Advice for a New eCommerce Merchant: 8 Tips from a Development Agency

As an experienced eCommerce development agency, IronPlane has worked with businesses across industries to build robust, scalable, and customer-focused online stores. While every merchant's journey is unique, there are universal principles that can significantly impact your path to success. If you're a new eCommerce merchant, here’s our advice for creating a solid foundation for your business.

1. Define Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

In the crowded eCommerce marketplace, differentiation is critical. What makes your products or services stand out? How will you manage the competition whether industry lookalikes or Amazon? Having unique products, unbeatable quality, exclusive offerings, exceptional customer service, or eco-friendly practices are all worthwhile differentiators, but each alone may not be enough. Your unique value proposition is the aggregation of your brand, products, and customer experience easily communicated and effectively inspiring. You must offer something unique and highly valued by your target audience: your UVP is the most efficient communication of this offer. All aspects of your eCommerce presence should support this UVP, from site design, to navigation, product merchandizing, and custom innovations that support your unique offering. 

Tip: Create a mindmap with your UVP as the hub and each element of your eCommerce environment (technology, operations, customer support, etc.) connected as spokes and including how each contributes to your UVP. 

2. Be Realistic About Your Return On eCommerce Investment

Getting a return on your eCommerce investment is no longer assured. Costs of technology, internal management, marketing, and eCommerce-related services continue to increase. Add to this fierce competition across various digital channels and the very real fact you are required to constantly innovate in channel development, brand messaging, customer experience, and the technology underpinning it all.

Tip: To understand these challenges, you must also understand total cost of technology ownership (3-5 year TCO is best), your business and technology wants vs. needs, your customers now and future (who they are, what they want from you, and where they will be), and your competitors now and future.

3. Build the Right eCommerce Ecosystem

Whether your eCommerce technology is one platform or many, the technologies you choose will have a substantial impact on your total cost of ownership, capacity for innovation, customer experience, and growth opportunities. While there is no single best eCommerce solution, there are likely a few options that could serve your business well. The hard work is analyzing each technology’s capabilities in the context of your business needs now and in the future. 

Tip: Focus on the platforms clearly supporting your must-have features. Then layer on considerations of total cost of ownership, scalability, integration options, and ongoing support. Don’t be afraid to pay for unbiased expert advice - it’s a small price to ensure you select the best eCommerce ecosystem for your business.

4. Invest in User Experience (UX)

You have your UVP, you have the right eCommerce technologies and you know how you’re going to attract your target customers. You can invest in beautiful, stand-out design, but if you are not considering the holistic user experience, site visitors will not convert and you will not be as competitive as you hoped. UX takes time and it takes skill to get right, but it is a crucial factor in setting yourself apart from the competition and living up to your UVP.

Tip: Good UX is never done: regular A/B testing can help you refine layouts, CTAs, and checkout flows.

5. Prioritize a Mobile-First Experience

With mobile devices accounting for over half of all eCommerce traffic, a mobile-first strategy is non-negotiable. Your website should load quickly, provide intuitive navigation, and offer seamless checkout processes on smaller screens. A poorly optimized mobile experience will not only cost you sales but may also harm your search engine rankings.

Tip: Use tools like Google’s Core Web Vitals to identify and resolve issues with your mobile experience.

6. Master Data-Driven Decision Making

Every click, view, and purchase generates valuable insights. Leverage analytics tools like Google Analytics or platform-specific dashboards to track key performance metrics such as bounce rates, conversion rates, and average order values. Data helps you identify what's working and where improvements are needed.

Tip: Establish KPIs for your store and review them weekly to adapt strategies as needed.

7. Build A Community Based On Trust and Credibility

Today’s top merchants recognize their success is dependent on their ability to build trust and credibility with their customer community. The essentials of building trust online start with customer reviews, clear return policies, secure payment processing, and meeting delivery expectations. To develop trust, credibility, and community further requires insights into the various digital realms your customers engage and share on topics aligned with your products or services. Your ability to find honest ways to engage in these realms can set you apart from your competition and bring you closer to your customers. The next level is considering ways you can make a home for your own community. Whether it’s social media, a podcast, or a YouTube channel, the investment of your resources can pay dividends over time.

Tip: As you make plans to invest in community development, keep in mind this is a long game, highly dependent on the quality of engagement, but also on consistency, and scalability over time.

8. Plan for Scalability Early

Many new merchants focus solely on immediate needs without considering future growth. Ensure your website can handle increased traffic, additional product lines, and global expansion if those are part of your long-term goals. Scalability requires a flexible platform, dependable hosting, and optimized performance.

Tip: Perform load testing to ensure your site can handle peak traffic, such as during holiday sales.

Conclusion

Starting an eCommerce business is an exciting venture, but it also comes with challenges. By focusing on these foundational strategies, you'll set yourself apart from competitors and position your store for long-term growth. At IronPlane, we’re here to help merchants like you navigate these complexities, offering tailored solutions to meet your unique needs.

Whether you're just starting or looking to refine your approach, investing time and resources into these essentials will pay dividends as you scale.

Looking for more eCommerce insights? Visit our blog.

Want to speak with experts about starting a new eCommerce venture? Contact our team.