The complete guide to creating a high-performance online store

More than 10,000 new e-commerce sites were created in 2022. That's an increase of over 5% on the previous year. And the good news is that the craze continues into 2023. In the first quarter of 2023, e-commerce grew by 20.2% compared to 2022 (Sources: FEVAD, 2023).

But even if the figures are good, there's a shadow hanging over the horizon: setting up an online store isn't something you can improvise. And without the right support, becoming an e-retailer is an obstacle course.

So where do you start when it comes to setting up an online store? Suppliers, choice of products or services, e-commerce platform, customer acquisition strategy... We explain everything from A to Z. Here's the complete guide to creating an online store that converts: let's get started!

Definition: What is online store ?

An online store (or e-commerce site) is a website where visitors can purchase products or services. The principle is the same as in a physical store, the only difference being that the customer experience and purchase take place on the Internet. And the store's opening hours: an e-commerce site is accessible 24/7!

Online stores are different from showcase sites, where it's impossible to make a purchase. The aim of a showcase site is to present a company, its products or services (like a store window).

It's also important to distinguish between a marketplace and an ecommerce site. On an e-commerce site, the seller is the only one to showcase his or her products and services. A marketplace, on the other hand, is a large digital shopping mall. Each store represents a different seller. These sellers (independents, professionals or individuals) have the opportunity to sell their products, solutions or services. Traffic and visibility are multiplied, security is reinforced and costs are much lower.

Can't decide between the two? Marketplace or e-commerce: find out which model to choose.

What business model should you choose for your online store?

Before embarking on your ecommerce adventure, the first step is to choose the right business model. What type of store do you want to create? Discover the different options available to you:

The single-product store

The concept of the single-product store is simple: you offer a single product for sale on your e-commerce site. Like a coffee machine, a cordless vacuum cleaner or a dog grooming service.

The advantages? This type of ecommerce site is quick to launch and easy to manage. The user experience is simplified: where an e-shop with a large catalog takes longer to display (and longer to navigate)... A single-product site doesn't drive customers away because of the number of products, loading time or complexity of the customer journey.

On the other hand, these online stores do have a few drawbacks. All your revenue is based on a single product. You surely know the risks of putting all your eggs in one basket...

Our advice? Think about upselling, by offering complementary products or services on your website.

The multi-product store

Unlike the single-product site, the multi-product strategy consists of offering several products for sale on an e-commerce site.

Take the example of the Miliboo website: this brand sells designer furniture and home furnishings. On its e-commerce site (or on the Rakuten marketplace), you'll find chairs, sofas, tables, rugs...

 

By creating a multi-product website, your company can offer customers a wide range of products. Perfect for satisfying everyone's tastes and desires! It's also an ideal strategy for testing different products for sale, before keeping only the best.

But beware: choice can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. Customers can find themselves lost when faced with the numerous products or services on offer online. What's more, this type of website takes longer to create and is more complex to manage. You'll have more work and effort to put in, especially when it comes to after-sales service.

Our advice? Select the e-commerce CMS best suited to your project. And if you're just starting out, leave the website creation to a professional.

The marketplace

The marketplace resembles a large 2.0 shopping mall, where different merchants can sell their products or services.

If you decide to set up a marketplace and welcome other sellers to your platform, you'll be remunerated via a percentage of sales. In some cases, you may also offer paid subscriptions for merchants to take advantage of your marketplace services.

By creating your own marketplace, you gain an advantage over the competition: you offer a larger product catalog. You improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and your visibility on the Internet, by multiplying your strike force thanks to the presence of other sellers. Storage costs are generally lower, and shipping management can be delegated.

However, you will have less control over the level of service offered by other e-tailers. You have the power to collect, but not to control. To manage all sellers, the investment will be more substantial, and the brand less high.

Our advice? Rather than creating your own marketplace... Why not keep things simple (and efficient) and join our marketplace? Rakuten is a digital marketplace with 8,500 professional sellers and over 12 million customers.

 

The subscription-based e-commerce site

Birchbox, Le Petit Ballon, Quitoque... These three companies have one thing in common: their business model! They are brands that sell products or services on a monthly subscription basis:

• Birchbox offers a subscription to receive a monthly box of beauty products
• Le Petit Ballon sells a monthly subscription to a box of wines
• Quitoque sells a weekly subscription to receive cooking baskets.

With a subscription, you can offer attractive prices thanks to large order quantities. Your income is regular and constant, leaving little room for unpleasant surprises. Last but not least, you have a longer customer life and no cash upfront.

Nevertheless, it's more difficult to diversify your offerings with subscription marketing. The redundancy of products received can affect customer satisfaction.

