A Guide to Starting your E-commerce Business

That idea in your mind has finally taken shape and you've decided that you're ready to sell your products online. Well, congratulations! You are one step closer to having a quite profitable source of income. E-commerce businesses are on the rise nowadays and numbers are here to prove it. In the last five years, the number of e-commerce websites went from 9.2 million to 26.5 million. Making it a very smart choice. 

But where and how should you start?  Isn't it a lot of work? 

Yes, and that's exactly the purpose of this blog. Help you to build that business vision into reality. 

How? 

By defining the most fundamental steps you'll need to follow. 

Let's begin.

1. Define your idea and niche:  Everything starts with an idea. What do you want to sell? Have you asked yourself that question already? Awesome! Move on to the next.  What would be my niche? A niche is a very narrowed and focused market segment, by choosing one you'll not only reduce your competition but also will be more precise in your audience. For example, Kane wants to sell chocolates online, yet he worries about getting lost in the sea of options and competitors. The solution? Finding his niche, perhaps he could focus only on organic ingredients or maybe he could offer custom-made flavors. What matters here is to discover that place where your product has a higher chance to shine.
   

2. Research audience and competitors:  Now it's time to validate how profitable your idea is. For this, you'll need to answer some questions like. Who's your target audience? Following the example above, let's say that Kane's desired audience is young people, but can we be more specific? Of course, instead of just saying young people, we can say young people between 20-40 years old living in Long Island and interested in organically sourced products. But that's not all, you'll also need to know about the behavior of your audience and what sort of brands they are choosing. Who's your competition? What are they doing? How can you improve it?
   

3. Establish how you'll get your products: For this, you'll encounter some alternatives. Depending on your idea, you could be the one manufacturing your product, like Kane and his chocolates, you could rely on wholesale, that is buying the goods in large quantities from a wholesaler, bear in mind that for this scenario, you'll need to have the place to store it all. Then there's the option of dropshipping which is, to involve a partner responsible for the creation and shipping of the product. 
   

4. Write a business plan:  Think about this document as your sacred guide. Here you'll write down all the important aspects surrounding your business idea such as the structure behind your business, its mission and vision, main goals, market, strategies, and of course, financial matters (costs and revenue expected). There are many templates online if you decide to do it on your own, but if it looks too daunting you can always hire someone to do it for you. 
   

5. Design your E-commerce website: Hooray! The most exciting moment has arrived and finally, you'll see all the previous planning coming to fruition. It's okay if you feel like you can handle it all and go for a build-by-yourself website like the ones offered in WIX or WordPress. The other alternative is to put your project in the hands of experts and have them build your website from scratch. While you are free to pick the design that suits best your business, implementing a payment gateway is a must-have.
   

6. Marketing: marketing, and yes, more marketing. You've a solid business plan and a user-friendly website, your idea is wonderful but no one seems to notice it. There are no visitors to your website, let alone people buying what it sells, and naturally you start asking if something is wrong. 
   

No, it's not, but something is missing indeed: Your marketing strategy. Without marketing, you won't be able to find and attract all the clients your business deserves. Strategies like SEO, SEM, social media presence, content creation, and email marketing are specifically built to give your recently launched company a visibility boost. The beauty of this? Your sales numbers will go from zero to hundreds and isn't that the goal of every business owner? 

We did it!

We went over six steps to help you get that e-commerce website ready and running. Take a moment to admire your work and congratulate yourself because this is only the beginning. To have a successful e-commerce business you'll need to work hard on your product and marketing plans, but don't worry if it starts to look too much for you, as we mentioned you can always count on the help of experts to speed up your dreams.