Launching an online store enables businesses to sell products 24/7 and reach customers beyond their usual catchment area. However, there is much more to setting up a store than building a website and adding your listings. In this post, we provide a comprehensive checklist for launching your business online, covering everything from selecting a platform to configuring payment options.
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Platform choice
Your platform is the software you use to create and manage your online store. It controls how your website functions, handling vital tasks such as managing orders, processing payments and communicating with customers.
There are several options when it comes to platform choice, and which you opt for may depend on your budget and technical know-how. Many businesses choose to build their store with WooCommerce, an e-commerce plugin that’s designed for the WordPress platform. Both WooCommerce and WordPress are free, come with exceptional functionality and provide extensive flexibility and control.
Alternatives include Adobe Commerce (previously Magento), a dedicated e-commerce platform, and Sitejet, a user-friendly website builder with integrated e-commerce functionality.
When choosing a platform, make sure it has the features you need to operate your store effectively, such as:
- Inventory management
- Multiple payment gateways
- Shipping calculators and delivery configuration
- Product variations (sizes, colours, bundles, etc.)
- Marketing tools and analytics integrations
For more information, read: 10 Reasons to Build an Online Store Using WooCommerce
Domain name and hosting
When setting up your online store, you will need to choose a domain name (e.g., mystore.co.uk). Choosing the right name is vital for your brand’s identity. However, for it to be effective, it also needs to be memorable, easy to spell and preferably short. You can find and register your domain from your web host.
Web hosting is a critical aspect of setting up an online store. Your choice of hosting plan and hosting provider will directly influence the speed, performance and security of your website. These are vital for providing good user experiences and establishing trust.
When choosing, make sure your web host offers:
- The platform you want to build your store with (e.g. WordPress, Sitejet, Adobe Commerce)
- High uptime guarantees (99.9% or higher)
- High-performance infrastructure for fast loading (e.g., Intel Xeon CPUs and SSD or NVMe storage)
- Advanced caching technology
- Options for growth (i.e., larger plans or solutions like VPS, cloud and dedicated servers)
- Robust security, such as advanced firewalls, malware and intrusion prevention, automated backups, email filters and SSL certificates
- 24/7 technical support – essential for resolving issues quickly
If you opt for a commercial platform that comes with hosting included, check carefully that the hosting offers the features above and that you have the freedom to choose another host if you are not satisfied with the service.
For more information, read: How to Choose the Right WordPress Hosting Plan for Your Business
Legal and financial foundations
As an online business, there are legal obligations you will have to comply with and financial matters to deal with. These include:
- Registering your business with relevant authorities (e.g., Companies House and HMRC)
- Obtaining licences or permits if you sell certain types of products
- Ensuring your site complies with regulations, like GDPR and PCI-DSS
- Opening a business bank account and setting up payment gateways
- Understanding VAT and sales tax responsibilities for domestic and international trade
Putting these in place enables you to sell online, prevents penalties for non-compliance and reassures customers that your store is trustworthy.
Build website content
While the product pages, shopping cart and checkout are the critical elements of your store, there are other features which you also need to put in place. These include:
- Homepage: This needs to be welcoming, have a clear value proposition and offer easy navigation to the rest of the site.
- About Us: Important for sharing your mission and your brand values.
- Contact page: Vital for providing good customer service and establishing trust.
- FAQ page: Answering common customer questions can increase sales and reduce the burden on customer service.
- Policies: You will need to publish several policies, such as a Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions and a Shipping, Returns & Refunds Policy.
- Blog: Provides ongoing opportunities to market products while benefiting SEO and drawing in new customers.
Security and data protection
Security is vital to prevent cyberattacks, data breaches, fraud and reputational damage. As mentioned above, good hosting providers will protect your site with a range of security tools, such as firewalls, intrusion and malware prevention, SSL certificates and more. If these are not included in your package, you will need to use plugins or third-party providers to put these measures in place.
In addition, there are security measures you will need to implement on your own, such as strong passwords, two-factor authentication and access control.
Discover how web hosts keep your site safe, read: Web Hosting Security: Future Trends and Best Practices
Configure payments, shipping and checkout
Complicated checkouts can quickly make shoppers abandon a purchase. To prevent this, your checkout process needs to be as streamlined and easy as possible. For payments, offer a variety of options and make sure they are ones that people know and trust, like Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and Google Pay.
Shipping is also essential for online shoppers, so shipping zones, rates and delivery times must be clearly displayed. If you ship overseas, you’ll need to show international delivery options. Also, make sure that there is a link to your returns and refunds policy page.
Before going live, make sure that the checkout process works as expected. Check that it:
- Verifies orders and updates inventory
- Calculates tax correctly
- Automates email confirmations
- Adjusts prices for discount codes
- Adds the right shipping costs
If there are errors here, it can be both disruptive and damaging to your business.
Final testing
The last step before launching your site is to test it rigorously from both a user’s and an owner’s perspective. Make sure:
- All the pages are in place
- Navigation works effectively
- The site loads quickly and is mobile-friendly
- Products are added to the cart correctly
- Email notifications are sent
- Form fields, input boxes and contact forms work properly
If everything is working as it should, then you are good to go.
Conclusion
While you can build an online store relatively quickly using today’s platforms, launching it successfully requires putting many things in place. From choosing the right platform and hosting solution to setting up payment options and ensuring that legal and regulatory obligations are met, it can be a demanding process. Hopefully, this post will have given you a clearer understanding of the steps to take.
Ready to launch your online store? With fast, reliable and secure hosting, one-click WordPress and WooCommerce installation and 24/7 expert support, eukhost has everything you need to get your business online. For more information, visit our WordPress Hosting page.
