Website requirements for an online store

Right now, more than one person is in this situation. I know because several people have told me so.

Let's see:

• You have applied for Kit Digital grant to digitize your business.
• Among other things, you selected the e-commerce line to open your online store.
• You have no previous experience with websites, or at least not with e-commerce websites.

Sound familiar?

If you are in this situation or, even if you are not but you have in mind setting up your e-commerce project, the usual thing will be to look for an agency / freelancer / designer friend to build the website for you and talk to them.

Preparing the requirements document

After listening to you, the normal thing is for them to ask you for the website requirements.

And it is not something you should let the other side write for you “because you know about that”. At least not if you want to avoid getting a website proposal custom so generic that it will be useful for little more than showing it to your family and friends.

So, if I have no idea what requirements I need, what can I do?

Well, honestly, what I would recommend is that you head over here and take a look, first of all.

If that doesn't work for you (really? have you thought it through?) then you'll need to sit down for a while. With a computer, paper and pen.

The first thing will be to sit down in front of your PC and analyze online stores to pick up ideas and features you think could fit your business, write them down and shape a draft of what you want your website to do.

And I am not talking about design and similar things because, if you have no web experience, it is almost better to give the development team a general direction and let them propose the design. Then only step in when you see mistakes in what they show you.

Often, it’s better to use the default CMS theme (with tweaks minor ones) than to get into deep modifications.

With this we finish the public-facing part the client sees.

Sadly, if you have no experience managing websites – even a personal one in WordPress – you won’t know how certain things are handled in the back office (the private part) of any CMS.

And it would be very useful for you to know them so you can ask the development company for very basic features, like downloading all sales invoices with one button and sending them to your advisor.

Or having orders over 5kg sent by one courier company and not another.

Basic things for those of us who have been in this for a while, but not so basic if you are new to the world of e-commerce.

The problem is that these features, which are not visible from the public side, you will also have to think about them and add them to the requirements. And that is harder.

Having said that, I have good news for you.

We have also applied for the Kit Digital e-commerce line, with the idea of launching another project alongside Yo pongo el hielo.

And we have had to write a set of requirements.

You can download it here:

Things to keep in mind

They are not general requirements that fit any e-commerce project. They are ours, fully adapted to our case.

Nor is it a hyper-detailed functional document. No.

It is eighteen pages with the general features we need for the project.

That said, they will surely serve as a basis for writing your own because we cover these sections:

• Technology requirements.
• Design requirements.
• Website structure.
• Marketing requirements (SEO, emails and feeds).
• Product features.
• Other features.
• Billing requirements.
• Logistics requirements.
• Analytics requirements.
• Project delivery requirements.

If you look at the list, we have not referred to anything related to buying and selling, since we will manage that part with an independent system common to both websites.

On the technology side, we want to cover our basics. A lot of the more advanced configuration will be done by us.

The content side is also on us. And, in fact, we are really looking forward to it (we’re eager to see how ChatGPT performs in real applications).

As for design, you’ll see how much importance we give it.

Anyway, when you see it, I’m convinced it will be very useful for you to have this base to write the document for your project.

And if you need more help, you know where to find me.

Other requirements needed to open an online store

Finally, one thing I want to make very clear is that in this article I have talked about website requirements at the technology platform level, mixing technical requirements with features that allow me to manage the store.

Which is what any web development company or freelancer will give you. And what the Kit Digital covers in its e-commerce line.

But these are only part of the needs you have to cover to open an e-commerce business. There are several more:

• Legal and administrative requirements. For your sector and for online selling itself.
• Marketing requirements. At least if you want to get traffic.
• UX requirements (user experience). If you expect that traffic to be ready to buy and not rule you out as soon as it lands.
• Business requirements. If you want them to actually buy from you.
• Quite a few more technical requirements than those addressed in the document.

If they seem like a lot and it was not what you had in mind, you should know that I can help you with (almost) all of them. Either directly or indirectly.