Website For Online Grocery Stores: A Detailed Guide

Even though you successfully run your brick-mortar store, you still need to build an online grocery store to expand your reach. It will not only help you bring you more customers but also boost your sales. Therefore, you must consider developing a feature-rich, user-friendly website for your grocery store.

However, your online grocery store should be built in a specific way, as it must have some specific features. So, here we have provided a detailed guideline regarding online grocery store website development. Continue reading to know how you can develop an impactful online store that can help improve your services.

Let’s begin with some primary details about an online grocery store for a clear understanding.

Online grocery store: What it is?

Any regular grocery store that runs all its business over the internet is an online grocery store. Now the grocery store can either build its website or collaborate with any third-party e-commerce site.

Once the stores receive orders from their customers, they need to arrange a proper way to deliver the products to their customers. The store either receives their payments through online mode or can collect the amount at the time of delivery.

What are the various types of business models for an online grocery store?

You must stay updated about the various types of business models for an online grocery store. Knowing this will help you understand your business requirements. Building an online grocery store requires you to have proper arrangements even before you build your site.

So, looking at the following points will give you an idea of how you can start your online grocery store.

Inventory-based:

For this type of model, the e-commerce platform owner is in charge of the purchase and the storage. In case you choose this model, you will have to buy your stocks from various suppliers and then store them in your storehouse. Moreover, you will need to take care of other things like keeping track of the inventory, interacting with customers and ensuring on-time delivery.

Multi-vendor marketplace based:

This is ideal for you If you want to stick to an e-commerce model that offers a common platform for all the buyers and the sellers. All the vendors and buyers will have to register on the platform before they can conduct any transactions through the website. Either the seller or the e-commerce platform itself is responsible to take care of processes like packaging and distribution.

Hyperlocal grocery business:

Before you choose this particular business model, you need to have a deep understanding of its objectives. It aims at ensuring on-time and fast delivery and expanding the business of the local grocers. It is mainly focused on optimizing multiple supply options and meeting the requirements of the customers of the specific area.

Why is it important to build an online grocery store?

If you intend to construct an online store, it’s wise to be aware of its advantages. So, check out the points below to know how your new online grocery store can benefit your business.

Attract more customers:

Your brick-mortar store may already be famous in your local area for your services. But having a website can make your store known to other customers near your location.

Thus it increases the chances to get more customers as you reach more people quickly. Also, it gives you the chance to stay in touch with your customers around the clock. Thus you receive more orders as they can make purchases at their convenient time.

Boosts your sale:

Your online grocery store is a perfect solution to boost your sales as you get more customers. After all, it gives you a great opportunity to serve customers from various other locations. Thus you can receive orders from customers who are even far from your location and increase your purchases.

Overcome various restrictions:

By setting up a website for your online store you also get a chance to display all your products. Also by showing the wide range of the products that you offer you can build a great customer base. Therefore, your online store is a great solution that will help you overcome a lot of boundaries to grow your business.

Promotes your business:

Building a website for your grocery store will not just help improve your services but also promotes your business. Certainly, promotion is important for your business to get more buyers.

Also, when running a business online building trust becomes a vital factor. After all, improving your conversion becomes challenging if buyers don’t trust your services. That’s why effective promotion is necessary for a cost-effective manner and your website can be a great help.

Great chance to understand your customers:

The growth of your business depends to a great extent on how much you understand your customers. After all, you will have to offer those products that your customers want to buy. When you build a store you will get a chance to know which products your customers prefer. Thus you can organize your store just the way your customers want.

It’s cost-effective:

Developing an online grocery store is more cost-effective than developing a brick-mortar store. After all, you will only need to invest in developing a website, and promoting it. Therefore, you don’t need to bear the extra investments required to build a physical store.

Some must-have features of an online grocery store

Not every online store has similar features, but certainly, there are features that your site must have. Here we have listed a few tips any leading website development company would suggest, so take a look.

Register or sign-in option:

There has to be a sign-in option available on your website, which is required for buyers to register. For this area, you can also use other terms such as ‘new users’ or ‘sign up.

However, the process of registration must be less complicated. To handle spam, you should also ask the customers to provide phone numbers at the time of registration. Besides, it is also helpful for handling issues related to multiple accounts.

