If you are planning to sell something on-line, having an ecommerce plan is as important as your original business plan.

The first step in writing a business plan for ecommerce is to decide what kind of experience you would want your online customers to have. Don’t think only about today but also 2 and 5 years down the road.

Your e-commerce plans start with a website goals. Who are your target customers? What do they need? Are they only getting information or can they purchase products at your website? These key queries, asked and answered early, will determine how much time and money you will be needing to develop and maintain an online presence.

Second, decide what kind of products or services you will offer. How will you position and display them? Will you be offering both online and offline purchasing? How will you handle shipping and returns?

In addition, do not neglect the customer’s need to reach a live person. A toll-free phone number must be displayed so customers can call anytime to get their queries be answered by a live person.

If you have decided to sell online, you will be needing a shopping cart component, which is a means of handling credit card processing and an organized order fulfillment process.

Lastly, even if you build an amazing website, don’t think that people will be able to find you on their own. If you want to develop consistent flow of traffic to your website, it is important that you plan and maintain an ongoing and multifaceted promotional strategy that is carefully targeted to your audience.

Once you have decided to have a website, one of the first thing you have to do is to make a list of possible website names or URLs.

Then open your computer and go to your favorite search engine and type in “domain registration.” You will find a list of different companies that will guide you through the simple domain registration process.

From the available names, choose one that is easy to spell and remember, and will describe what your company does. Make sure you are imposing on others trademark or copyrighted name. 

After you have registered your domain name and have your plan in place for what you want to offer your online customers,, the next major challenge is designing and building your website and online presence.

What makes a decent website? Before getting enmeshed in design details, get the big picture by creating a website outline. The content you will create and publish should directly relate to and help you achieve the goals and objectives you have set for your website.

A well-thought-out website outline includes:

Content 

The key to a successful website is content. Give your website visitors lots of interesting information, incentives to visit and buy, and ways to contact you. Once your website is up and running, continue on updating and adding fresh content to keep your visitors coming back.

Structure

Decide how many pages your website will have and how they will be linked to each other. Choose graphics and icons to enhance the content.

Design

Once your content and structure are in place, your website design comes next. Whether you are using an outside designer or you are doing it yourself, concentrate on simplicity, readability and consistency. Always remember to focus on what you want to accomplish.

Navigation

Make it easy and enjoyable for your visitors to browse your website. For instance, use no more than 2 or 3 links to major areas and never leave your visitors at a dead end.

Credibility

This is an issue that should not be lost in the feature of establishing a website. Your website should reach out to every visitor, telling that person why they should purchase your product or services. It should look very professional and should give your potential customers the same feeling of confidence they would get with a phone call with you. Remind your visitors that you don’t only exist in cyberspace. Your company’s full contact should appear on all of your web pages and should be displayed on your homepage.

An outline will help you get the most out of your website design/ecommerce budget. It will also help you know whether you can design portions of the website, or if you need to get outside help.