In today’s digital age eCommerce is a booming industry which shows tremendous growth and customer are now more friendly to online purchases from the past few years. Also, the evolution of various successful marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, PayTM, etc flourish many eCommerce businesses with their VC money opens the opportunity for profitable eCommerce business. So if you are looking to launch your next eCommerce venture here are few tips that may help you in making a blueprint of your eCommerce business. There is two eCommerce model you can start with either you keep inventory and sell them online or make a market place like Flipkart, amazon which enable other vendors to sell on your website and you earn commission on each sale. Here I am going to describe a few steps if you are looking to sell your self-inventory products or skip a few steps if you are already in the product retail business.
- Market Research & Select product category you want to sell :
Analyze different categories of goods that are feasible to sell online with good margins. As per reports electronics gadgets, books, garments are the top product categories that have massive demand online. Products in the price range of 1000 – 5000 easily sell online. or you can create a niche of the unique product line with a good brand name. Just a suggestion: if you can sell any product at three times the price of its cost then that product category is a good option for online selling (on your website & various marketplaces ). - Product inventory setup or tie-ups with whole-sellers or direct manufacturers:
If you have a budget, then procure the inventory and stock it else arranges tie-ups with different manufacturers of your product category to drop ship for you in this you need not invest in the stock. - Select brandable domain name & register your business legal name :
Go to any domain registrar website ( just an option www.godaddy.com) and search for short, brandable includes keyword, easy to remember domain name for your new eCommerce website. There are many factors you need to consider before registration of new domain names like your product niche, product market, type of customer, geographical type, etc. Domain should be short either one word or a maximum of two short words. A longer domain name looks spam to search engines. Domain TLD plays a vital role in any domain branding try to book.COM domain which is very hard to register nowadays due to its availability if .com domain not available then .in also do the best. After selection of domain name, select the business legal name which should be similar to the domain name but not necessary it will same as domain name & register it with your government authority & take all necessary legal compliance like VAT, TAN, CST, Shop establishment, etc. ( Do consult with some professional for these task as they are very important for your business foundation ) - Set up your print stationery for your business :
An attractive meaningful logo is an essence of any eCommerce business branding. Select professional logo designer to design your logo & all printable stationery like letterheads, packaging, visiting cards, envelopes. These are the essentials for your branding around your target customers so pay extra time in the selection of appropriate designs of the same. - Social media profile setup and coming soon page setup at domain :
As soon as you finalized with domain name do register your accounts on all popular social media. Social media is a traffic-driving mechanism nowadays. Take the help of a professional company to set up your account on various different social media and start posting articles on them to make curiosity among your customers before your actual launch of the website. Set a professional designer coming soon page on a domain with newsletter sign up form to gather the interest of customers in your product and offer them pre-launch offers when you are ready with your eCommerce website. - Selection of professional eCommerce development company to develop your site :
Now the time has come to hire a professional company to design & develop your eCommerce website with your desired features. You can select any service provider by seeing their past work & your budget for this development. Professional eCommerce website with all necessary features cost you around 1 – 1.5 lacs ($2000 – $5000). Beware of pre-made templates or cheap packages offered by non-professional development agencies if you are serious about your eCommerce venture & want to play for the long term. The website should be mobile responsive & it is a necessity, not a requirement. - Product photography :
In the meantime, developers prepare your eCommerce website, you start gathering photos of your products. Photograph in the white background looks more professional and can be used at different market places without the need of re-shooting them separately for them. Shoot 2 – 3 photographs of each product with various sides which looks more professional and usable for customer judgment while they order your product online. You can hire a professional photographer for this activity; those will charge around Rs.300 – Rs.500 per product. - Product detail sheets:
Now all photos are ready with you and you need to organize product details for upload on your website or various marketplaces. You need to organize separate excel sheets for each product category with these details ( Maybe you require more information align those as per your requirement) Product SKU, Unique Product Name, Unique Short Description, Unique Product Description, Size, Colours, Price, Selling Price, Tax, Shipping rates, Photos, Product Attributes, Product Bundle, Product Cost Price, etc. These sheets will be a driving factor of automation in your eCommerce venture so that you can track each product with ease in the future. - Upload all product data into your eCommerce website :
Upload yourself or ask your eCommerce development company to upload all your product data into your website with all details. There is a method to import & export in every ecommerce website so you can easily upload products in bulk into the website. - Third-party registrations:
Now you should contact different payment gateway companies, SMS gateway companies, shipping businesses to get their API details after proper registration of your company with them. Also, some of the ecommerce developers have special arrangements who can help you in setting these accounts. - All thing are ready & time to rock n roll :
It seems everything has been set up now and you ready to launch your new ecommerce website to generate a new stream of income. It is advisable to run a pilot run by doing dry run of the whole website with test accounts before actual launch so that there will be no surprises in front of real customers. The first impression is always the last impression.
If you are looking to outsource all the above tasks to a professional company then you can touch base with ecommerce development company Fablian Technologies located in Noida who has excellent experience in handling all the above tasks & deliver quality eCommerce solutions for your business.