Building an eCommerce store can be an overwhelming task. Working with a Drupal development company or starting with Commerce Kickstart makes this task a much easier process, but it's always a good idea to know what you will be getting into. Here is a checklist of tasks you should have ready when you are getting started:
1. Who is your merchant provider? - Drupal Commerce can easily integrate with Authorize.net, Paypal, Google Wallet, and Dwolla. If you prefer to use a different merchant provider, any number of Drupal developers with API integration experience should be able get that job done.
2. Shipping - How do you plan on handling your shipping? Will you have a flat rate shipping system? Or do you wanted to integrate with shipping suppliers like UPS, Fedex, and USPS. Drupal commerce ships using a flat rate system to calculate shipments based on weight or price. Also, the integration with UPS and USPS are pretty well supported by the Drupal Community and make excellent choices for real time shipping quotes.
3. Automated E-mails - Often forgotten until the end of a project is the e-mail copy for the order confirmation. If you have specific branding guidelines for what the order confirmation pages will look like, it's always good to talk about them with your Drupal development team on the front end. E-mails can be tricky to implement depending on how complex you want them to be.
4. Reports - One of the benefits to Drupal Commerce is the generated reports. You are able to run reports on just about anything on the system. The downfall is you can't do them yourself and will normally need a Drupal developer to help you create them. Knowing what reports you will need on the front end will save your Drupal development team lots of time.
5. Inventory management - How do you plan on managing your inventory? Drupal Commerce provides a nice inventory management system, but you might want to consider integrating it with your own management system.
This is certainly not an exhaustive list and will go a long way in helping ease the pain when creating a Drupal eCommerce store.