What are the steps to getting started with eCommerce?
Most of the people these days tend to buy products online; it's much easier and quicker. Therefore, it's only natural that this activity is growing more interest and desire for people to try it themselves.
Coming up with an idea and proceeding to accomplish it might be difficult without any guidance or too much information, so let me help you. I will cover the fundamentals and most important details you should know to get your online career going.
TL;DR:
- Coming up with an idea.
- Finding products to sell.
- Finding a supplier.
- Creating a website.
- Getting a domain name.
- Getting a hosting plan.
- Choosing the platform to build your website.
- Creating a marketing campaign.
Coming up with an idea.
First things first, it's important to develop your idea and prepare some marketing models properly. Here are a few examples of questions that you should consider:
- Who is your target audience?
- What is the mission and vision of your business?
- What niche are you focusing on?
- What are the risks your business may encounter?
- What impact can political, economic, social, and technological factors may do to your business?
Make sure to answer these questions, and when you are ready to proceed with the next step, your feet will stay firmly on the ground, without wondering what if.
Finding products to sell.
Secondly, find the exact products you want to sell. Make sure they fall into your niche. It's better to polish and succeed in one category at first before embracing more of them.
The reason behind choosing only one category is that it's much easier to gain customers if you target only one niche. That way, you can work on polishing and presenting the product in the best possible way.
Presenting a lot of different products is more difficult as you will need to embrace a broader audience, spending a lot more time on marketing.
Finding a supplier.
After finding the products you wish to sell, it's important to find a supplier. The possibilities are very flexible as you can make the product yourself, find a manufacturer to make them, or even use a dropshipping method and sell items that a manufacturer sends out for you to your customers themselves.
Creating a website.
Once you are finished with the planning process, it's time to take action. An essential part is a website. If the website's performance is bad, it is most likely that a visitor will leave. A well-built website with great performance is the key to stability.
Now you might wonder what the process of creating a website is, so let me get that for you as it is quite easy and quick.
