems.
• Reporting and Analysis: Analyze sales activities to assess customer insights, forecast business results, and propose business strategies.

Determine the time and budget for implementation

Depending on the goals and complexity of the e-commerce website, determine the time and budget. To accurately determine the time and budget, businesses should seek advice from experienced and professional units.

Choose an ecommerce website development platform

Each platform has its advantages and disadvantages. Businesses need to consider choosing a website development platform that is suitable for their e-commerce business strategy. Some popular platforms include:

Magento:

• Pros: Open-source platform specialized for e-commerce, versatile, highly customizable.
• Cons: High development costs, requires expertise and experience during implementation.

Suitable for businesses investing in the long term, saving budgets in the long run.

Shopify:

• Pros: Easy to use, many ready-made interfaces and widgets, 24/7 support.
• Cons: High costs (ongoing high cost), unstable website speed.

Suitable for building simple and less customized e-commerce websites.

OpenCart:

• Pros: Simple, easy to use for businesses, many templates.
• Cons: Limited features, poor security, suitable for building e-commerce websites for new brands entering the e-commerce market with limited budgets.

BigCommerce:

• Pros: Supports payment features and integrates various marketing tools.
• Cons: Limited annual revenue. Standard package: $29.95/month, revenue limit: $50,000/year.

Suitable for building e-commerce websites for new businesses with relatively low revenue.

WooCommerce:

• Pros: Simple, easy to use, many templates.
• Cons: Cannot be edited for a unique style, suitable for building e-commerce websites for new businesses and small-scale enterprises.

Choose an ecommerce website design unit

When building an e-commerce website, businesses need to collaborate with units based on certain criteria:

• Deep experience in e-commerce: Number of years of experience, quantity, and quality (type of projects, complexity, etc.) of completed projects.
• Professional team: Solution consulting staff, IT staff, customer service staff.
• Clear process from business analysis, proposed solutions, development, testing, and maintenance.
• Available system.
• Efficient handling and support.
• Commitment to warranty and maintenance.
• Upgrade and maintenance services for the e-commerce website.

Some ecommerce website design units in Vietnam include:

• Magento: Secomm, SmartOSC, MoniGroup, Co-well Asia, etc.
• Shopify: Webico, Meowcart, Duyalex, etc.
• BigCommerce: Itexpress, Websolution, etc.

Purchase domain name and hosting

Criteria for choosing a domain name: Short, easy to remember.

Criteria for choosing hosting providers:

• Examine the configuration: Disk Space, Bandwidth, Parked Domain, CPU, RAM, FTP accounts, MySQL accounts, dedicated IP, etc.
• Support services: Data backup, 24/7 live chat support, submitting a ticket to resolve issues.

Develop the ecommerce website

Coordinate with the development unit to ensure a smooth development process. Businesses should regularly update the project progress according to the approved solution. Simultaneously, update changes and coordinate with the cooperating unit. During the User Acceptance Test (UAT), businesses should test according to a checklist to ensure that the website development process meets expectations.

During the development process, businesses also need to work with payment and shipping units to provide services for the ecommerce website. When signing contracts with payment units, attention should be paid to security, compatibility between the website platform and the payment platform, and service fees. Some common online payment gateways in Vietnam include Paypal, Ngan Luong, VNPay, Airpay, and e-wallets such as Momo, ZaloPay. When cooperating with shipping units, businesses should consider the quality of services, shipping staff, packaging, and storage of goods to avoid affecting the user experience

A website is a powerful tool for supporting ecommerce (Electronic Commerce) business, serving as a bridge between businesses and customers in the online shopping market, facilitating the entire process of buying and selling goods, and boosting sales. Therefore, building an ecommerce website is crucial for the ecommerce business of a company, requiring not only serious investment but also a long-term strategy.

However, there are still many ecommerce websites facing certain issues that need to be addressed promptly! Here are some common problems:

Low Page Load Speed

To evaluate the speed of a website, tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, WebPageTest, Pingdom Speed Test, Uptrends, etc., can be used.

Scores range from 0 to 100, where 0-49 indicates relatively low speed, 50-89 indicates average speed that needs improvement, and 90-100 indicates excellent speed.

Slow page load speed affects user experience, conversion rates, customer retention, and SEO ranking.

Causes:

• Large product catalogues and diverse products with various attributes.
• Numerous high-resolution images.
• Increasing data in customer information, marketing, content, product catalogue, sales, and operations.
• Hosting quality and configuration issues.

