The eCommerce industry has been growing rapidly since the advent of covid 19. All businesses that used to sell things in a shop to their local customers have started realizing the better opportunities eCommerce has to offer. Many young entrepreneurs are developing inventive products and selling them online to grow their businesses.
There are many who know they want to start a business but don’t know what to sell or if there is a good market for it. It can be too overwhelming when you first start thinking about starting your store. What is the first step? Should I make the website and then figure out how to sell the products?
If you are planning to start an online store for your existing or brand-new business, this guide will help you give direction. Follow these easy steps to create your online store and do a successful online business.
Types of eCommerce models
Table of Interests
Before we get started, you need to choose one of the eCommerce models you’ll use for your business. Are you aware of the different eCommerce models? Let’s explore them, shall we?
Dropshipping
If you don’t have an inventory or are manufacturing goods from some other facility, dropshipping models should suit you. In this model, you don’t stock up on the product; instead, you send the orders to the manufacturer, retailer, or wholesaler, who ships the products directly to the customer.
Fulfilled by Amazon is an example of drop shipping. Amazon stocks up your product and manages the delivery. It saves a lot of your inventory costs.
Direct to consumer
Manufacturers will sell goods directly to end users under a direct-to-consumer structure, bypassing wholesalers and merchants. Due to the simple product distribution process, this strategy has gained popularity in the era of eCommerce, especially for firms that have historically relied on wholesalers and merchants.
Wholesale
A wholesale business is generally a B2B model where you sell products at a wholesale price and in huge quantities. You can also see B2C transactions in the wholesale model.
Subscription
Customers who sign up for your product or service through a subscription will pay a regular monthly or yearly charge. The ongoing engagement between your company and clients is the foundation of how a subscription system functions. For instance, I discovered a company that offered weekly deliveries of freshly made pet food to its customers who had subscribed to the service. The frequency of delivery in a week depended on their subscription plan.
White labeling
White labeling is a popular business strategy where you rebrand existing products manufactured by a company and sell them to your customers.
Now that you know the different eCommerce models, you should first decide which model you want to go with. Most businesses have a D2C model in place along with some other models like dropshipping.
8 steps to starting your own online store
Now that you have decided on the eCommerce model, we will start building your online store. Your online store is only 8 simple steps away. We are going to discuss all the steps in detail. I’ll keep things simple, so even if you are a beginner, you will be able to understand all of the steps below. You can skip the first three steps if you already have a product, a defined market, and a brand name. Let’s get started!
Step 1: Select your niche
Before we get to the technicalities of building an online store, let’s decide the market you want to target. Although there are sellers like Amazon who sell everything literally from A to Z, as a new business, you should rather focus on selling a niche product. You can sell electronics, clothes, plants, eatables, or anything else, but select a specific niche.
A common question here is- won’t we lose a portion of the audience if we select a niche product?
Define your target market. To begin with, you need to know that everyone is never your audience. Even Amazon was an online bookseller when it first started. As your audience grows, you can expand your niche and tap into a new market. The moment you start to think that everyone is your target customer, you are on your way to a failed business.
Use these few tips if you don’t have a niche in mind.
What are you passionate about?
Profitability, searchability, and other factors are definitely important to consider, but you cannot work on a business that you are not passionate about. Are you an environmentalist? You can try selling some eco-friendly products. Think about your likes and dislikes and what drives you to work harder daily. Please list a few things you are passionate about; as we go ahead, you’ll be able to eliminate other options and choose the right niche.
Conduct keyword research
Since you are doing your business online, you have to ensure that your business is searchable. Doing keyword research will help you determine the search volume of the keywords relevant to your business. For example, if you want to sell something eco-friendly and decide on eco-friendly handbags. Use a keyword research tool to see how much search volume the keyword “eco-friendly bags” has. You’ll get an idea of the size of the audience.
Research the latest trends
Do some research on what people want to buy and what is trendy. You should not select an item that people bought a few years ago but are of no use now. For example, there is massive popularity for vintage and antique furniture. So in the home improvement and decor category, you can go for antique furniture.
Select a profitable niche
Passion alone will not give you profit. Select a niche that you are passionate about and that is also profitable. Some profitable niches you can select are fashion, home decor, and electronics.
Step 2: What do you want to sell?
Once you have decided on your niche, you can start exploring all the types of products and services that you can offer under that niche. Let’s take the fashion niche as our example. You can sell clothes, watches, footwear, bags, and a lot of other fashion-related things. Let’s say you select clothes. Now in clothes, you can go for men’s clothes, women’s clothes, wedding dresses, formal wear, custom printed t-shirts, winter wear, activewear, and so on. The more specific you can be about your product, the better.
When you think of your product, think about its popularity. The more popular it is, the more likely it is to have a better sale.
One more thing you need to consider is how you will source your product. If you have a manufacturing unit of your own, or you make the product yourself, this won’t be a problem. But if you are going to source your product, you need to figure out if you can source it at a minimum cost.
