An ecommerce website is your window into a world of potential customers. It can be an efficient route to market and can result in untold digital success. Follow these steps to start your journey.
Come up with an idea
The most fun part of starting an online shop is also the most important. Your idea for your business should incorporate days of market research, buying from would-be rivals and making a detailed assessment of the market you are about to enter.
This is not finger in the air stuff and wanting to run a business is not a good enough reason to start one. You need a gap in the market and an ironclad strategy for exploiting it – cut corners at the beginning and you condemn your business before it starts.
Consider your shop build
Choosing how your shop will be constructed will affect how smoothly it runs as a business, how much it will cost to keep up and running and your customers’ experience of your business. So give it some thought.
Broadly, you can go cheap or free with a range of website templates laid on by the likes of Moonfruit, Basekit and Actinic; more expensively employ a design company, or simply create an eBay or Amazon shop. Each comes with its own benefits and drawbacks, so consider carefully.
Get a payment system
There is a diverse and growing range of payment software available to online shop owners. Each provide a subtly different service and charge different amounts and in different ways. Search online for ‘payment software reviews’ before committing to one.
A back office that rocks
Your shop front is important, no doubt, but equally so is the smooth-running operation that takes place behind the scenes. Think very carefully about what happens one your customers have clicked the ‘buy’ button.
You’ll need to consider how and where you store your products (giving additional thought to insuring your inventory and what happens if there’s a flood or fire), how you package and label each purchase and how you get the product to the customer.
Tax and spend
Another essential ingredient of your ‘behind the scenes business’ is your accounting. Selling is priority for most firms, and so it should be, but make sure that a) your incomings outweigh your outgoings and b) that you allow for taxes at the end of each accounting period.
Market like the wind
One of the main benefits of setting up online as opposed to bricks and mortar is that marketing is cheap and can go very far indeed. Get a Facebook group, Twitter feed and develop an army of contacts on LinkedIn; develop a newsletter list and set up Google Adwords (if appropriate), an website analytics package and a blog – keep them all updated regularly and watch the customers pour in.
Get mobile
mCommerce (buying and selling over mobile phones) is the new eCommerce. If online sales worldwide are growing fast, then sales on smartphones are shooting up at light speed. If your site isn’t mobile friendly, then you’ll miss out on this fast moving and increasingly profitable sector.
Boring regulations
Unfortunately (but rightly), there are plenty of that keep e-tailers in check. These include Data Protection Act 1998, the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002, and the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 and so on.
Devote some time to understanding these rules. They’re common sense for the most part and protect customers through quality standards, minimum levels of security of purchases and legally-binding online contracts affecting ‘buy and supply’.
