Do you Want to Have an E-commerce Business? : Whether you’re moving your brick and mortar store online or you’re turning your hobby into a side-hustle, you want your new e-commerce business to be successful. The problem is, you’re not sure where to start. You have the products and the determination — now you need a website.
Don’t stare at your computer screen with doubt. If you want to start your e-commerce business, read this guide about the first steps you should take:
Step One: Find the Right Platform
Starting a website from scratch will be difficult if you don’t have any background in tech. Cut yourself a break and go to an e-commerce platform like WooCommerce or Shopify to help you build your business from the ground up.
The WordPress plug-in WooCommerce is a great fit for business owners who want more control over their content. Shopify is ideal if you have no tech-knowledge whatsoever or you have a limited deadline. The platform will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, offering everything from design templates to search engine optimization.
Step Two: Create a Name
Before you get excited about your name choice, Small Business Trends recommends that you do a corporate name search to double-check whether your idea has already been taken or not. You don’t want to have the same name as another business. You will also find a roadblock when it comes to registering it.
Step Three: Do Market Research
Before you start promoting a new e-commerce site, you will want to figure out your target audience. Advertising your products to new parents in their thirties will be much different than advertising to young teens getting through high school.
If you need help figuring out who responds best to your products, do consumer research through online resources like Google Trends and Amazon marketplace. In the future, look into Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics and Twitter Analytics to gather important information about your audience and what posts or products they connect with the most.
Step Four: Find Good Shipping Options
If your products start flying off the shelves, you’re going to have to think about shipping and delivery. To save yourself some money, you should turn to a courier broker. A courier broker will show you shipping costs from a variety of couriers, so you can choose the rate you like best. All you have to do is input the packaging information, the business address and the destination’s address. Then you get to compare the rates of various shipping options so you can find the most affordable pick for your business and the most convenient pick for your customer.
Step Five: Launch It
Now, you can do lots of other steps. You can build up your social media presence, prepare giveaways and contests, begin partnerships with other businesses and much more.
The message about this step is that you can always do more preparation and push the launch date further away, but your business can’t succeed if you don’t open it. Don’t be afraid to cut that digital ribbon and announce the grand opening.