When I first set out to launch my online store, I was really excited and dived in without really thinking about the practical aspects of it. This ended up costing me a lot of time as I often had to go back and correct the mistakes that I had done initially.
Some of the key lessons that I have learned through this experience include:
1) Drawing a concept of your store on pen and paper to get an idea of how you want the store to look, this also helps to find the right theme.
2) When choosing a theme, simplicity is key. Flashy themes might catch the eye but they can also become overwhelming to your customers.
3) Testing your theme demo on different size screens to see how it looks before settling on it – some themes might look great on large screens but look totally inappropriate on mobile.
4) Making sure that the theme has the key features that you’re looking for (ie: sidebar locations, menu location, overall layout) – it gives an idea of what needs to be done and saves time having to fix it or change it afterwards.
5) Using good professional pictures – your product might be excellent but if the images aren’t sleek enough it can create a dull first impression
6) Start developing a social media presence concurrently – building a social media presence takes time. Don’t wait until the store is ready to create your social media profiles, start interacting with prospective clients.
7) Knowing which plugin does what on your store – while setting up your store, it’s easy to lose track of the plugins that you’re using and before you know it, you have a huge list of plugins but you’re not sure about their roles on your site. You might decide to “clean up” one day and delete an important plugin which will leave you in a state of panic when your store doesn’t look the same anymore.