5 Proven Pre-Launch Strategies That Every eCommerce Brand Should Take

Intro

Everyone wants to launch a creative website online for their store. But if you look deeply into those apps, then you will realise what actual success looks like. It is not just about selling a great product or having a sleek design for your store. The difference lies in the steps that are taken during the preparation of the website with the help of a strong eCommerce development company.

So, if you are serious about starting your store the right way, then here are 5 important points discussed that can increase the impact of your store. Also, there are simple checklists along with the bonus strategy tips so that you can take the proper actions.

Why You Should Not Rush to Launch

A fast launch may feel like you're excited, but the reality is that it shows rushing into the online appearance without checking on the various possibilities of the website, and may lead to performance issues.

This can lead to having no real attraction towards the customer and can eventually reduce the visitors to your store as well.

Launching a store without a solid foundation is like building furniture without proper measurements and instructions. It might look fine from a distance, but it would probably not hold up for a long time.

To maintain the accuracy before the launch, let's discuss the 5 important and essential steps that you can take.

1. Define a Specific Niche That Solves a Real Problem

Before starting with your app development, you should have clarity on which type of audience you are targeting. If you are targeting everyone, then eventually you are targeting no one. Customers resonate more with the brand that speaks directly to their needs, lifestyle, and values.

Spend some time on the relevant services website just like yours and look for the repeated complaints and common frustrations where they are not meeting the customer’s expectations, and what needs to be added to your website.

By observing the various aspects, you can easily address the specific demand of the customers and launch your website with a smaller number of issues.

2. Build An Audience Before You Sell

Before launching your website, make sure you maintain awareness among the audience to create early demand.

Your store does not need to go live before people know it exists. You make use of various channels, like adding your journeys to LinkedIn, Instagram, or YouTube. Using this, you can create the proper awareness and turn your visitors into potential buyers.

You can also consider offering the customers early access to some option, or you can include a giveaway challenge. Use a tool like MailerLite or ConvertKit to set up your landing pages in a day.

3. Study Competitors Without Copying Them

Look into your competitor to know about their bestseller, the comments customers give, and what they love about the specific brand. With the help of this, you will be able to shape your own brand without actually copying from the competitors strategies.

You simplify by considering these factors:

• What makes them perform so well on the internet? Like fast check, clear images, or faster delivery.
• Where are they losing their customers? Slow running of the page, duplicate or missing information.
• What type of customer pain points are they solving?
• What is their tone?
• What is missing from their site or offers?

Pro Tips: You can make use of tools like SimilarWeb and Facebook Ad Library to gain more insight into competitors traffic and creative strategy.

4. Choose the Platform That Matches Your Growth Plan

Know which platform is best for you, whether it is Shopify, WooCommerce, or Custom.

• Shopify: Easy setup, great app ecosystem, and is ideal for scaling.
• WooCommerce: Offers more flexibility, is cost-efficient for content-heavy websites.
• Custom (Headless or Laravel): Efficient to have more control, better performance, but requires more development time and cost.

Choose the platform based on your current requirement and the future growth opportunities.

Make sure you do not add extra options to your code to make it more complicated. Start with adding essential details like email, payments, analytics, and build your brand presence.

5. Design That Converts From Day One

Make sure you maintain the proper structure of the product page, and it should be a high-converting product that includes a variety of options.

• Show product details with more clarity
• Address all common objects that are typically searched by customers
• Include trust markers like reviews or guarantees
• Have a clear CTA that creates no confusion

Maintain the simplicity of your website, which keeps the visitor's interest in the website. You can include:

• Place the CTA at the top of the page
• Use creative and effective buttons like buy now and add to cart
• Show the estimated delivery timeline to maintain attention
• Use real photos of your offered products

Including these allows you to maintain the accuracy of your website and maintain the attention of customers, or increase the chances of buying with a one-click purchase.

Bonus Step: Start Earning Trust Before You Even Launch

Even before your store goes live, people are already judging your website and services, whether they trust you or not. So, maintaining the trust is important so that you can consider adding social proof.

Social proof means anything that shows others why to trust your brand. It could be done by:

• Additional review of someone saying something nice about your product
• An influencer sharing your product on their story for marketing
• A comment on your Instagram page from a satisfied customer
• A beta user leaving feedback about your services

All these small things help in making a bigger impact. And help in gaining the trust of the potential customers.

To build trust before you start selling, you can do a few simple things to gain attention, which are:

• Run a beta test by asking 5-10 people to use your product and give feedback on adding to your website.
• Ask for a micro-review, like share the screenshot of the received product, give a response on the quality, or add any comment on social media.
• Increase audience participation by asking to vote on packaging options or the product name.
• Pattern with the influencer who has an increased number of followers for marketing your product.

All these will help in maintaining the trust.

Avoid These Common Pre-Launch Mistakes

Before heading towards the launch, make sure you follow all these practices:

• Check your website for its running speed.
• Make a quick check regarding the design and appearance of your website.
• Be aware that there are no complex images to add to increase the load time.
• Too many features are not added too soon.

Avoid these and you’re already ahead of 80% of new stores.

Your eCommerce Launch Starts Here

For launching your eCommerce store online, you do not need a perfect product or a fancy launch. All you need is clear and effective preparation with the help of a software development company for building your website.

These 5 steps discussed here are what real eCommerce businesses use before their first sale. Not after the things are out of their control.

So if you are building your store soon, do not start by designing a homepage. Start by building an effective plan that works before your launch.

It is not about launching fast. It is more about launching right.