Want To Know How To Start An Ecommerce Business?

By Author: Sudeesh Dodda
Total Articles: 61
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Start your eCommerce business right from the scratch
Small business owners always struggle to make that niche in the eCommerce world. Most of them always end up getting frustrated as they don’t have proper guidance and an ideal e-commerce business idea. Those sellers who get guidance and work in a systematic way excel and grow their business. Many people take years to learn the basic things that they need to first focus on. Definitely, they receive a positive outcome but the success is delayed. Here, in this guide, I will help you by giving you an idea on how to start an eCommerce business from scratch to ensure a smooth business ride. Use the information, I have outlined below to set up your eCommerce store successfully, market your products, get your finances in order, protect your business from any legal issues, and sell your products successfully.

It’s more rewarding to watch your small start-up business grow. E-commerce business is not about selling a successful brand, writing the product listing and start selling. There are more things to it. For managing the administrative work, you can take help of the ...
... e-commerce product management software like KartzHub that helps to handle your backend task with ease. But the most important aspect is to drive enough traffic to your site. So, let’s have a look at how to start an eCommerce business:

Research every possible and even the minute aspects of eCommerce business
Start doing Niche Research
Product and Personas Selection
Establish your brand and business
Create your online store
Choose the ideal product management software like KartzHub for backend operations
Know and understand how to attract the customers to your store
Market your products online
Research about the main aspect of an eCommerce business
The first critical step of an eCommerce business is to begin the research. Don’t operate your business with intuitions. A business costs you huge investments, so take it seriously. It’s not that every business structure works for everyone. You need to understand different business models before you decide on what to sell online. Suppose, if you focus on some automobile tools, that doesn’t mean you have to invest heavily and fill your warehouse with tools. Have you ever thought of how will you source the products and manage the inventory?

Are you looking for a business where at initial stages, without touching the product or investing heavily you can earn more? Then drop shipping is one of the smartest choices. If you like the idea of having a warehouse with varied products then you would be required to bear a more upfront cost. Look for the products that would sell more under your brand name. If possible, buy from the manufacturers directly, so that you can earn good profits. The best idea of choosing a business, in the beginning, is to select a single product category which can be supplemented with affiliate marketing.

Start doing Niche eCommerce Research
It’s very painful to see eCommerce sites with lots of products in store, with dozens of categories and no real focus. If you have a massive budget then its fine to store stock and do business, but if your budget is low then you need to walk down through the eCommerce aisle strategically. So, you have to niche down your eCommerce store.

The most important step while you think of starting an e-commerce business is choosing your niche. You should start the process by identifying the successful businesses already working in this space. Also, make sure the product you are selling has good competition. Obviously, the product with no competition indicates that there is no market. But also, don’t select products that are overly competitive and crowded. Skip products that are dominated by major brands. Drill down more to know what exactly you are interested to sell, as the more specific you are, the less competition you will need to face.

Product and Personas Selection
Before you think about the product think about the personas. You should be aware of the audience you would be dealing with. If you don’t know the target audience you are selling to, then how come you expect people to buy your product. The questions you need to find an answer for are:

What would your store represent?
Who are your ideal customers?
You need to project a consistent brand image so that your brand stays for long in the market. For that evaluate the products carefully you want to sell. Firstly, get the feel of the product yourself, then identify any potential problems so that you can prepare customer service scripts accordingly.

Establish Your Brand and Business
Before even setting up your online store you should look into the nitty-gritty of building a brand. There are some basic and important steps below:

Choose a business name and register your business.
Pick a suitable online store name
Get all the necessary business licenses
Get your Employer Identification number
Apply for all the Business Permits and Licenses
Find the right vendors (Manufacturers or retailers)
Create Logo
Make your Website visually appealing
Create your Online Store
Once your business is registered, you need to then register your domain name for the website. Then you need to decide on the design of the website to build up your online store. Whatever design you choose for the website it should be compatible with the e-commerce software.

There is a range of eCommerce shopping carts available online. KartzHub has one of the top shopping carts that would allow you to create and design the store very easily. KartzHub would give you the clarity of which store is ideal for your business. For example, for your store to work effectively:

The loading speed should be good
It should have great features
The website should be compatible with the payment gateways available in the market
The website should be compatible with your business structure.
It should have SEO friendly features and so on.
If your budget is low, then just decide on the best eCommerce solution you want to host your business on. You don’t need a development company to design your website you just choose a theme and pay a small fee to get a good template. You will get a lot of themes on Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. And if you don’t want to create a store then sell on marketplaces like Amazon.

Know and understand how to attract the customers to your store
First while building a Start An eCommerce Business store choose the shopping cart that is search engine friendly. As compared to early SEO features recent SEO features are very strategical. You cannot just stuff keywords, you need to build the website contents logically. The URL’s should also be built keeping in mind the SEO terms. The ad campaigns should be logically built as per the SEO terms then only it would help attract the right traffic to your website. At least, for marketing purpose, you have to invest a good amount as it will only help to encourage more traffic to your website.

Market your products online
Your website is not the only thing where you have to drive the traffic to. The products pages should also be marketed. The main mission is to sell the product not to drive traffic. So, you need to think very strategically and practically.

The very first step is to create an email list. Market your products by offering some freebies. Launch a social media campaign to gain more subscribers or host a giveaway through email addresses. Giveaways also help to increase your brand presence and product visibility. As you build the email list, it gives you a group of warm leads to work with, thus your sales process becomes easier. Then you have many other ways like social media marketing, on-page, off-page SEO and so on.

Choose the ideal product management software like KartzHub for backend operations
Next comes the backend operations such as inventory management, order management, automated updates, accounting, and shipping. This is a whole lot of process and consumes much of your time and money if not properly handled. Use product management software like KartzHub that helps you to manage all this process through one single click when u Start An eCommerce Business.