Error-free search feature:

Your customers expect a flawless search feature to find the products they are looking for. Therefore make sure that your search feature is not missing what we have mentioned below:

• Searching products under a specific category.
• Displaying various categories as options
• Quick results in the drop-down

Shopping cart:

Buyers should be able to add products to their shopping carts while making online purchases. Also, make sure that the cart is placed in a position which is easy to locate for your customers.

Therefore, your customers can check all the products they have added before they check out to place the order. They should not face any difficulties to remove products from the cart they decided not to buy.

Well-arranged user account:

The user’s account should be well-organized and it should include a few important features for the convenience of the users. It must include “my profile” which allows users to modify information regarding their personal information. Besides, it must have “my orders”, “my wishlist”, “my wallet”, “my referral” etc. All of these ensure that your customers find no difficulties while using your site.

Simple checkout process:

The checkout feature of your e-commerce site is vital as customers may leave without buying if any issues occur. Therefore while building your checkout feature you need to be extra careful. Make sure your site’s checkout process provides the following advantages:

• Allow users to add more products even at the stage of checkout.
• Customers should get the option to remove products if they wish at the time of checkout.
• The ‘proceed to pay’ button should not be hard to find for the customers.
• A feature should be there to allow the customers to use the discounts. However, this must appear before the customer proceeds to make the payment.

Some useful tips for developing an online grocery shop website

Developing an online website can be difficult if the whole process of web development is not organized in simple steps. To simplify this process we have mentioned the following steps recommended by leading providers of website development services. Take a look at them to see how you can develop a user-friendly website in a few simple steps.

Identify the right website builder:

To build your online store you will require a website builder. Such solutions have made the process of e-commerce website development an easy task. After all, there is no need to have any skill in coding when using such website builders. You need to pick the right one for your site, as there are so many options to choose from.

For small online stores, you can rely on Wix, which provides a great range of features simply for buying a plan for $27- $59/month. Besides, you will also get more than 500 themes to design your site.

Shopify is an ideal option if you plan to launch a large online store. It provides strong inventory management, sales and email marketing tools and 50 great themes. You will get all its benefits simply by paying $29- $299/month.

However, you need to sign up for the free trial of all these site builders before you decide which one is better for you. There are multiple other options available. Make sure you are trying them before making any final decisions.

Identify a suitable plan:

Once you have shortlisted the names of the site’s builders, you need to understand the best subscription plans. To understand which one is right for your business, keep in mind a few points:

• In case you are not planning to sell many products, you should choose a simple plan with lower rates.
• Think about your budget before checking which platform offers the best subscription plans.
• Have a clear idea of the features you are looking for, and then check the available plans.

A domain name required for your website:

A proper domain name is necessary to launch your e-commerce store successfully. This helps build your brand and also build trust with customers. Therefore you need to purchase a domain name for your store.

In case, you already have a domain name you can transfer it to your online store builder. Moreover, ensure you have the perfect domain name for your online store and that it is available within your budget.

Choose the right e-commerce template:

You don’t need to be an expert to design your store. You can pick suitable eCommerce templates available. To select the right template, you need to keep in mind the features that you want to keep in your store. Also, think about the style of your homepage and how you want your customers to move around your store. Having a clear idea of all these factors will help you choose the most appropriate template for your site.

Add your products:

You must add your products once you have created your store, as per your requirements. While adding your products, you need to keep in mind the following points.

• The name of your product and also its category, price, weight, and quantity should be included.
• You must add high-quality product images to your site
• Write an impactful product description
• Creating product categories is a must to help customers find what they are looking for at your store.

Build payment methods:

On your online store, you need to build a proper payment method that will help your customers make easy purchases. Make sure you are giving access to a variety of payment methods for your customers. Also, keep in mind that your customers should be able to pay securely. So, prioritize setting up a secured payment method so that customers can share all their details.

Quality testing is crucial:

You cannot launch your store without verifying its quality. Therefore conduct thorough quality testing to verify if every area of the site is functioning properly. This phase will let you identify if there is any technical glitch on your site that will hamper your customer’s shopping experience.

Conclusion

Setting up your online grocery website would be even easier when you hire a leading web development services provider. With an expert’s help, you can set up your online store and boost your sales and business.