5 Easy Steps to Build an Amazon-like B2C eCommerce Platform

Ecommerce has grown tremendously over the past decade, with many entrepreneurs and startups choosing to create eCommerce platforms. However, these platforms can be hard to build, even with today’s technology and resources at our disposal.

To build your own successful eCommerce business, you must understand what it takes to build an eCommerce platform that will revolutionize the industry as Amazon has.

This article gives you seven easy steps to build your B2C eCommerce platform just like Amazon’s.

Step 1: Enlist All the Critical Features

Source: Statista — Major Reasons Behind Online Shopping

The first and foremost step towards building a B2C eCommerce platform is to list down all of your critical features. These are features that you need to create your initial product offering.

Make sure you don’t miss out on any important feature at any cost. In fact, list down all possible features that can be added later so that you have enough room for expansion.

The customer’s side must offer the following features:

• Quick Registration: The customers should be able to register on your platform in a matter of seconds without filling out lengthy forms or providing too much information about themselves.
• User Profile Management: Users should be able to create and manage their profiles. The user profile must allow users to offer multiple delivery addresses, cards & e-wallets details, etc.
• Advance search based on local keywords: The clients should be able to conduct advanced searches based on their location and other relevant details such as zip code, city, state, etc. the platform must display correct results in a matter of seconds.
• Multiple Product Filters: The users should be able to filter products based on various attributes such as price, category, brand, etc. It is better if you also offer them a way to search for products using their custom filters and parameters to find what they are looking for without any hassle.
• Detailed Product Pages: The customers should be able to view detailed product pages for every product that they are interested in buying. It is better if you also offer them a way to compare products and share their favorite products with their friends on social media so that they can get more feedback from their peers as well before making any purchase decision.
• Rate & Review Items: The customers should be able to rate and review every product they have purchased on your platform so that other users can make better future purchase decisions.
• Single Click Access to Shopping Cart: End users should be able to add items to their shopping cart with a single click and checkout as soon as they are ready.
• Secured Multiple Payment Options: The customers should be able to pay for their purchases using multiple payment options such as credit cards, debit cards, net banking, wallets, etc. It is better if you also offer them a way to make one-time payments or set up recurring payments in the future so that they can avail your services regularly without any hassle.
• Access to Clear Policies Pages: The customers should be able to access clear and transparent policies and terms of service pages so that they know what they are getting into before making any purchase decision on your platform. This will help you increase your trust factor in the future as well.
• Easy Returns & Refunds: End-users should be able to return or refund their purchases if they are not satisfied with them for any reason whatsoever in a matter of days or weeks.

The seller side must have access to the following features:

• Company’s Registration: It is better if you can offer sellers a way to register their company on your platform to start selling their products without any hassle. If you are targeting large companies, then it is better if you also offer them a way to register for VAT and GST details so that they can avail of tax benefits in the future.
• Adding/Removing Product Pages: The sellers should be able to add and remove product pages from your platform whenever they want. It is better if you also offer them a way to edit their product pages so that they can update their product details in the future without having to contact your customer support team for help every time.
• Managing Inventory: The sellers should be able to manage their inventory more efficiently to keep track of their stock levels and reduce overstock situations in the future.
• Creating Ads & Offers: The sellers should be able to create ads and offers from their end to promote their products more effectively.
• Administrative Tools & Advance Dashboard: The sellers should be able to manage their accounts from a centralized dashboard instead of logging into multiple tabs and pages in the future.

Step 2: Hire a Team of Dedicated Experts

You must connect with a reliable eCommerce development company to help you build your online store. You must hire a dedicated team of experts with experience in developing eCommerce platforms.

These experts should be able to provide complete support during every stage of your project and ensure that it is completed on time. Moreover, they should also be able to provide technical support and assistance whenever needed. Creating a vast B2C eCommerce platform like Amazon is full of technical responsibilities.

