The e-commerce business industry is exploding. Shopping online used to be a convenience and a luxury, now – it’s a necessity. Ecommerce has been growing for a while, and the statistics from 2014 to 2021 for the recent events leading to an increase in e-commerce sales. A lot of folks want to know how to start an e-commerce business. If your goal is to make a quick buck – that’s all you’ll do, the goal should be a scalable, profitable business that lasts.
Building an e-commerce business takes more than choosing a brand name, writing product listings, and starting to sell products online. Even the best business ideas can flop if you aren’t driving enough traffic to your site.
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The following are the steps to start your e-commerce business:
Research
Beginning your research is the first critical step. Don’t operate off of a hunch. Growing any online business is an investment. Treat it as such.
Before you can decide on what to sell online, you need to understand the different business models available.
It’s not rocket science, but it does impact your business structure.
The e-commerce business model that attracts me the most is a single product category that you supplement with affiliate marketing. You can control the content marketing and branding on a focused product and focus the rest of your energy on driving sales by monetizing traffic.
Validate your target market and product ideas
Now that you’ve identified a niche and business model, you might be tempted to start hunting for products to sell.
Don’t. Before you think about product ideas, think about personas. You can’t expect people to buy your product if you don’t know who you’re selling to.
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Who are you? What does the store represent? Who are your ideal customers? You need to project a consistent brand image (a journey that starts with your brand name). An organic seed company that started selling conventional fertilizer wouldn’t last very long.
Before you invest in the product, though, evaluate it carefully. Even if you choose a dropshipping model, you want to test it carefully and get a feel for the product yourself so you can identify any potential problems and prepare customer service scripts to answer common questions.
Part of validating your idea is to determine its viability. Can you suppliers that meet your pricing? What happens if your supplier falls through is there a backup option?
But before you set up your store and get into the nitty-gritty of building a brand – there are some basic steps you’ll need to take.
- Register Your Business.
- Pick Your Store’s Name
- Get Your Business Licenses
- Find the Right Vendors
- Logo Creation
- Get Visual
- Create Your Online Store
Once you’re officially an e-commerce business owner, you need to register your domain name and any redirect URLs that might be relevant. You’re going to need the design info you settled on in the last step now, when you finally build your store. Whatever designs you chose needs to be compatible with your e-commerce software, too.
Conclusion
There are literally hundreds of e-commerce shopping cart platforms. Choosing the right e-commerce software is not easy. You need to carefully evaluate things like loading speed, features, compatibility with different payment gateways, and compatibility with your business structure, your web developer skills, SEO-friendly features, and more.