Solutions:

• Compress or resize images, choose efficient image formats (e.g., jpg or .webp instead of .png).
• Utilize browser caching to reduce data load time, optimize the database by minimizing CSS, JavaScript, and HTML, and use tools like CDN/cache to reduce the time to retrieve large amounts of access data.
• Choose hosting providers with suitable caching memory, and web server configurations (Apache/Nginx/PHP/MySQL…), and use CDN to save bandwidth.

Unprofessional Ecommerce Website Interface

Issues with graphic design, colour schemes, inconsistent images and fonts, lack of brand representation, and non-optimal website structure affect the professionalism of the interface.

Consequences:

• Unattractive and unimpressive website interface.
• Reduced professionalism in the eyes of customers leading to decreased customer return rates.
• Decreased user experience, ineffective product search, suggestions, and quick purchase.

Causes:

• Insufficient research on consumer behaviour during the website structure design.
• Lack of expertise in evaluating the aesthetic appeal of the ecommerce website.

Solution:

• Use tools like Google Consumer Surveys, Facebook Audience Insight, and Prisync for market research, customer research, and competitor price tracking.
• Explore design trends such as Dark Mode, Gradient, 3D, and Lai Landing pages.
• Collaborate with experienced interface design providers for an attractive and brand-aligned ecommerce website interface.

Suboptimal Product Categories

Poorly structured product categories and incomplete product information negatively impact the user experience.

Issues:

• Lack of detailed and organized product categories.
• Incomplete product information related to attributes, images, videos, inventory, pricing, promotions, etc.

Consequences:

• Difficulty for customers to search for products.
• Inability to suggest relevant products.
• Prolonged decision-making time for customers, affecting sales.

Solutions:

• Establish a layered category structure, apply filtering and sorting features, and supplement detailed information for each product.
• Implement SEO campaigns for the ecommerce website, including keyword research, category content planning, proper robots.txt configuration, optimized website structure, and URL optimization for category pages.

Lack of Features to Enhance the Shopping Process

Websites should support customer search, and provide convenient and quick shopping processes.

Issues:

• Lack of effective features for searching and suggesting suitable products.
• Inefficient processes in cart addition, checkout, and payment.

Consequences:

• Incomplete shopping experience for customers.
• Slow and complicated purchasing processes lead to reduced conversion rates and revenue.

Causes:

• Absence of a strategic plan for deploying features according to customer buying behaviour.
• Suboptimal implementation by developers.

Solutions:

• Develop a comprehensive strategy with costs and timelines for integrating features into the business model.
• Collaborate with experienced solution providers to ensure successful integration.

Lack of Synchronization with Other Business Systems

Failure to link sales channels (social media, ecommerce platforms, ecommerce websites) with internal business systems like CRM, and ERP for synchronization can lead to misinformation and management difficulties.

Issues:

• Inconsistent information across sales channels.
• Challenges in managing customer, product, order, and store data.

Consequences:

• Impacted online sales due to uncontrolled product/service data.
• Lack of centralized data for reporting, analysis, business forecasting, and customer care activities.

Causes:

• More critical issues in the current ecommerce website system.
• Lack of a suitable strategy regarding costs and time for implementation.

Solution:

• Devise a plan including costs, timelines, and testing methods for the integration of data synchronization functionality into the ecommerce website system.
• Seek solution providers with experience, industry knowledge, and comprehensive services from consultation to development, maintenance, and optimization.

When deploying an ecommerce website, Magento is the top choice of platform that businesses are aiming for, including global giants like Nike, ASUS, HP, and Burger King, as well as leading Vietnamese enterprises such as Canifa, CellphoneS, Trung Nguyen, and CGV Vietnam.

With outstanding advantages ranging from a diverse ecosystem and flexible customisation capabilities to absolute security, Magento is considered the ‘ultimate boss’ among ecommerce website development platforms today.

So, what are the superior points of Magento?

A ecommerce platform functions from basic to advanced

Magento possesses all the features for a complete ecommerce website:

• Category Management: Control all data and functions related to products, categories, attributes, pricing systems, inventory, images, and videos.
• Content Management: Develop and optimise content for CMS pages (Content Management System), store images, customise themes, and website design.
• Sales Management: Control and operate sales processes, orders, payments, and shipping.
• Marketing Management: Support the building and implementation of marketing programmes with available support tools.
• Customer Management: Manage and collect customer information to enhance the user experience.
• Inventory Management: Continuously meet goods supply for the supply chain with inventory management tools and shipping route navigation.
• Reporting: Exploit data through reporting features on the system to improve and enhance business efficiency.
• Analysis: Support tracking and measuring system performance through integrated tools such as Google Analytics, Facebook Pixels, and Google Tag Manager.

