Building an electronic store involves going through a couple of stages of preparation, and does require some understanding of what is a product, or how different online services can provide banking and payment solutions for accepting and dealing with payments that you receive from your eCommerce store orders.
The biggest upside is that an eCommerce store will enable you to sell pretty much anything that you can imagine, if it can be somehow exchanged between one human to another, you’re sure to be able to sell such a thing through your online store – which is one of the reasons why so many people have begun building their own eCommerce stores.
It’s the perfect way of opening your own small business, finally putting that idea you’d have thought about for so long to the test, and see whether you’re able to attract the right customers to sell your goods to. I’ve experimented with several online store types, but mostly those that involve selling digital goods.
You might not have a lot of experience with eCommerce, so here are five things to keep in mind (and know) when beginning to plan a launch of your very own electronic store. I hope they become your starting points, and that you may share them forward with others.
Your Product Catalog
You’ll always begin with your catalog of products, these will be either physical goods, drop-shipping items or electronic (digital) goods. It’s always good to begin with a smaller quantity of stock, so as to learn the initial requirements of managing an eCommerce store. It’s not all just digital work, there are physical tasks involved as well – like actual paperwork, and the handling of products.
Drop shipping is a supply chain management technique in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to either the manufacturer or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer. As in retail businesses, the majority of retailers make their profit on the difference between the wholesale and retail price but some retailers earn an agreed percentage of the sales in commission, paid by the wholesaler to the retailer. [W]
Your Online Store
You’ve got products, and a way of handling these products already figured out. The next thing to do is to build an actual store. Doing so from scratch can prove to be quite difficult, or even expensive if you’re about to hire a custom developer and designer to do the work for you.
For this, we can rely on some of the most popular eCommerce platforms that are currently available on the web. All of which are not only recommended by our own team, but also used in the past and even currently on several different projects. Go ahead, review the platforms we’ve listed and see which ones clicks for you.
Content Marketing
If someone was talking about content marketing a couple of years ago, it was understandable that you wouldn’t pay a lot of attention to the subject – but now, times have changed and content has become as important as the product itself. You need to hire (or do it yourself, if you’re capable) copywriters and content marketing experts to help you analyze and write a decent copy of your products.
A great copy, written by an experienced copywriter is going to amplify the amount of sales you get for each of the products you’ve listed. It’s one of the most rewarding marketing strategies that there is, especially if you’re not afraid of reaching out to other business owners and collaborate with them.
Social Engagement is Crucial
And that doesn’t mean that you should only try and maintain an active Facebook or Twitter page. For an eCommerce store, social engagement goes a little bit further than that – having a weekly newsletter is a great start, as is the ability to provide your customers with special deals that will help to maintain their loyalty and trust in your services.
In the best scenario possible, give away things for free whenever possible, it has always worked and always will work when it comes to gaining attention from the customers, both new and old.
Begin to Analyze Your Strategy
The last thing we want to focus on when it comes to managing our very own electronic store is analysis of data that we’re able to see and access. It will usually begin with Google Analytics and the multiple features it offers for small (and big) business owners to manage and learn about conversions, as well as optimize and amplify them.
I remember when I used to ignore stats at all costs, I later realized that learning from my statistics is the best possible way of growing my customer and client base. Always remember that you’re only visible as far and deep as the statistics report, use your stats reports to learn in which parts of the web you can advance and increase your visibility.
Conclusion
All of these points are quite handy when you’re just starting out, it might be that you’ve built different types of stores in the past, but without any real understanding of the inner workings and management of an electronic store. If you’ve succeeded by using any of the points made above, please share with the rest of the community as it will only help others to better understand, the right steps that need to be taken.
