There used to be a time when shopping online was a luxury. Now it’s a necessity. The fast-paced growth of the e-commerce industry probably signals the near-end of brick-and-mortar stores.
Nowadays, e-commerce is getting unprecedented levels of interest, with a lot of people wanting to know how to start their own e-commerce businesses. If your reason for setting up an online business is to make a fast buck, that’s fine. However, you stand to make more profit if you set a target of building a business that is long-term, scalable, and profitable. With a long-term vision, you can build a true asset that offers value.
Building an online e-commerce business can be arduous. It usually requires steps and decisions that need to fall into place at the right time. It involves more than writing product listings, choosing a brand name, creating a website, and selling products online. It needs traffic; even the brightest business ideas fail if there’s no one to buy the products.
Nothing can be more satisfying than starting your business from nothing and seeing it grow. We’ll follow these five easy steps and go step by step through the whole process of starting an e-commerce business in a way that is as straightforward as possible.
1. Know the E-commerce Business Models
Building an online business is an investment, so you need to treat yours as one. There is no one-size-fits-all business structure, therefore before you decide on what you’d be selling online, you need to know about the various business models available.
- If you want to start selling stuff online without even touching your product or making a huge investment at the start, dropshipping is a great choice.
- If you prefer the idea of having a warehouse filled with loads of stuff, you’d be investing up front and working with a warehousing or wholesaling model.
- The subscription model allows you to curate some products to be delivered to your customers at frequent intervals.
- If you have a business idea for the perfect product, you can look into white labeling. Or if there’s a great product you’d like to produce and sell under your brand, consider the manufacturing model.
2. Carry Out E-commerce Niche Research
Choosing your niche is hugely important to the success of your e-commerce business. Start by classifying successful businesses currently in that niche.
Ensure it’s a competitive niche because a lack of competition normally indicates a lack of market. Don’t pick a niche that’s too crowded either or one dominated by any of the major brands.
Being very detailed also allows you the benefit of having shoulder niches, which are related to what you do, but not exactly the same. You can partner with other business owners for cross-promotions, be an affiliate or acquire one, and expand your consumer base.
3. Name Your Business
An e-commerce website is the most direct type of online business you can run. When you develop and host your own e-commerce site, you can sell your goods or services directly to customers, without an intermediary.
Apart from finding a product to sell, another challenge you might have is coming up with a business or brand name and selecting a fitting and available domain name.
The domain name is the name your website will be known by. You are allowed to be flexible when choosing a domain name, but you should avoid using dates or your age, avoid words that have been overused, and ensure you keep it simple and short.
4. Choose an E-commerce Platform
In the same way that Android and iOS are a phone’s operating system, an e-commerce platform is your store’s operating system.
Even though it is surprising to people who are new to e-commerce, there are loads of feasible e-commerce platforms on the internet.
Through these platforms, you can build a well-designed e-commerce store. However, they are not all suited for all users. It’s best to go for one that is optimized to match your needs.
Let’s look at some of them;
- WooCommerce (WordPress), 3dcart and Shopify are general-purpose e-commerce platforms. So, you can use them for all types of products, including shippable goods and digital products. Wix eCommerce and BigCommerce are also good options.
- For a multi-vendor online store, check out other solutions.
Webhosting
This part of setting up your e-commerce business can be intimidating for some. However, the type of hosting you settle for will depend on the e-commerce platform you choose to go with.
If you decide to go with Shopify, then your hosting will be handled by the Shopify system. This means you don’t have to worry about setting up hosting — it’s all done for you.
If you decide to go with WordPress, WooCommerce, or any other self-hosted e-commerce platform, then you’ll have to get a hosting package for your site. All you need to do is sign up with a web hosting company so they can rent out a hosting space on their server to you. The key to this is choosing a quality hosting company. There are various options available including Bluehost and HostGator. To help you make a decision, here’s a complete comparison of Bluehost vs. HostGator which you can find on Mamboserver.
5. Promote Your E-commerce Business
Once your e-commerce site is set up and ready to go, you’ll have to create awareness about your business. For a new entrepreneur, this can be a daunting task for some people, but we’re going to simplify this as much as possible.
Although there are leads of promotional tactics out there, they all basically belong to two categories:
- Paid traffic
- Earned traffic
You can use either of these methods as they both contribute immensely to your general promotional strategy.
- All methods where you have to pay up front are great for testing the market, trying out new products, or running any promotion where you desire quick results.
- The methods that need you to invest your time can largely deliver more results over a period and provide long-term sustainability.
Here are the strategies you need to look into and implement;
- SEO
- Online Advertisements
- Content Marketing/Blog
- Social Media Marketing
- Local Promotions
- YouTube Promotions