In addition to the basic features of a complete ecommerce website, Magento also owns a diverse system of extensions with many advanced functions in themes, products, marketing, optimal payment solutions, shipping, etc. to meet every operational need and ensure sustainable development of ecommerce for businesses.

When building an ecommerce website, Magento also supports businesses to integrate and link third-party services for efficient ecommerce website operation, such as:

• Payment: Support all forms of payment, from COD, card payments, and e-wallets to online payment gateways, helping businesses diversify the payment experience for customers.
• Shipping: Easily integrate with many shipping units and popular shipping tracking applications to optimise the shipping process for customers.
• Management and operation software: Support the integration of back-office software such as ERP, CRM, POS, etc. to operate human resources more efficiently.
• Business intelligence (BI) analysis tools: Support the integration of business analysis tools such as Power BI, Tableau, and Looker… to improve business strategies for enterprises.
• Omnichannel: Unify all sales channels on the same Magento system to process and control data and seamlessly handle business processes from offline to online.

Furthermore, Magento also has a global technical support community, including many rich experts and professional developers to meet all the requirements of businesses.

High customisation and scalability

The Magento ecommerce website platform possesses all the advantages of open-source software with flexible customisation capabilities to operate the ecommerce website more effectively.

• Customisation: Owning and controlling the entire source code makes it easy for businesses to customise code sections in the system, enabling them to build innovative and improved solutions according to the specific business characteristics of each enterprise.
• Scalability: Magento allows businesses to expand from one website or store to many different websites or stores on the same system. Besides, Magento supports language and currency conversion, helping businesses expand their market to many countries.

High security

High security is also a superior advantage of Magento compared to other ecommerce website platforms, helping businesses minimise potential risks from data systems and transaction processes on the system. 

Some outstanding points of Magento’s security features include:

• Regularly control the system, propose security solutions, and improve website performance.
• Enhanced security for administrators.
• Advanced security for user accounts.
• Ability to block unauthorised bots and codes.

With the advantages of having all ecommerce website functions, from basic to advanced, high customisation capabilities, and high security, Magento is the top choice for businesses when deploying an ecommerce website system. However, issues related to costs, time, and the requirement for a highly specialised technical team make it challenging for many businesses to implement an ecommerce website system with Magento.

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Frequent monitoring of metrics in business allows a deeper understanding of customers and quantifies important aspects of the business. Particularly in ecommerce (Electronic Commerce), measuring these indices is even more crucial as they assist businesses in assessing existing risks and opportunities in the market.

MEASURE ECOMMERCE: SALES

Gross Profit Ratio (GP)

Indicates how much profit is generated for every dollar of revenue.

Formula: Gross Profit Ratio (%) = Gross Profit / Revenue

Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)

The value of goods sold or consumed during a specific period.

Formula: Cost of Goods Sold = Beginning Inventory + Additional Purchases During the Period – Ending Inventory

Average Order Value (AOV)

The average amount a customer spends when shopping on an ecommerce website.

Formula: Average Order Value = Revenue / Number of Orders

Revenue Per Click (RPC)

Average revenue based on the conversion rate each time a customer visits an ecommerce website.

Formula: Revenue Per Click = Revenue / Number of Visits

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

The value a customer contributes to a company over their entire lifetime.

Formula: Customer Lifetime Value = (Transaction 1 + Transaction 2 + Transaction 3 + …Transaction n) x Average Profit Margin

Purchase Frequency

Indicates the average number of times a customer purchases within a specific period.

Formula: Purchase Frequency = Total Orders / Total Customers

Time Between Purchases (TBP)

Measures the time between consecutive purchases by a customer.

Formula: Time Between Purchases = Purchase Frequency / 365

Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate (CAR)

Measures the number of customers who added items to their cart but did not complete the purchase.

Formula: Cart Abandonment Rate = 1 – (Completed Transactions / Carts with Products) x 100

Cost of Acquiring Customer (CAC)

The cost associated with persuading consumers to purchase a company’s products or services.

Formula: Cost of Acquiring Customer = Total Cost / Number of New Customers

Repeat Purchase Rate (RPR)

Indicates the likelihood of customers returning to make a second or subsequent purchase.

Formula: Repeat Purchase Rate = Number of Repeat Purchases / Total Number of Purchases

MEASURE ECOMMERCE: MARKETING

Website Traffic

Refers to the total number of visits to an ecommerce website.

Traffic Source

Identifies the primary sources directing traffic to your website.

Time on Site (TOS)

Indicates the average time a visitor spends on the website.