Our advice? Open an e-shop on your monthly subscription site. This will encourage satisfied customers to re-purchase individual products... while boosting your income by diversifying your business through multi-product sales to new target groups.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a constantly evolving form of e-commerce. The concept is as follows: you list a product on your website, and your supplier ships it directly to the customer. Without going through you.

As the seller, you're only responsible for marketing and selling the product on your website. The advantage? No stock to manage, no products to ship. And no product-related costs to pay in advance. A practical way to outsource your ecommerce logistics and save money!

However, dropshipping gets a bad press. The lack of control over product quality is often criticized. Delivery times are generally very long, because shipping starts abroad. Finally, consumers question the prices charged by dropshippers (often excessive) and the lack of transparency on store websites, throughout the customer journey.

Our advice? Select your suppliers with care. And be as transparent as possible when it comes to contact information and delivery times.

 

Once you've chosen the business model for your e-shop, 7 new steps await you. Soon, you'll be able to make a living as an e-tailer. But first, you need to :

 

1. Follow the administrative formalities: what legal status should you choose to set up your business? How do you protect your domain name? Follow BPIFrance's advice, so you can launch your business in full compliance.
2. Find suppliers: compare domestic and foreign suppliers. You can find them from professional directories, via a Google search or by searching for suppliers based on the NACE code of certain products.
3. Naming your store: naming your store is an essential step in making a lasting impression on your target market and representing your identity. Before making it official on all your marketing materials, test it with a restricted circle (friends, family, colleagues, etc.).
4. Choose the right e-commerce platform: Shopify, Prestashop, Wix... Or perhaps Rakuten, if you opt for a marketplace strategy?
5. Select an online payment gateway: securing your payments is essential. Choose strong authentication and reassure your buyers throughout their customer journey.
6. Organize your e-shop's logistics: who's in charge of stock management, shipping and returns? Is it you, or a service provider? Now's the time to decide.
7. Write content for your store's pages: finally, think about the marketing actions that will attract, seduce and convert. From optimized texts on product pages to the choice of photos, not forgetting (of course) a quality design for the home page... Take care of your website's content!

 

How to make your first e-commerce sales?

Is your store officially online? Congratulations!

Now that you've created your shop, it's time for an action plan: how do you attract your first online visitors? And how do you convince them to order from your store? Here's our advice on how to make your first sales.

First of all, before thinking about conversion, it's important to understand the stages in the purchasing funnel:

• Discovery
• Interest
• Consideration
• Intention
• Evaluation
• Purchase

To support web users throughout their purchasing journey, start by communicating. You'll not only facilitate discovery, but also interest and consideration for your brand. Here are a few examples of actions you can take online:

• Deploying paid acquisition channels (or paid media): if your budget allows, this strategy involves investing in paid advertising. On social networks, via Google Ads, with advertising in the specialized press, or through influencer marketing... There are many ways to do this. This type of investment can help you get started!
• Focus on content marketing (or owned media): in the long term, one of the most effective strategies is native communication. Communicate on behalf of the brand, using high-quality content to build a community and increase visibility. Here again, there are many ways to do this: creating and animating your social network accounts (Instagram, TikTok etc.), running competitions on social networks, optimizing your SEO content (blog articles, enriched product pages) to improve natural referencing...
• Encourage word-of-mouth (or earned media): your first customers will be your best ambassadors. To encourage them to promote your online store, have you thought about setting up a referral system? Or put special promotions online for the launch, to attract the first buyers, who won't hesitate to pass on the good deal to their friends and family?

 

Setting up an online store: 3 mistakes to avoid

You now have all the tools you need to create your first e-shop. But before you set out to conquer the world of e-commerce, here are a few warnings. To aim for performance, avoid these mistakes:

1- Launching without a business plan: before you launch, you need to check the viability of your business project. This is a non-negotiable step! So, have you carried out a market study? Have you analyzed the competition? Have you set your prices seriously? Have you interviewed potential customers, to better understand your target market? If you get at least one "no", it's still too early to get started.

2- Creating an e-shop that scares buyers away: it's not enough to have a good product to open a good e-shop. The company's offer is not enough. The form and content of your website are also key success factors! Is your website responsive? Have you worked out a quality design? Have all spelling mistakes been corrected? Do pages load quickly? Are there enough photos on every product page? Is the user interface simple to navigate between pages? Once you've accumulated 100% "yes" votes, you're ready to go!

3- Choosing the wrong platform: mastering computer development can be a stumbling block to creating your own online store. To avoid choosing the wrong platform, or making technical mistakes, surround yourself with experts. Or make things easier for yourself, by joining a reliable, secure and well-known marketplace to launch your e-shop.

At Rakuten, we help over 8,500 sellers sell their products or services directly on our marketplace. You don't need a BAC +5 in e-commerce, nor do you need to know how to code. Simply create your store with us.