OpenCart is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms for creating and managing online stores today. It is open source, free, and very easy to use. As of writing this, OpenCart is used for over 211,000 live websites worldwide, but it also powers over 880,000 websites altogether. This means a couple of things.

First, OpenCart is indeed a hugely popular e-commerce platform that hundreds of thousands of businesses use successfully right now. And second, even with OpenCart, running and managing an online store successfully isn’t easy today, and many businesses fail to take off or maintain their online store for long. Which brings up the important question of what the key aspects of running an OpenCart store effectively are? Let’s delve into that with the following 5 critical factors that determine the success of your OpenCart store.

1. Technical foundation & user experience

Built on PHP, OpenCart uses a MySQL or PostgreSQL database as its foundation. OpenCart also has a large and very active community of developers and users, all sharing resources and support, making the platform even easier to use.

All this makes it quite easy to set up an OpenCart store, but there are still technical aspects that need to be done properly for the site to run effectively and offer a good user experience, free of any bugs and technical issues. The site is free to download, and users can easily implement any modifications they want, allowing them to tailor their store to their needs with a whole host of themes and extensions. There is even the option of running multiple stores from a single multi-store dashboard.

All this needs to be implemented adequately, however, to avoid any technical issues. So, even though OpenCart is made to be as easy to manage as possible, hiring a professional to help with the setup is often recommended if you are not confident in your own technical know-how.

2. SEO & link building strategy

As with any online marketing endeavor, having a good SEO strategy is key to the success of an OpenCart store. This is true even if you are using other e-commerce platforms or if you are running different types of online businesses, but it is especially key if you want to drive traffic to your online store.

SEO strategies, such as link building are often the difference between those 211,000 live OpenCart websites and the hundreds of thousands of others that aren’t up anymore. Backlink building is a particularly key SEO strategy for OpenCart stores, as it builds up your online presence and both 1) drives traffic directly to your online store, and 2) improves your store’s ranking in search engines, pushing it to the top of search result pages organically.

A good link building strategy is difficult to implement, however, which is why many successful store owners look to hire a professional backlink outreach service that specializes in high-quality link building through authoritative sources.

3. Brand trust and credibility

Whether you are running an online store or a brick-and-mortar business, building up the credibility of your brand is equally important. Brand trust is essential for any long-running and effective business and can be especially difficult to establish online. Crucially, this is not a factor that you can easily ensure early on in your brand’s life, but is something you ought to work on over time to guarantee the longevity of your OpenCart store.

Prioritizing service and product quality, being transparent and honest, building up social proofing via genuine and trustworthy customer reviews are all key components of establishing and maintaining brand trust over time. And, while this is a continuous process that is never “done,” some of these key components can be worked on and established sooner rather than later.

For example, if your business has a particular mission or well-defined values, those can be presented effectively in your marketing strategy from the get-go, even before your OpenCart store is up and running. It is important to clearly articulate and adhere to your brand’s mission and values, of course, but this is something that can build high levels of trust in a new brand very early on.

Similarly, working to earn genuine customer reviews and presenting them effectively in your marketing is equally vital and can be done as soon as possible. Working with influencers and other social media brands to set up your brand’s presence on the market is a great way to stand out in the sea of online businesses using bot review mills.

4. Marketing & retention

Both traditional and digital marketing strategies can and should be utilized properly for the success of any online business, almost regardless of its niche and industry. Specific marketing strategies are more effective in some niches than in others, but using a multi-directional marketing approach is always important. Most online businesses and OpenCart stores fail because they settle on just one digital marketing strategy from the get-go and do not diversify their approach.

Implementing a wide range of marketing tools, including traditional strategies, such as ads, banners, social media, and others, are all key for both effective customer reach and retention.

5. Analytics and data-driven improvement

Having access to proper data analytics is one of the many benefits of online stores over offline brick-and-mortar stores. This is also one of the key benefits of using a good e-commerce platform like OpenCart for your online store, as it gives you ample access to all the data analytics and information you need to figure out what works for your store and what doesn’t. Whether you’re using built-in dashboards or external tools like Google Analytics, having visibility into user behavior, traffic sources, and conversions can help you make smarter decisions.

All this information won’t amount to much if you don’t use it properly, however, which is why successful businesses know how to make data-driven improvements to their stores and their marketing strategies over time.

Setting up an OpenCart store for your business is one of the most important steps in its development. An OpenCart store may be easy to make, but it must be done properly from both a technical and marketing point of view. 

What’s more, even a great OpenCart store is not the be-all and end-all of an online business, as there are still a myriad additional digital marketing factors and considerations you need to pay attention to. Establishing proper SEO and link building strategies, maintaining solid brand trust, and implementing data-driven improvements over time are all key for the future of your online store.