Independent chefs, cottage cooks and other culinary artisans who have a real passion for their home-based food business can expand their brand in the marketplace by focusing on building an eye-catching ecommerce website.

Here is insight into why and how an online shop can help you realize your dreams of running a successful food business in the online arena.

Food Ecommerce Websites

Think about what you, your friends and family do when they want to find some food for quick delivery. You don’t have time to go out shopping, or you are just trying to limit your visits to physical storefronts. So, you go online and find a business that offers what you’re in the mood for, such as gourmet beef jerky, cupcakes, low-carb snacks or a complete meal for an entire family delivered straight to your door. 

Now imagine all of your potential customers, at work or at home who want some food and their best option is to place an order online. Your task is to make a site that is easy for them to find and then buy from you for fast delivery.

It’s no secret that food e-commerce websites are taking off. The flexibility of online food selling means any entrepreneur with a dream can create a food website that speaks to the wants and desires of customers looking for something tasty and unique.

Today, with more people than ever before working from home to help with social distancing during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, chefs who are of an independent nature are realizing they can sell food from home. With food selling websites, there is less of a barrier to entry as compared to cooks who need to sell from a brick-and-mortar storefront.

Why would you want to set up a website for selling food? For one, it requires much less of an investment of your money and time than opening up a restaurant or food shop. And as Shopify reported, a food entrepreneur can quickly get started with “easy first-time food-businesses that require a low investment, minimal equipment, and fewer shipping challenges.”

Best Food Websites Design

The importance of good design cannot be overstated when it comes to food ecommerce sites. You only have one chance to make a good first impression with your potential customers. Don’t waste the opportunity by presenting them with a poorly designed website. The time and effort you took making your site and then promoting it (such as social media posts, advertising and word of mouth) would go to waste.

If shoppers reach your website and it’s difficult to navigate and find what they are looking for, there’s nothing to stop them from jumping over to a competitor’s site that’s easier to use. Consider that 94% of first impressions have to do with the web design of your site, according to WebFX.

With a fast food website design projects that help you get up and running with little delay, your food products could soon be in the hands of eager customers who can’t wait to try what you have to offer.

The design and layout you use in your food ecommerce site will make the difference between success and failure. 

When shoppers can quickly locate different foods by category on your site, or can see information such as storage requirements, how to reheat a food product or a list of ingredients and nutritional information, they’ll be inclined to stick around a lot longer, checking out your site. 

That’s the secret to boosting engagement with shoppers and keeping them online until they finally put items in their cart for delivery. The best food websites design presentations will be user-friendly so shoppers want to keep coming back for more.

A great example of a successful food website design comes from Ben & Jerry’s online store. As Big Commerce noted, the famous ice cream manufacturer’s website features “rotating banners on the site’s homepage entice shoppers to browse the brand’s wide selection of products.” Presenting multiple ideas to shoppers as the banners cycle on the website will inspire shoppers to make impulse buys.

United States Ecommerce Statistics

Why exactly would you want to use a food e-commerce website to sell food? Ecommerce statistics will show you the way, and motivate you to  put your business online today. 

But if you are still in the process of learning how to start an online food business from home, it would be prudent to do some background research to get a sense of where the industry of food e-commerce companies is going. 

U.S. food and beverage industry statistics will tell you the outlook and provide context for you to measure your success. As Statista pointed out, the amount of revenue of e-commerce foods in the United States was $18.7 billion in 2020, the latest year for which statistics are currently available. 

Industry observers, including the Statista Digital Market Outlook now anticipate that this amount will increase to $25.7 billion by 2025. So an examination of current food e-commerce statistics alone should be enough to show you that there is a growing trend for people to buy food products from professionals who just happen to be working out of home-based businesses. 

The U.S. e-commerce statistics can help you prepare your business plan with greater accuracy, to predict what your earnings might like during the first years you are up and running. You might very well be part of the group of home-based cooks who will participate in this $25.7 billion industry four years from now.

Food Ecommerce Website Template

One of the best aspects of setting up your own ecommerce food business is that you don’t need to be graphic designer or have any experience in online publishing, for that matter. A food ecommerce website template is all you really need to get started.

You can select from various food websites templates, to make your new website pop and attract more attention from shoppers. What you will be using are food website templates html, with the html code being necessary to render your page correctly when a shopper loads your website in their browser.

For example, if you are thinking of working with food website templates Wordpress users rely on, Divi is a favorite for presenting quality food in a Wordpress environment, according to a recent report from Colorlib. Divi is notable because it is very flexible, allowing you to make a site that looks good on all types of displays, from a person using a smartphone while out and about, to an individual trying to order a meal using a desktop computer at work or at home.

Another example of good food website templates is Jevelin, which uses drag-and-drop for easy placement of your food items. It has scrolling animations and a handy “back-to-top” button to help visitors navigate more easily, per Colorlib.

You can experiment with free templates to get a better idea of what’s possible, finding the food ecommerce website template free download that best fits the type of foods you want to sell (such as full meals, snacks or candies).

For those who are keen to find food ecommerce website template free download opportunities, it’s good to read a lot of reviews and to do comparisons yourself to see which templates might help you present your food business in the best light. 

Medium explains that you want to pay attention to how responsive the website is (for ease of use), if it is compatible with Wordpress, and what the readability and typography of the site is like in showing off your various products. It noted that the Fast Food Website Template is a great option for those offering classic American fare. Or, another example cited by Medium is the “Gourmet Restaurant And Food Theme.”

Whether you need a healthy food website template or are more interested in marketing more indulgent and high-calorie foods, there is a template to meet your business needs today.

Food Ecommerce Trends

All good entrepreneurs in the food space will take time to read up on new food e-commerce trends, so they can have a better understanding of where their business will fit in the industry as a whole.

You can sell more food products once you have a clearer view of what the public wants to buy and what experts think they will be buying in the near future. In terms of food service industry trends 2021, ECM points out that direct-to-consumer ecommerce is one of the newly growing food and beverage industry trends 2021 has to offer. 

With local shops and big malls alike shutting down, more businesses are selling straight to their customers online, and you can capitalize on this latest trends in food and beverage industry in Philippines or any other location on earth with your online food store.
 
Another trend to keep in mind is the growing use of personalized recommendations, along with using customer feedback to become more responsive. So, using customer relationship management or CRM software with your ecommerce shop will show you what customers are most interested in from previous visits to your store, so you can make suggestions on what to purchase the next time they come around.

And with luck, as you grow a bigger loyal base of shoppers, another trend noted by ECM is the growth of food subscriptions. If people love your cupcakes, waffle mix or other food items that they buy them manually on a regular basis, you can work to convert them into subscribers by offering them a convenient way to sign up and never miss out on a shipment.

Putting Your Food Business Online

If you love to cook and enjoy the idea of preparing tasty foods that you can sell from home, an ecommerce business that you build by customizing a food website template may be just what you need to take your business to the next level.