The past two years may have been hard on businesses, but e-commerce is one of the few sectors that thrived. Because the pandemic forced many physical stores to close their doors, many sellers moved online. People who had never shopped online before realized that e-commerce could actually be incredibly convenient, and many stopped going to some brick-and-mortar stores simply because it was much easier to shop online.
If you’re thinking of launching an e-commerce store, the context couldn’t be more inviting. According to McKinsey data, online stores blurred geographical lines, so nearly half of US customers tried a new brand or placed orders with new retailers in 2020. What’s more, e-commerce adoption is skyrocketing.
Accenture estimates that the shopping volume from inexperienced users will increase by 160% in the future, as even the most skeptical consumers become more familiar with the benefits of online shopping. And while direct competition with the giants may seem intimidating, statistics clearly show that the web traffic of small online stores doubled in 2020.
The context is definitely favorable, and if you also take the time to lay out your strategy from the beginning, your digital entrepreneurship journey will be smooth too. Here are a few things you should keep in mind before launching your first online store, shared by the experts at Winden:
Don’t neglect the business plan
Starting an online store is so straightforward these days that it can be tempting to get straight to work and sell your products without giving any thought to your business plan. However, this is a huge mistake that could cause many bottlenecks in the future. Even though it takes some time, having a business plan helps you establish milestones, understand your competition and audience, and set your revenue model. Without a business plan, it’s difficult to understand your financial needs, so you’ll have a much harder time scaling the business. In fact, without a business plan, you risk making business decisions based on hunches and preconceptions.
To narrow it down, a business plan:
- Helps you think of a sustainable growth strategy
- Helps you understand your financial needs
- Makes it easier to attract investors
- Pinpoints who your customers are (business-to-consumer, business-to-business, business-to-government)
Create a branding strategy
Branding means much more than paying a designer to make you a nice creative logo. Branding is the sum of all the elements that give your business its distinctive personality: from the colors and fonts you use on your website to the way you talk to customers on social media. Without a branding strategy, your online store risks becoming forgettable — which will make it hard not only to maintain customer loyalty but also to retain skilled employees.
Even though your store may be small now and you may not necessarily think of it as a brand just yet, it’s important to have a general idea of what you want it to become: do you want to be a small, artisan store, or do you aspire to become an e-commerce giant? No matter what your goals are, remember that a brand defines who you are as a business and gives you direction. Having a well-defined brand, along with a clear mission and goal, also helps you get closer to your audience and build lasting connections.
Choose the right e-commerce platform
Gone are the days when starting your own store was an organizational nightmare. Fortunately, you no longer have to waste months looking for the perfect location and setting up a physical store because online, the setup process can take as little as a few hours.
However, you will need to make an important (technical) decision: choosing the right e-commerce platform. There’s no shortage of options, but you will have to compare features and costs and choose the one that best matches your needs.
Here are the best ones in 2022:
- WooCommerce: it’s free if you already have a WordPress site, it has great SEO, and it’s easy to customize.
- Magento: has one of the largest support communities, great SEO, and you can customize it however you see fit.
- Shopify: easy to get up and running, has many pricing plans, and it’s suitable for both small businesses and large enterprises.
- BigCommerce: easy setup, great scalability, and you can sell your goods on multiple channels.
- Salesforce Commerce Cloud: has great cloud services and you also get detailed customer insights.
- Wix: inexpensive and has great templates.
- OsCommerce: it’s open-source, so it’s free, and it has a wide base of developers.
Choose a banking option made for digital entrepreneurs
While banks have many deals for business owners, they don’t quite understand the needs of digital entrepreneurs, which is why it’s worth doing some research to find a banking option that makes your life easier. Fortunately, we live in the golden age of Fintech, which means you have more flexible solutions at your disposal. For example, Winden is a modern banking solution made especially for digital entrepreneurs, offering unlimited cashback, zero fees, and no credit checks. Plus, you can make your account online, so no more annoying trips to the bank to delay the launch of your online store.
Market your new store
Once everything is set up, make sure you don’t neglect marketing. If a physical store is easy to see by locals, online stores can have a harder time getting noticed, so make sure you invest in digital marketing. This includes several areas:
- SEO: optimizing your online store so that it pops up as high as possible in search engine result pages
- Social media: set up profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms to stay in touch with your audience
- PPC: set up paid ad campaigns so that your store appears on top of other results in search engine results pages
Last but not least, keep in mind that you should track the results of your marketing efforts and base future changes on hard data.
