Starting with an eCommerce website can sound pretty overwhelming. What if you come to know that launching an eCommerce website & making it a complete success isn’t rocket science? We live in a day and age where everything we do is part of a growing online ecosystem.
With the growing risk of the pandemic, times are now incredibly changing. People want to start their side hustles or go full-time to create a better source of earning. One way or the other, if there’s one place where the sun will always keep shining, it is the ever-growing world of eCommerce. Are you an enthusiastic individual searching for ways to start your businesses? Will the year 2021 mark the date when you will start your digital venture?
Here’s a complete blueprint to helping you just that. Here’s how you can start your own eCommerce business.
Step # 1: Select Your Business Niche
When it comes to launching your own eCommerce business, the possibilities are endless. From smartphone accessories to computer gadgets, from home appliances to cosmetic products, one can easily find various niches. On the Internet, people sell a lot of different stuff, and it’s not just craigslist or other online forums through which people sell. Thanks to store builders like Shopify & WooCommerce, people are now selling different products through different eCommerce platforms.
So first things first, brainstorm with your team what kind of business you want to initiate.
To give you a brief idea, here are some popular niches.
- Weight Loss & Fitness
- Mental Health
- Pet Products
- Dating & Relationship Products
- Self-Improvement
- Wealth Building Products
- Computer Accessories
- Home Appliances
- Beauty & Cosmetic Products
- Healthcare & Safety Products
Pick a niche & start your research. See which products are mostly trending & how you can best sell them.
Step # 2: Choose Between Drop-shipping or Maintaining Inventory
There are normally four different types of successful eCommerce business models. There are:
- Ship-able Goods
- Digital or On-Site Services
- Digital Products (e-books, software, apps)
- Courses, Coupons, Membership, Subscriptions
Thanks to eCommerce store builders, you can now create platforms where you can sell them individually or all together. As long as you’re dealing with digital products, you don’t have to worry about dropshipping or inventory management. However, if you’re making investments in ship-able items, it’s best to consider the following. You need to decide whether you will hold your inventory or have somebody else fulfill the order on your behalf.
Creating Inventory – When it comes to maintaining inventory, you may have to find storage where you can stack up all your shipping products. From there, you can then dispatch products elsewhere.
Dropshipping – here, the manufacturer of the product handles typically the shipment. The model works perfectly for print-on-demand business niches where people want to create customized t-shirts, mugs, or other stationery items.
Step # 3: Hire a Professional to Build Your Online Store
Once you have decided what kind of products you want to sell and which mode of fulfillment requirements you’re going to follow, the next step is to build your eCommerce store. Now there are plenty of ways how you can proceed. One way is to build your eCommerce store by educating yourself through Udemy. The other is to hire an online store developer who can help you build one. The latter is a more practical option because creating your online store will require a great deal of your time, investments & brainpower.
If you don’t want to do either, you can always choose a more easy option such as Shopify. With Shopify, creating an online store becomes as easy as just a few handfuls of clicks on a dashboard.
It may sound easy but there are some limitations when it comes to Shopify. It’s why you should choose a professional web design agency to help you create one to your liking.
Step # 4: Provide Adequate Customer Support
Do you know that approximately 45% of the US consumer will abandon a shopping cart if they don’t get their queries resolved? Most eCommerce store owners invest an arm’s length in making sure their customers don’t walk away from their online store. To ensure maximum success, they create self-service content, detailed FAQ pages, live chat supports, incentivize product reviews and much more.
Effective customer support will ensure your customers can trust in your service.
Step # 5: Perform Effective eCommerce Store Optimization
Once you’ve successfully established your eCommerce store, your next focus should be to bring online shoppers. Website speed optimization is one of the crucial factors which you may have to consider. Believe it or not, but nobody likes to stay around on a website which offers delayed speed & performance.
Besides speed optimization, you will also need to introduce some intuitive elements. You can start with creating a navigation bar. You can also create remarkable product pages, display relevant items, optimize the site’s store performance and lastly, make sure your eCommerce store appears consistent across various gadgets & devices.
Step # 6: Maintain Your eCOMMERCE Inventories (Physical Product Sellers)
Some products tend to sell more effectively and abundantly in comparison to others. So just in case, you don’t run out of a hot cake product, you need to make sure your inventory is always up-to-date. After all, a certain product which abundantly sells will become your cash cow. It will make sure online traffic keeps coming to your eCommerce store. You can always keep a variety of best selling products so just in case, if one oversells, then you may always have another to compensate if there’s a rise.
At the same time, don’t stop researching. Keep finding new products from Google Trends and other places. See what other products you can update on your website which can increase your profit returns.
Concluding Thoughts
Launching your first eCommerce store can be pretty overwhelming. However, if you know what to do then it can relatively become easier for you. Shopify covers a complete guide to show how one can create the perfect eCommerce store for their customers. This is the year of the pandemic and eCommerce has become a significantly fast growing trend. Many businesses have adopted eCommerce as a successful way of selling their products/services. Hopefully this article cleared your basics to eCommerce.