Top 9 Tips On How To Start An ECommerce Business In 2021 Starting an ECommerce business is a necessity for all business enterprises to survive in the market. It takes a lot of hard work and effort to build an online presence for your business.
The E-Commerce industry is going at a vast pace, and the number of online businesses is increasing every day. Hence, it becomes necessary for companies to build a social media presence, but they have to face increased competition.
It’s expected that 95% of all purchases will be made through e-commerce By the year 2040 (Nasdaq)
It’s clear from the above statistics that the competition will only increase in the future, so businesses need to hold a strong position on online platforms to face the competition.
To help you build a booming online E-commerce website, we did a comprehensive research on how to start an Ecommerce business and come up with some brilliant ideas. Let’s dive into it.
1. Choose A Product
The first and most important task is to find the type of product which you want to sell. The type of product you’ll choose will decide your business’s success and failure, so It’s important to choose the right product.
Before choosing the product, you should ask yourself the following questions:-
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Is there is any need for the products you want to sell? Who will buy your product? Who are your competitors that are selling the same products? What are the benefits of selling this product? Do you know about the product you are going to sell? How will the product help your customers? Can you sell a product that is of high quality and lower price than your competitors?
● Are you excited about selling the product?
After answering all these questions, you can move to the next step, choosing the target audience for your product.
2. Choose Your Target Audience
Customers you want to sell your product is your target audience. It means they are more likely to buy your products. It is essential to research the target market or audience as you can’t sell each product to all kinds of audiences.
For example, if your target audience is young adults in their 20s, all you have to do is focus on that age group, and It saves your time, reduces overall cost, and increases your ROI.
You can build your target audience by following the demographics and psychographics of people.
Demographics will help you find out who is more likely to buy your product and tell you the following information about your target audience:-
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Age Location Gender Income Education Occupation
● Marital status
Psychographics are related to your target audience’s characteristics like their Behaviour, Interest, Personality, Attitude, and Lifestyle.
3. Research Your Competition
Competitive analysis is another crucial step in which you have to thoroughly research your competitors and their strategies to sell their products. It will give you an idea about who you are competing against and how you can produce better products than your competitors.
Competitive analysis tells you about your rivals’ marketing tactics and how they can negatively impact your business growth.
4. Company Name and Registration
a) Business Name
Choosing the business’s name is another challenging task as The Business name should be unique and not identical. Once you have selected a name for your business, the next step is to register the domain name for your business so that no one can use your name in the future.
b) Logo
After choosing your e-commerce business name, the thing is to create a logo for your business, which shows your brand personality and professionalism.
Also, you have to choose the type of business entity after domain name registration. You have the following options.
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Sole proprietorship Non-profit entity Private Limited Company Corporation Limited Liability Company
● Partnership
c) Company Registration
After registering your business domain name, the next step is to register your company under the Company’s Act 2013. You have to complete all the legal formalities include:
● Apply for Director’s Identification Number. ● You have to make sure the name chosen is available by applying to the Registrar Of Companies (ROC). ● After confirmation of the company name, you have to do company incorporation within six months. ● The next step is to apply for the Goods and service tax (GST). ● Apply for company incorporation certification, and the company will be registered under Company’s Act 2013.
5. Bank Account To Operate E-commerce Business
You can open a bank account in any bank under your company’s name So that any kind of money transaction related to your online e-commerce business can run smoothly. For opening a bank account, You have to submit the following documents:-
● A copy of a pan card ● Article of Association (AOA) ● Memorandum of Association (MOA) ● Certificate of Incorporation
6. E-Commerce Website Development
After doing all the research and completing all the legal formalities, the next step is to build a beautiful website for your e-commerce store.
Website designing or development is something you can’t do by yourself as it requires a lot of skills and knowledge to make a user-friendly e-commerce website.
The Visuals and Graphics of your website should look attractive and engaging to your customers, So one should be very careful while hiring a web development company.
It’s advisable to hire a good web development company as web developers are trained and experienced enough to provide you services from web designing to web hosting.
7. Payment Gateways For Accepting Payments
Source: SecurionPay
Payment gateways allow merchants to accept online payments from customers through debit or credit cards. It acts as a mediator between customers and merchants.
Payments gateways allow your online money transactions to run smoothly by accepting online payments from customers.
Payment gateways ensure that the merchant is paid an appropriate amount by carefully validating customers’ debit or credit card details. It provides security for both customers and merchants by proper encryption.
8. Shipping And Transportation
After building your e-commerce website, the next step is to ensure that the customer will get their order. You should have a proper shipping and transportation facility to get the required Inventory, and customers get their final product.
Shipping and Transportation is a crucial part of any e-commerce store, so make sure to make a high-level shipping strategy and collaborate with trusted distributor companies to ensure order fulfillment and customer satisfaction.
9. Marketing
After ensuring the proper delivery of products, the final step is to market your products and let consumers know your website’s existence. There are different market strategies that you can follow to market or promote your eCommerce store. Let’s discuss some of those strategies.
● Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing can help grow your business and reach out to a new audience. There are various Social Media Marketing platforms that you can use to showcase your markets. Instagram, Facebook, Linked In, Twitter are some of those platforms.
● Email Marketing
Email Marketing allows you to send promotions and offers post to your customers on their emails that help you build a relationship with them.
You can run different email campaigns like welcoming mails, Delivery completion emails, Order Completion emails, Reminder emails, etc., which increase customer engagement.
● Advertisements
You can run paid advertisements on different platforms to increase traffic and customer engagement on your website. Google, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are some popular advertisement platforms.
Apart from these, there are other strategies like SEO marketing, search engine marketing, content marketing, affiliate marketing, etc., that you can practice promoting your e-commerce website.
Conclusion E-commerce websites are a must for every business enterprise because of the increasing number of online customers who prefer internet marketing. So have you built an e-commerce website for your business?
If No, then don’t worry. You are on the right blog.
Read these top 9 tips on how to start an ecommerce business and rule the online market like a boss!
Q1: What Is An E-Commerce Business?
A1: E-Commerce Business, also known as electronic commerce or internet commerce, lets companies and customers buy or sell products over the internet.
E-Commerce is not the same as E-business because e-commerce covers all the aspects of an online business. In contrast, e-commerce is only restricted to the online transaction of goods and services.
Q2: Steps Required In Starting An Ecommerce Business?
A2: To start an ecommerce business one should follow the below steps:-
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The first step is to choose the product you are going to sell The next step is to select a target audience for your product. The third step is to research your competitors. Choose your company name and register your brand name with the registrar of companies(ROC). Open a bank account Build an e-commerce website. The payment gateway for an e-commerce website Ensure Proper shipping and Transportation
● Promote your e-commerce website using social media marketing, email marketing, and paid advertisement.
Q3: What Are the Types Of E-commerce Business?
A3: There are four types of e-commerce businesses:-
● Business-to-Business ● Business-to-Consumer ● Consumer-to- Consumer ● Consumer-to-Business