Step 3: Establish brand identity
A product is different from a brand. Products are tangible, but brands are intangible experiences. For example, Apple and Nokia are both smartphones but what separates them is their brand name, logo, unique selling point (USP), and value proposition. Apple stands for speed and premium quality smartphones, while Nokia is more about long-lasting design.
Think of a suitable brand name for your product. You can get very creative here.
Here are some tips to help you decide on the brand name-
- It should be easy to spell, pronounce and recall
- It should be unique or distinctive
- Don’t make it too product-specific, as you might extend your product line later.
- Make sure it doesn’t offend people from some countries and cultures
- You can use meaningless words to avoid negative connotations. E.g., Zomato
- You can use abbreviations like IBM
To create your logo, you can hire a freelance graphic designer. Make sure your logo is easily identifiable on a big truck and a small thumbnail. Please make sure you choose your colors wisely because they will most likely be your brand colors.
Step 4: Register your business
Now that you have your business name and the product decided, it’s time we make it official. You can register your business name. You might need a license or permit to sell some products in some states. Determine the legalities of registering your business as soon as possible so you can start immediately.
Step 5: Build your online store
Now you have to set up a store, for which you’ll need an eCommerce platform. An eCommerce platform is a comprehensive piece of software that enables online businesses to run their operations. This category of services includes customer service facilities, accounting, inventory management systems, and helps build websites.
When it comes to eCommerce platforms, there are three big fishes in the market- Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce. All three of them have different features and use cases, but undoubtedly they are one of the best eCommerce platforms we have out there.
I’ll briefly explain the difference between the three.
Shopify is very popular among small businesses and has suitable features as well. Magento is ideal for large companies or large-scale retailers. Shopify is a paid software with Shopify Plus, which makes it scalable. Magento has both a paid and free version. WooCommerce is an open course (free) software. It is a WordPress plugin that allows you to build a store on your website. It is also great for small and medium-sized businesses but unsuitable for large companies.
A more detailed explanation can help you make a better decision for your business. Read this detailed comparison of Shopify Vs Magento vs WooCommerce to get a better idea of which eCommerce platform is ideal for you.
Step 6: Create your website
Your eCommerce platform should be able to help you create your website; if not, you can create it on famous platforms like WordPress, Wix, and GoDaddy. These platforms are web hosting services. They give you space to keep your website and make it accessible to everyone on the internet.
A crucial part of building a website is deciding your domain name. What is a domain name? If you are on a desktop, move your gaze upward on your browser’s address bar. Do you see hackernoon.com written there? That is an example of a domain name. So if I want to visit HackerNoon, I’ll simply enter the domain name, and I’ll be taken to the website. This is what a domain name does. It is your identity or your address on the internet.
Choosing a domain name becomes difficult because most domain names are usually taken by some user. You might have to change your brand name a little to get a domain name.
There are other ways to get your domain name, like adding numbers before or after our brand name. Although a good method to get a unique address, I do not recommend it. Your domain name should be easy to remember if you want your customers to find you. Adding numbers or characters can make it difficult.
Ideally, it would be best if you went for this format- www.brandname.com.
Step 7: Optimize your website for search engines
Design is definitely something you should focus on when building a website because 94% of first impressions are always design related, but the thing that’ll help your website be more visible to people is SEO. Search engine optimization refers to optimizing your website for the search engine.
Search engines have crawlers that crawl all web pages on the internet and index them. When a user searches for specific keywords, the search engine quickly decides on the top searches and lists them on the search engine result page (SERP).
You have to make it easy for the search engine to read your website and then rank it. Easy navigation on your website will help crawlers read it properly. Keywords help in ranking. Use relevant keywords in your title, meta description, and website content to rank higher for that keyword.
Although keywords are important, the quality of your website also matters.
There is another branch of the SEO tree called backlinks. When some website links your website to one of their web pages, you get a backlink. Search engines use this as a sign of credibility. The more backlinks a website has, the more credible it is.
SEO is a vast topic, so make sure you read this SEO guide for eCommerce to enhance your knowledge of SEO.
Step 8: Marketing your products
Your shop is all set now. All there is left to do is bring customers to your online store. Make sure you use social media and your website for marketing your products. Social media and SEO are free strategies to make your website more visible, but if you need more effective results, you’ll have to pay for them. You can advertise your products on paid Instagram, Facebook ads, and Google Ads. You could also use influencer marketing as a strategy to reach your target audience. Email marketing is another cost-effective strategy most small, and big businesses rely on. The return on investment of an email marketing campaign is probably the highest. For every 1$ you spend on the campaign, you have the potential to earn $42.
Long story short
After your shop is created, focus on marketing your business. Use your creativity to reach your audience. Starting an online shop is easy, don’t be too overwhelmed. Follow these eight steps and do some solid research before you make decisions, and you’ll be good to go.
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