As technology continues to evolve to meet the needs and demands of the customer, starting an eCommerce business is becoming a more viable option for entrepreneurs. With the future looking bright and promising, you can take charge of your future and ensure success for your business.
However, we are aware that starting any business, online or otherwise, comes with hard work, research, and decision-making on your end. Because of the abundance of information out there, we’ve gathered a few tips to help you get started.
What are The Factors of A Successful eCommerce Business?
1. Choose a Product That You Want to Sell
One of your eCommerce business foundations is the products you want to bring to your market. Take a look at your community (or even on a larger scale, in your country) and ask yourself: what is one problem that my business can solve? What are some things you, your friends, colleagues, and family members are interested in?
Take a look online and search common complaints people make about existing products or create something from scratch. Solving a customer pain point not only improves people’s lives but also helps you narrow down your scope. We can’t have a business wanting to be the answer to everyone’s problems, can we? Here are some tips to help you find the product you are meant to sell:
Talk to people passionate about a specific niche or hobby: Athletes, beach bums, bookworms, and boardgame enthusiasts are different kinds of niches you can research on. These are the type of people who are more than willing to spend money on the exact product they have been looking for. Once you create an avenue to bring this product to them, you will be rewarded with higher engagement and brand loyalty.
Look into your personal and professional passions: Making products for a hobby or a particular industry that you are enthusiastically part of will help you stay motivated over long periods. This also assures others that you are well-informed on the problems your community faces.
Ride on trends that are beginning to take hold on the market: Trends like boba tea, 80s outfits, and sustainable fashion are some of the trends that took hold of Gen Zs and Millennials in the past decade. While it takes some work, recognizing when a new trend is about to boom can be very rewarding for your business. When the time and opportunity present themselves, you can sell products that will place your name on the market.
2. Find the right suppliers for your eCommerce store
Once you have determined what type of product you want to sell, find suppliers who can help you build your business from the ground up. There are different business models when it comes to eCommerce. You may either try business-to-business (B2B), business-to-customer (B2C), wholesaling, or dropshipping, among others. While the first two are self-explanatory, wholesale and dropship models are gaining lots of attention today. Wholesale allows you to buy large volumes of products from your supplier, take inventory of these items, and ship them to your customers once orders are placed. Dropshipping is a new business model where the suppliers will ship the items to your customers instead.
3. Start Looking For A Storage Area For Your Products
If you decide to take the traditional business model route, you will have to invest in business storage. While most eCommerce startups convert their own homes or garages into mini-warehouses, you will need to plan and look for possible lots that can be your storage space. And there are many ways to do this! You can search for a local self-storage facility or warehouse near transportation hubs or revamp an old building.
4. Set Up Your Online Store
When building your website, take note of what your competitors are doing-especially the successful ones. Please note their business model, products, social media channels, marketing strategies, and customer engagement. Do some research on your target market, as well. Find out what websites they frequent, where they buy things online, and which social media channels they are most active on. Knowing how all of these things interact with each other can give you a set of rules to follow and which eCommerce platform to choose. CMS tools like Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento are some tools you can start with. While you can work with their free versions, subscribing to their premium services allow for more customization, flexibility, and more integrations.
5. Market Your Store
Once your store is ready for launching, it’s time to create marketing campaigns for your product to bring traffic to your website. Invest in paid advertising and make sure that your pages are SEO-friendly. Don’t be afraid to add social media marketing tactics to your business plan—Instagram stories and Facebook organic posts help build trust among your target audience. An excellent way to optimize your engagement material and conversion strategy is to set KPIs for each channel and regularly touch base on those numbers.
Resources
- https://www.alisonjprince.com/storing-products-online-business/
- https://www.shopify.com/blog/product-opportunities
- https://www.shopify.com/blog/ecommerce-business-blueprint
- https://www.oberlo.com/blog/ecommerce-how-to-start-and-succeed
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