Things to Keep in Mind Before Starting an eCommerce Business

What is E-commerce??

By definition, the term eCommerce is open-ended and includes everything related to buying and selling products online. All eCommerce businesses sell physical or digital products, affiliates, and services via the internet to the customer sitting behind a screen.

Since you are reading this article, we assume you are wondering how to start an eCommerce store and what are the secrets behind this digital shopping system.

You've come to the right place because we'll go over all of this shortly.

Must-have Features for eCommerce Websites

• User-friendly interface

This could mean clickable images so a user doesn't have to aim for text or an autocomplete function on a search bar. The key to creating a user-friendly design is to help people get what they want in the fewest steps possible.

• High-resolution visual content

Product shots from various angles and video reviews assist shoppers in making a decision. If you don't think through the technical part, your visitor numbers may drop along with the page load speed.

• User reviews

Having a feature that allows customers to share their positive or negative experiences with a product helps other users make purchasing decisions and adds credibility to your website.

• Mobile-friendly adaptation

According to Hootsuite’s Digital Report, 48% of the time spent on the internet is from 5.112 billion unique mobile device users: that’s 2/3 of the world’s population. Another statistical report shows that 79% of smartphone users have purchased something from their device in the past six months. With statistics like this, adapting your website design to the mobile web is a necessity.

Factors To Consider Before Starting An ECommerce Store

Here are some of the considerations you should make before venturing into eCommerce. Remember that, in addition to these considerations, you will need a great brand name by which people can remember you, and the eCommerce application that you eventually develop must look and feel top-notch to use to stand out from your competitors.

Deciding on Products & Services

It is common for new eCommerce ventures to begin by imitating other successful eCommerce business models and services. This is not ideal because you are unlikely to have the same market research on their target populations and geographies as they do. It is critical to first identify a niche. Even Amazon, the world's most valuable eCommerce brand, began by selling books before branching out into other products.

Begin with a limited number and variety of products and services that you believe you can best provide. This will help you understand the operational processes and run a market test. Because you are unlikely to have the resources to provide discounts and other offers that large chains can, your products must be unique.

Target Audience Research/Know Your Consumers

Once you've decided what you want to sell, you should consider who you want to sell it to. You should be aware,

• Which computing devices do they use
• What are their buying preferences?
• What is their demography?
• What is geography?
• What is culture?

You can plan your eCommerce business strategies once you have all of the answers. In our example business, the target audience would be distant relatives or friends of residents. Their demographics and geography may change depending on the situation.

Credit Card Processing

Credit card processing is one of the costs of running an online business. Fortunately, collecting money online has become much easier in recent years. Apple Pay, PayPal, Stripe, Amazon Pay, Square, and other e-commerce platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce makes adding credit card processing and a "add to cart" button to your online store a breeze.

How Much To Sell / How Much to Invest

You must estimate the purchasing capacities of your prospective customers/visitors once you have decided on the products or services to offer online and know your target audience. If it is a regionally focused business, you can easily compute it using local data from trade centers or other industry sources.

However, it becomes difficult when thinking globally or in uncharted territory. As a result, you should conduct a competitor survey using various eCommerce tools and confidential resources to determine how much they sell and how much we need to invest in an eCommerce business.

As a result, you can plan your financial resources and register your business based on investment and future expansion. You can, for example, register as a sole proprietor, partnership, limited liability company (LLC), or corporation.

Who Competitors Are? What Are They Doing?

As previously stated, competitor surveys are extremely beneficial in learning about market realities. You can develop business strategies for business processes, production/purchase, marketing/selling, and financial planning based on thorough competitor analysis.

Marketing strategy

A mediocre product with great marketing can still achieve successful sales. In today’s digital era, a simple advertisement doesn’t cut good marketing. There are several different channels for engaging with your customers. Social media marketing, email marketing, and search engine marketing are new and upcoming marketing techniques used by the industry to market to their customers. Marketing goes hand-in-hand with building your brand identity, so make sure to have a robust marketing strategy that complements your branding.

Planning and research

You’ve chosen a product to sell, now what?

The next step is to conduct competitor surveys and research to learn about your competition. SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis and competitive analysis can assist you in determining who your competitors' buyers are and what they prefer.

• Know your rivals’ customer community.
• Observe core features and service quality.
• Notice their pricing system and shipping.
• Learn their marketing strategy.
• Try to top everything they offer.

Second, create a business blueprint so that you have a roadmap of your objectives. Plans may include your capital and capacity, as well as the amount of profit you anticipate. Website SEO is an essential plan.

Spread the word

Marketing or promoting your business is the most effective way to increase traffic. The word about your company should be spread in such a way that people will eagerly visit your website and eventually convert into customers.

• Create a strong marketing team.
• Create a social media profile and manage a sponsored advertisement.
• Drop teasers to generate interest in your company.
• Be active and visible on all social networking sites.
• As an incentive, use gifts, vouchers, and discounts to spread the buyer's word.
• Email outreach.

Shipping Management

eCommerce businesses typically partner with a variety of shipping services to ensure that their products reach their customers both locally and internationally. Of course, the type of shipping will be determined by the audience base you have chosen. Shipping calculators must also be integrated into your application to calculate the final invoice price. This informs customers of the exact amount they must pay for a product to be delivered to their home.

Third-party shipping services will typically provide an API that you must integrate and that also serves as a shipping calculator. If you have your shipping, you will need to have your developers integrate your rates into the app. In the latter case, it is also prudent to invest in distributed warehousing as your company grows. This will save you and your customer's money on shipping.

Figuring out Monetization

Following that, you must decide on a price for your products and services. This will be determined by your investments, ongoing expenses, employee expenses, application development and maintenance costs, and the minimum profit margins required to expand your business. Before deciding on your prices, you should spend some time conducting market research. If you frequently change your prices or keep them the same as your competitors, you will not appear credible. You must develop your pricing policies to help you stand out.