Here are some questions to consider before you build your ecommerce site:

1. What type of products are you going to sell? Are any products digital?
2. How are you going to take payment?
3. Where are you going to host the site?
4. How many products are you planning to carry? Do you already have the products listed somewhere? Do you require bulk uploading?
5. How are you going to brand your new store? You brand image should follow through on all aspects of your business, logo, colors, design, customer service policies and even your auto responder correspondence.
6. How will the design be set up? You want your site to be attractive and professional with functional navigation. A store normally has a layered or tiered approach to navigation using categories and collections. Often sidebars are included to contain newsletter subscriptions & other information. Your homepage and internal pages should feature your header with your logo and perhaps your tagline.
7. What are your main menu items? Basic links to consider are Shopping Cart/Store - Categories - My Account - Best Sellers – Login- Contact. A search box should be prominently located near the top.
8. What product selling information do you want displayed? Will you require multiple images, click to enlarge, short descriptions, long descriptions, reviews, awards, product specs, codes, multi-media selling tools such as video trailer or audio samples, colours, sizes etc?
9. What additional content do you want to include? Is there already a home page with blog, news, social media feeds, articles & resources. Other sections or information to include would be Customer Service, Privacy, Guarantee, Returns and Ordering Policies. Some products types require care and handling instructions.
10. What ecommerce features do you want?
    • Marketing & Promotion Tools i.e., coupons, discounts, free shipping, recently viewed products, upsells, cross sells, wishlists, multi-tiered pricing & MORE.
    • Analytics and Reporting i.e., sales, low stock, tags, coupons used and MORE.
    • SEO Features i.e., Google site maps, url rewrites, search terms & MORE.
    • Site Managementi.e., admin panel, multi-lingual, multiple commissions, user permissions, tax rate management, customer groups, content management system & MORE.
    • Catalog Management i.e., inventory management, batch imports, product configurations, digital products, customization, attribute sets & MORE.
    • Catalog Browsing i.e., categories, configurable search, recently viewed, comparisons, cross sells, upsells, related items, search term cloud, tags, reviews, breadcrumbs & MORE.
    • Product Browsing i.e., multiple images, zoom, product reviews, add to wish list, send to friend, stock availability & MORE.
    • Mobile Commerce
    • International i.e., multi languages, currencies, taxes, country lists & MORE.
    • Checkout i.e., multiple addresses, tax & shipping estimates, gift messages, saved cart, guest checkout & MORE.
    • Shipping i.e., multiple shipments, allowable destination countries, flat rate per order/item, table rates, order tracking & MORE.
    • Payment i.e., integration with various gateways , POs, payment extensions & MORE.
    • Customer Service i.e., customer account features, order history, order tracking, forgot password, order emails & MORE.
    • Customer Accounts Offering i.e., order status, reorders, recently ordered items, address book, billing addresses, wishlist, newsletter subscription & MORE.
    • Order Management i.e., create orders, print invoices, credit memos, split fulfilment, call centre invoice creation, email notifications, RSS & MORE.