When setting up a web store, there are several key things you must think about before you even get to building the store:
- Product catalogue - categories and hierarchy
- Postage costs - weight or destination
- Selling to other countries - Europe and worldwide
- Discounts - either one off special offers or bulk order discounts
- Are there customisations on the products (ie, colour or sizes)
- Online payment provider (paypal, worldpay, sagepay etc)
- Are you going to manage your stock through the online store.
Once you have got those clear, you can think about a design that will encourage prospective buyers to your new site, how best to use social media to launch your site, or promote new products or sales and most of all how to make sure your customers have an easy buying process.
Simple things, but important to get right.