Average Session Duration

The average time users spend in a single session.

Formula: Total Session Duration / Number of Sessions

Page per Visit

Measures the level of content engagement, indicating how deeply users explore information on the website.

Formula: Pages per Visit = Number of Pages Viewed / Visits

Bounce Rate

The percentage of single-page visits where visitors leave without clicking on any other content.

Formula: Bounce Rate = Total Bounces in a Period / Total Visits in that Period

Click Through Rate (CTR)

The rate at which customers view and click on a business’s advertisements.

Formula: Click Through Rate = Number of Clicks / Number of Impressions

Engagement Rate

Indicates the number of people who interacted with a company’s content through various ecommerce channels such as the business’s ecommerce website/app, ecommerce platforms, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.

Formula: Social Media Engagement = Number of Interactions / Number of Followers

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

The Internet marketing model is where businesses pay a fee each time their ads are clicked.

Formula: Pay-Per-Click Cost = Advertising Cost / Number of Clicks

Conversion Rate (CR)

Measures the ratio of potential customers who become actual customers by making a purchase.

Formula: Conversion Rate = Number of Conversions / Total Ad Interactions

As consumer shopping trends shift from offline to online, owning an ecommerce website (EC) is almost a prerequisite for successful business operations. Despite its importance, many businesses are still unsure where to start to build an effective EC website.

Here is a step-by-step journey to building an EC website from basic to advanced for businesses to refer to!

PHASE 1: BUILDING A BASIC ECOMMERCE WEBSITE

When entering the ecommerce market, businesses often build a basic-level ecommerce website to minimize time and budget for website development and gradually adapt to market changes.

Choose a platform to build the website

Businesses can use free website-building tools with ready-made interfaces and features to create a website through simple drag-and-drop operations, without investing too much time and budget in website development and programming. Some popular platforms include Sapo, Haravan, Nhanh.web.

Advantages

• Various ready-made interfaces suitable for different industries and sectors.
• Basic features provided, such as managing product data, prices, images/videos, sales tracking, payment, shipping, marketing, customer management, inventory management, and reporting/analysis.
• Diverse payment methods: COD, card payment, e-wallet.
• Integration with common shipping services: GHN, GHTK, Ninja Van.

Reasonable initial deployment costs with a contract based on usage time.

Disadvantages

• Additional costs may be incurred to use extensions or develop new features for the system.
• Limited customization capability, making it challenging to create a unique brand identity.
• Low flexibility: Difficulty integrating with third-party systems or CRM, ERP, BI…

Design the interface and build functional systems on the chosen platform

Businesses use ready-made templates on the platform and customize them to fit the brand image, industry, and consumer preferences. The chosen platforms offer basic features, and businesses only need to select suitable functions and set them up on the website.

Provide payment and shipping services

• During the ecommerce website development process, businesses need to work with service providers to offer payment and shipping services.
• Common online payment gateways in Vietnam include Paypal, Ngan Luong, VNPay, Airpay, and e-wallets like Momo, ZaloPay.
• Reputable shipping providers in Vietnam include Giao Hang Tiet Kiem, Giao Hang Nhanh, VNPost, ViettelPost.

Complete legal procedures with the Ministry of Industry and Trade

According to Government Decree 52/2013/ND-CP, individuals or organizations that own ecommerce websites for selling goods must notify or register with the Ministry of Industry and Trade on the Ecommerce Management Information Portal.

PHASE 2: TRANSITION TO A SPECIALIZED ECOMMERCE WEBSITE PLATFORM

After using a basic ecommerce website for some time, businesses gradually realize the need to develop an independent, in-depth, and uniquely designed ecommerce website to promote a sustainable ecommerce journey.

Developing a specialized ecommerce website requires both experience and substantial investment in costs and time. However, this is a cost-effective solution for long-term business plans and a suitable transition for a separate and comprehensive ecommerce system.

Choose a platform to build the website

At this stage, businesses can choose specialized e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, which are scalable and customizable to maximize the requirements of:

• Open-source e-commerce platforms allow flexible customization according to needs.
• Support customization of the interface to match the brand’s unique style.
• Own a diverse range of functions from basic to advanced.
• Easily integrate with popular shipping and payment providers.
• Manage multiple systems such as CRM, ERP, BI on one screen.
• Easily develop specialized e-commerce functions, especially features related to industry-specific characteristics, brand development, and optimizing customer experience.
• Actively update and quickly develop new features and technologies.
• Flexible and easy integration with in-house systems and third-party systems such as payment, shipping, ecommerce platforms, CRM, ERP, BI…

However, implementing a specialized e-commerce website may face some difficulties:

• High costs and prolonged deployment time.
• Require a skilled and experienced IT team for effective implementation.

