Online bookstore: how to create online store and their benefits

Ecommerce is a great solution for any business, specially today, when just recently we all faced social isolation because of pandemic. Currently it is a rare case of a physical store without its e-copy.

More and more businesses are in the search of the best way for creating their own online store and booksellers are no exception.

Let’s start with the benefits ecommerce offers:

• Your store is available nonstop that is beneficial for both the customers and the business owners having 24/7 access to the store.
• You are not limited by geographic position — you can reach the customers globally.
• Online shopping is much more comfortable than classic one. Shopping online means staying home, absence of traffic jams and no need to look for free parking places.
• Marketing with better targeting options thanks to available customers data: you can easily monitor changes in the customer preferences and needs and implement individual approaches to each of your customers that make them feel unique and valuable.

So, how to start enjoying these wonderful advantages that online shops can offer?

Obviously, there is no magic general recipe of success as each business is unique. But, as an experts in ecommerce custom development, I can share some tips for creating great and efficient web page:

1. Strong Search. Make sure that your customers can easily find what they need. So the page should include such essential elements as categories, filters by author or book name
2. Product compare option (this option will be useful for a marketplaces, where a customer can compare the same product available from different sellers)
3. Such options as FAQs can help your customers quickly find answers to general questions related to orders, delivery etc.
4. Customer reviews will be an added value for your online store and specially for bookstores. This option will make your customers think that your store is the place where recommendations are available. It is widely known that recommendations really matter in the ecommerce sector.
5. Take care of the related products list. The customer may need it so just remind them that you have them specially prepared.
6. Offer your customers multiple payment options, that will surely be your strong benefit as payment gateways can differ depending on the country.
7. Speed, speed and one more time speed — it is highly recommended to take care of this essential point. Various surveys state: loading speed increase between 2 and 8 seconds results in significant conversion rates boost.

Our recipe of How to Start Your Own Bookstore Website consists of 4 important stages:

Stage 1: Carry out first, but comprehensive research (for those who are beginners). You need to understand the demand in your niche.

Stage 2: Take care of important IT-attributes that each ecommerce store should have: domain, hosting, payment options and the ecommerce platform (exactly this option requires separate consideration and I recommend reading about it here).

Stage 3: Test your store before publishing — you should make sure that every function and feature of your ecommerce website is working properly.

Stage 4: Pay special attention to social media — at the age of Likes and Twits your store should be there to reach a wider audience — useful for your brand promotion. Moreover, special features can help you monitor the users reactions.

The most famous online bookstores in the world

Just to inspire you here are top 5 online bookstores worldwide:

1. Indigo bookstore that is also called Canada’s biggest bookstore offering more than half a million books for readers. It also supports the eReading option.
2. Daedalus Books is quite a popular online bookstore offering new books of various genres for quite low prices.
3. BookOutlet is also one of the cheapest bookstores with free delivery service to the US and CA if your order is more than $35.
4. Biblio bookstore offers both new and used books while working with booksellers worldwide.
5. Hive bookstore is a UK marketplace for search among local booksellers offering free shipping in the UK.

And finally, let’s move on to the most frequently asked question that my team receives.

How much does it cost to create an online bookstore?

And usually we answer that it is difficult to answer this question without knowing for sure your business needs, your requirements, the level of web-site customization you need and etc. I want to share our article about How to create an ecommerce website in 7 days, which will be useful to read before you start creating your online store be it bookstore or any other.

In conclusion, in case you have sufficient budget and enough time, I always recommend turning to a professional team of developers that will make sure that your ecommerce store will be profitable and fully fulfill the tasks.

So if your dream is an ideal online bookstore or any other ecommerce solution — just send us a note and we will make it come true together!