Technology must haves when opening a new online retail store

You can make an impressive profit by entering the e-commerce retail market today as online sales are increasing.

It was recently reported that e-commerce sales in the US reached $1 trillion in 2022 for the first time. With the latest technology at hand, there’s nothing to stop you from being successful or making the average net profit for an ecommerce site of 10%. So, read on to find out how to get started and become successful.

Choose a business structure

All businesses must be registered. But before you can do this, you need to decide what structure you want your online retail store to be. The types to choose from are: 

●     Sole proprietorships

●     Partnerships

●     Corporations

●     S corporations

●     Limited Liability Company (LLC)

In most cases, a new business should opt to be a sole proprietor or an LLC. If you choose to be a sole proprietorship, you’ll be liable for any business debts. Whereas, with an LLC, owners aren’t personally liable for debts. For this reason, registering as an LLC is recommended.

There once was a time when you’d have to fill out all the paperwork and send it off manually, but this isn’t the case anymore. Instead, you can use an online technology company, such as LegalZoom, to do the job for you.

So, is LegalZoom good for LLC? Well, you can get your e-commerce biz registered as an LLC for as little as $79. The company will file your documents, generate a customer Articles of Organisation, provide a financial account authorisation letter, and provide your LLC documents within six weeks.

Optimise your online store

It goes without saying that you need an online store and website for your e-commerce site, but the most important thing to do is optimise it so that it works with today’s Google algorithm. Google typically does major algorithm updates once per year, and the latest one was in March 23. It focused on ranking web pages with greater value to readers.

As at least 43% of traffic to e-commerce stores comes from organic Google searches, your new online retail store must be optimised. A user-friendly content management system (CMS), such as WordPress is essential. You also need to use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to speed your ecommerce site up and utilise analytics tools to track the performance of your site.

Signing up to SEMrush Sensor is wise too as it will alert you when a Google algorithm update is due so you can be prepared. 

Prioritise customer experience

In the modern age, customers want more than ever before. The good news is that if you treat your customers right and give them a great experience when using your online retail store, 61% of them will be prepared to pay at least 5% more for your products.

The only way to stay on top of the customer experience is to utilise technology and, in particular, artificial intelligence (AI). A few examples of how to use AI for this purpose are as chatbots, to provide recommendations, to resolve complaints, and for modeling product images.

Other technologies to have in place should be multiple payment technologies, predictive analytics, and a ready-made knowledge base so that customers can find the answers to queries themselves. For example, if your online retail store sells clothing, it should have an FAQ page detailing what size a small, medium, large, and so on  is for.

Take security seriously 

80% of consumers say they worry about their data when shopping for items from online retail stores. This is with good reason as in 2022 it was reported that 500 e-commerce websites had been targeted by hackers who had installed a credit card skimmer on their sites.

For these reasons, you must take data security seriously so that your customers feel safe to shop with you.

Having Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates in place ensures that a secure and encrypted connection is in place when an online transaction takes place. Two-factor authentication (2FA) and tokenization are also worth considering as they add extra layers of security.

Fraud is a common security problem too. Machine-learning tools can be implemented to automate fraud detection. A common method is via anomaly detection which creates a model of expected behaviour so that unusual shopping patterns can be identified.

Other anti-fraud methods to put in place include collaborating with anti-fraud networks, using address verification services (AVS), and using the latest anti-fraud software. Make sure you only collect vital sensitive data as well, as this will further reduce the likelihood of a security breach.

Launching a brand new online retail store in today’s world comes with a lot of considerations. Thankfully, technology is available to help make your launch as smooth as possible. Plus, it will help your store to become as big and successful as you want it to be.