Building and running an online store entails much more then getting a shopping cart, throwing in some products, and telling your friends and family to come by and make a purchase. Any entrepeneur who does some research will quickly determine the core ingredients required to launch an online store: shopping cart, merchant account, and payment gateway. But there is alot more involved and it is these finer details that can make or break an online store before it even launches.

This checklist serves to guide to build a secure and customer-friendly ecommerce web site. This is essential to providing your future customers with an informative, easy-to-shop, and safe online web store.

eCommerce Planning Checklist

1. Decide on domain name(s)
2. Plan the structure of your site
   • Site Map
   • Catalog Category Structure
3. Gather text content for your site – About, Bio, Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, Contact Us
4. Plan your product catalog which will require
   • Product Name
   • Short Description
   • Long Description
   • SKU or product #
   • Shipping Weight
   • Retail Price
   • Wholesale Price (optional)
   • Product Image(s) Thumbnail, Medium and Large
   • Keywords associated with product
   • Supplier or Manufacturer
   • Attributes / Options: (color / size / variation etc.)
   • Product Category(s)
   • (optional) Related Product
   • (optional) Cross-Sells
   • (optional) Up-Sells
5. Coupons and Discount Codes
6. Sales Tax
7. Shipping Calculations
8. Merchant Account for Credit Cards
9. Search Engine Optimization
10. Begin marketing your site
11. Social Media Marketing
12. Submit your site to search engines and link sites
13. Arrange reciprocal links to and from related sites
14. Press Release