Select a website development service provider

When building an ecommerce website on specialized platforms, as it requires time, costs, and high expertise, businesses often collaborate with service providers for ecommerce website development. Afterward, businesses can build an in-house team or continue working with the provider to maintain website operations.

Some service providers for deploying specialized ecommerce systems include SECOMM, SmartOSC, Co-well Asia, Isobar, Magenest.

Develop the ecommerce website

During project deployment based on the agreed solution with the development provider, all factors related to the quality and effectiveness of the website need to be optimized and tested before handover. Especially crucial functions include:

• Category Management: Control data, functions, attributes, prices, inventory, images, and videos of products.
• Content Management: Develop and optimize content for CMS pages, store images, customize themes, and website design.
• Sales Management: Control and operate sales processes, orders, payments, and shipping.
• Marketing Management: Support building and implementing marketing programs using tools like Omni-channel Marketing, Auto Mail.
• Customer Management: Manage and collect customer information for personalized user experiences.
• Inventory Management: Ensure a continuous supply of goods through inventory management tools and shipping direction.
• Reporting & Analysis: Exploit data and measure performance on Google Analytics, Facebook Pixels, Google Tag Manager.

Operate and maintain the ecommerce website

To maintain seamless online-to-offline business operations, the website needs continuous maintenance, care, and updates.

• System Maintenance: Control and monitor all resources on the system to optimize performance.
• Hosting: Web App system, server management, and 24/7 monitoring.
• Cloud: Enhance accessibility and data storage across the entire website system.

Grow the ecommerce website

Implement activities to increase sales operations on the website and stimulate online sales.

• Omni-channel: Set up a sales system, marketing, and data management on the ecommerce website, social networks (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Zalo…) and e-commerce platforms (Shopee, Tiki, Lazada…).
• E-commerce Marketing: Analyze and plan comprehensive marketing based on core channels (Content Marketing, Social Marketing, Email Marketing, SEM…).
• SEO: Analyze and optimize website structure, and research specific keywords to build a long-term SEO strategy.

The journey from building a basic to an advanced ecommerce website helps businesses adapt to market changes over time.

Ecommerce website has been a companion for businesses facing COVID-19 challenges in 2020-2021. Efficient utilization of ecommerce (EC) not only helps businesses adapt to changing user and market dynamics but also enables them to seize opportunities and excel in the fiercely competitive landscape. Some successful standalone EC websites include thegioididong.com, bachhoaxanh.com, and fptshop.com.vn.

What is the formula for the success of these businesses?

This success hinges on the ability to have a broad vision and a strategic approach at the management level. Building a dedicated EC website is not just about establishing offline stores; it involves developing and optimizing an EC system that aligns with the business, brand, and users. Building a successful brand website offers various benefits, from brand positioning, cost savings, maximizing revenue to owning all data and controlling the game.

Brand Positioning

A dedicated EC website serves as a medium to convey the brand image and connects businesses with customers in the online market. By owning a dedicated EC website, businesses can easily convey messages, establish specialized marketing campaigns, provide accurate information, and promote the brand to get closer to customers.

Maximizing Revenue

Operating on a website, businesses are not limited by time and space. Business transactions can occur 24/7, regardless of location. Actively updating and upgrading the system’s features based on user characteristics, business needs, and industry specifics ensures an optimal user experience and facilitates a more convenient and faster purchasing process.

Minimizing Costs

In addition to enabling direct access and sales to customers, eliminating intermediary costs, establishing an online store (brand.com) is an optimal solution for minimizing various expenses such as rent, personnel, and equipment. Moreover, the automated business process with E-Payment, E-Logistic, E-Invoice functions on the website helps save costs related to personnel and paperwork.

Data Ownership and Control

Building a dedicated EC website means owning a unique “playing field,” reducing dependence on data from EC platforms, social media, or other business systems. With this data, businesses can conduct in-depth data analysis, make business predictions, and develop appropriate directions for the business.

With these superior benefits of deploying a standalone EC website, many businesses have quickly embarked on building an online store for their brand. However, to truly own a successful website that meets specific requirements, similar to Vinamilk, Thế giới di động, Canifa, businesses need a suitable strategy and significant time and investment.

How to build anecommerce website tailored to your business?

With extensive experience in building numerous standalone ecommerce websites for businesses across various sectors, SECOMM fully understands the challenges encountered during the e-commerce deployment process that businesses are facing.

Contact SECOMM to receive consultation on building your own ecommerce website!