Ecommerce Website Design in Melbourne
Online stores built on WooCommerce or Shopify, designed to make buying simple for your customers and running the shop simple for you.
Ecommerce website design in Melbourne
Ecommerce website design is about more than making products look good. An online store has to show your products clearly, let people pay without any fuss, send the right emails at the right time, and be easy for you to run every day. IDM2 is a Port Melbourne team that designs and builds online stores for businesses in Melbourne and further afield, and we keep looking after them after launch.
WooCommerce or Shopify?
Most of the online stores we build use WooCommerce. WooCommerce is an add-on for WordPress that turns a WordPress website into a full online shop. It suits businesses that want their store and the rest of their website in one place, and that want room to add custom features later. If you like the sound of the websites on our WordPress websites page, WooCommerce is usually the natural choice.
We also build on Shopify, an online store service that hosts everything for you for a monthly fee. We built the JRNY Essentials store on Shopify, including the product photography. We will talk through both with you and recommend the one that suits how you want to work.
What your online store can include
- Product pages and filters. Customers can narrow down your range by things like price or colour.
- Room for a big range. Our WooCommerce stores can hold more than 100,000 products.
- Product options. One product can come in several sizes or colours, so customers choose the version they want on a single page.
- A cart and checkout. Customers can pay by credit card or PayPal.
- Automatic emails. For example, an order confirmation sent to your customer, and a new order alert sent to you.
- Tickets, memberships and donations. Not every store sells boxes. Some of our clients sell entry tickets and memberships, or take donations.
- Connections to your other systems. Your store can talk to your other business tools, for example creating an Australia Post shipping label and updating your stock system automatically when an order comes in. Our website development page explains how this works.
Online stores we have built
These are real stores from our portfolio. Each one sells something a little different.
- Kyabram Fauna Park. A WordPress online store that sells entry tickets and memberships, with a custom photo gallery.
- Barooga ARC. A WordPress store that sells tickets and memberships, alongside a timetable of classes.
- MyBundaleer. Membership subscriptions, an online shop and a way for supporters to make donations.
- Sphera. An online product catalogue with product options, plus a custom tool that brings in products and all their options in one go instead of entering them one by one.
- JRNY Essentials. A Shopify store with discounts for buying products together, online chat, and pop-up notes that show visitors when someone else has just bought something.
How our online store design process works
- A first meeting. We learn what you sell, how you send orders out, and how you want to be paid.
- Choosing a look. You pick a starting design from our demo websites, or we create a custom one.
- Building on a private test website. We set up the store on a temporary server the public can't see.
- Setting up the shop. We set up products, payments, delivery options and order emails, and add your logo, colours and fonts.
- Adding your products. We can enter your products for you, or bring a large range in all at once, as we did for Sphera.
- Testing. We check the design, the phone view and the links, and place test orders to make sure payments and emails work.
- Your review. You try the store yourself, then ask for changes or approve it.
- Going live and training. We launch the store, hand over your logins and send a short training video on adding products and managing orders.
What to have ready
- Your product list. Names, prices, descriptions and any sizes or colours for each product.
- Product photos. Clear photos sell better. If you don't have them, ask us about photography.
- Delivery details. Where you send orders, what you charge for delivery, and your returns policy.
- A payment account. The account you want customer payments paid into, such as PayPal.
Looking after your store, and help from a WooCommerce developer in Melbourne
An online store needs more care than a simple website, because it handles orders and payments. If it stops working, you stop taking sales. Our hosting and maintenance care plans include hosting in Australia, managed WordPress and security updates, daily security scans, daily backups stored away from your website, round-the-clock checks that tell us if your store goes down, and support hours you can use for changes.
Already have a WooCommerce store? Our developers can fix problems, speed it up or add new features to a store that someone else built. If the whole store looks tired, our website redesign service can give it a fresh start without losing the Google traffic you already have.
Common questions about ecommerce websites
Should I use WooCommerce or Shopify for my online store?
WooCommerce runs inside a WordPress website, so your store and the rest of your website live in one place and can be changed in almost any way you like. Shopify is a hosted service that you pay for monthly, and it suits people who want a simpler set-up with fewer choices to make. We build on both and will recommend one after we understand what you sell and how you work.
How much does an ecommerce website cost?
It depends on how many products you have, how you take payments and deliver orders, and whether you need any custom features. Our WordPress websites page shows what our Online Store package includes. We will give you a quote once we understand what you need.
What payment options can my customers use?
Our online stores take credit card and PayPal payments as standard. If you need a different payment option, tell us early and we will check that it can be added.
Can I sell tickets, memberships or donations instead of products?
Yes. Kyabram Fauna Park and Barooga ARC sell tickets and memberships through their websites, and MyBundaleer takes memberships and donations as well as running an online shop.
Can my store connect to my shipping and stock systems?
Usually, yes. Many delivery and stock systems offer a way for other software to talk to them. We use that to connect your store, for example to create an Australia Post shipping label and update your stock levels when an order comes in.
Can I add products and manage orders myself?
Yes. When your store goes live we hand over your logins and a short training video that shows you how to add products, change prices and manage orders. If you would rather we did it, the support hours in our care plans can be used for that.
Ready to start selling online?