It’s best to rely on experienced and dedicated professionals who can help you in all aspects of your project. A professional team will not only build your website but also provide technical assistance whenever needed.

They should be able to guide you through every step of your project. Thus, you can rest assured of delivering a high-quality product within time limits. Moreover, they should also be able to provide technical support and assistance whenever needed.

While analyzing an eCommerce Development company, look for the following:

• Years of Experience
• Previous Projects
• Case Studies
• Ratings & Reviews
• Communication and Support Services

Step 3: Choose the Right Technology Stack

Building on a standardized technology stack will help reduce technical risk and free you up to focus on value. It’s also suitable for your clients, who can make real-time changes based on their data insights.

When deciding which technology stack is suitable for your company, consider that building atop cloud technologies like Salesforce can help keep costs down since there’s no need for infrastructure hardware or costly custom development.

Salesforce provides a platform ideal for building any application or business process, including customer relationship management (CRM), marketing automation, analytics, and more. It’s also designed to work seamlessly with other Salesforce products so you can easily customize your applications without starting from scratch each time you want to add new functionality.

Many enterprises consider LAMP or MEAN for their web development projects. If you are also thinking of the two, the following infographic can help you choose either of the ones:

Additionally, you should always analyze the technology stack of large eCommerce enterprises like Amazon, eBay, etc. It helps you with a clear idea about which technologies are used in their architecture and how they are using them.

To build your app, you’ll need a wide range of different technologies to be able to handle your data and business logic. It includes things like:

• Databases for storing data,
• API integration and caching layers for dynamic requests,
• CRM solutions for sharing data between different platforms,
• Email marketing tools for sending targeted messages to your customers based on their behavior, purchase history, and much more.

While it can seem daunting at first, you don’t need each one of these technologies to create a successful platform. Many large companies have hundreds of integrated technology components that they use daily! However, choosing a modular approach will help make integration simpler if needed down the line.

Step 4: Blend Agile & DevOps in the Development process

Source: Statista — Top Development Models

Whether working on an internal software project or building a public platform, Agile can help you quickly deliver reliable software that’s in line with customer expectations. In some cases, you can further improve your development process by integrating DevOps practices.

However, rather than simply mapping Agile and DevOps one to one, it’s essential to consider whether these two paradigms enhance your workflow together or act as competitors. For example, delivering code more frequently does not necessarily mean you need to adopt DevOps practices such as continuous integration.

Instead of blindly automating everything for speed and agility, focus on achieving a blend of agile & devOps to make the most of your development project.

Step 5: Start Testing Early with A/B Method

One way to get more website traffic is by using a/b testing. The A/B method lets you design several versions of your web page, send each version to a different random group of people, and then figure out which one gets you more clicks.

If you don’t get much traffic on your site, running a/b tests is a cheap and easy way to improve your results. These tests have helped online shops boost their conversion rates by up to 500 percent! And they help even if you have thousands of visitors every day since small changes in how something looks can still make or break how well it performs on your site.

Remember, Amazon is a dynamic website, so they’re constantly tweaking their site and running tests. You can see how they do it by checking out their A/B testing page. It shows you which variables they’re testing at any given time and even gives you access to some of their test results. If you’re looking for inspiration for your tests, that’s a great place to start.

These five steps will help you get started with your Amazon-like platform:

• Start with one product
• Create several different landing pages
• Run A/B tests
• Optimize your conversion rates
• Market effectively online.

Keep it Simple

You don’t have to be a digital wizard or tech genius to build a website. In fact, in today’s market — where buzzwords surround consumers and new terms pop up daily — keeping it simple is probably a good idea.

Try breaking down your site into five primary sections, e.g.,

• From the homepage, navigate to products
• From products, navigate to shipping details
• From shipping details, navigate back home

This will make navigation straightforward for most visitors and allow you to avoid using more complicated language (at first). Also, consider hiring developers to ensure better results because they can speak your customers’ language.