E-Commerce Questionnaire

Setting up an online store might mean a lot more work for you than you first think! Here are some things you should know and questions that you should answer before you start to set up a store:

Your Name *

Email Address *

Phone

Your business or organization's name *

Your business or organization website

How did you hear about Roost Web Strategies?

Why are you visiting today? *

Did you want Roost Web Strategies to reach out to you? *Yes, please!No thanks.We will only reach out regarding this form submission. No newsletter, or sharing your info with anyone.

Do you have a list of your products and specs? *YesNo

How to start building a list of your product details

We recommend that you start a product details spreadsheet with all of your products and each product’s details. This will really help in the long run! Make a column for each of the following, if it applies to your items:

name of product
SKU
full description
short description
Regular price
Sale price
stock level
shipping weight
shipping length
Shipping width
Shipping height
Product category(ies) that this product should be listed in
Product tags to be applied to this product
File name of your main product image (example.jpg)
One column for each product attribute (color, size, material, etc) that your customers can select from. Note if this changes the
price and/or SKU.

Do you have a list of your product categories? *YesNo

How to start a list of your product categories

You can build categories on the fly as you go, but it’s not a bad idea to think about your category hierarchy ahead of time. For instance your list might look something like this example:

Shirts
- Short sleeve
- Long sleeve
- Tank tops
Jeans
- Boot cut
- Skinny leg
- Straight leg
Brands
- HennyPenny
- Levi
- Wrangler

What payment processor do you want to use? *Stripe, Paypal and Square are three very popular and well-supported options that take most credit cards. They charge you a percentage of each transaction, plus a flat fee of a few cents per transaction. It might be good to keep this in mind as you are determining pricing of your products. Do you want to take cash, checks or COD? Any other payment types?

What type of items will you be selling? *Shippable Products (from one location)Drop-Shipped Products (shipped from elsewhere)Digital/Downloadable ProductsServicesSubscriptionsOther

What shipping and delivery methods do you want to use?UPS, USPS, FedEx, flat rate boxes, in-store pickup? Some combination of those or another carrier or method? (And if you sell digital products only, you won’t need to worry about shipping.)

What size and type of shipping packages will you use?Be ready to collect the size of your boxes/shipping containers and the weights, lengths, heights, widths of all of your products. This will help your shipping calculator figure out the best box to use for your item and ask your carrier for shipping cost estimates for the most accurate dimensions and weight.

Do you want shipping labels auto generated for each purchase?YesNoDoesn't matter to me

Which states and countries do you want to sell to and how do you want to handle taxes? *If you do a certain amount of business in states besides the one where you are based, you will need to pay taxes on those sales, even if you’re based in a state like Oregon that doesn’t have sales tax. Each state and country has different rules and they are ever changing. Some people incorporate a base tax into the prices of their products to cover any taxes they will end up needing to pay. Other store owners use plugins to calculate those taxes on the fly, per sale.

Do you want or need your store to manage stock levels? *YesNoMaybe LaterIf yes, be prepared to gather your starting stock numbers for each item.

Do you want to connect to accounting software like Quickbooks? *YesNoMaybe Later

Do you know what email address(es) you will use for notices sent by your store? *YesNoYou (the store owner) and your customers will receive communications from your store. Do you know what email addresses you would like to use for those? You don't need to tell us, just want to make sure you know!

Write down your return policy *You will likely need to disclose this somewhere in your store. You could include things like: How long do people have to make a return? What do they need to do to initiate a return? Do they need to have the original packaging? How long will it take to get a refund? Are there any instances where you might have to only give a partial refund or are there products that can’t be returned? Anything else that your customers need to know?

Write down your shipping and handling details and policy *You will likely need to disclose this information on your store. Some things to include might be: Do you only use specific shipping carriers? How long does shipping usually take? Are there any products that are fragile, perishable, combustible, exceptionally large or heavy, or for any other reason need special packaging or shipping methods that would increase cost of shipping? Anything else that people need to know about shipping?

Write down your store privacy policy *Write down your privacy policy with regard to customer information. What information do you collect? How will it be used? Do you share with a third party (yes, probably, for at least shipping and payment processing – fulfillment of their order)? Will you sell their information (probably not, but if so, you should disclose that)? How long will you store their information? Will you remove their information from your systems if they request it (most often the answer should be yes)?

Do you sell in California or Europe?CaliforniaEuropeIf yes to one or either, it may be wise to display a cookie acceptance notice.

Does your store need to be ADA compliant? *YesNoDo you provide goods or services through government agencies, schools, public utilities, financial services or any other service that must abide by some level of ADA compliance standards? ADA compliance helps make sure that all visitors can take advantage of your site’s services, regardless of how they experience your site.

Need some additional exercises?

Answering questions about your business or organization can be a gold mine of ideas for new pages, blog posts, or even social media content. Did you miss some of the basics? Some other questionnaires to fill out are the Website Basics Questionnaire, or the Content Questionnaire which will help you (and us) get noggins around the basic information and mission of your website.

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E-Commerce Questionnaire

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