E-commerce has fast become one of the most powerful approaches to business in recent years. In the digital era, there is no escaping the importance of the online marketplace. Even traditional brick-and-mortar based companies are having to switch their focus to e-commerce. Nasdaq predicts that 95% of all purchases will be facilitated by e-commerce by the year 2040. If you’re interested in establishing an e-commerce business, here are seven essential tips to get you started.
By Team Savant
Image: Morning Brew on Unsplash
With the e-commerce focus of modern businesses and the relative lack of barriers to the industry, the online marketplace is very competitive. No matter what industry you are part of, you are likely to find some competition online.
Whether you are hoping to switch or focus the attention of your business toward e-commerce, or you want to set up a brand new venture, it’s vital that you are up to date with the latest trends and requirements. Certain actions must be taken to give yourself a chance at success.
1. Establish a Clear Target Market
One key aspect of having a successful e-commerce business is knowing exactly who you are targeting. All advertising and marketing activities should have a strategic focus that revolves around potential customers.
Once you have a target market in mind, concentrate on creating customer profiles. These are examples of who your potential customers are, what their purchasing behaviour is like, and what their needs and wants are. This allows you to clearly identify who your audience is and how best to communicate with them.
2. Let Data Drive Decision Making
It’s no longer acceptable to make business decisions on a whim. With the sheer amount of data that is generated from e-commerce business, detailed analysis can be formed regarding all aspects.
Ensure that you take data from customers, sales, marketing, and your website for thorough analysis. Try to spot areas or aspects of the business that worked well or need improvement. These should be areas of focus for making decisions and taking future action.
3. Optimise Your Website
Image: Morning Brew on Unsplash
Your e-commerce website is likely to be the main source of communication between the business and the customers. This alone is reason enough to make sure the website is optimised. However, there are several more reasons why a quality website is crucial.
If your e-commerce business revolves around selling a product or service, the buying process should be straight forward and stress-free to maximise the potential for conversions. The webpage should have a slick and visually appealing design to keep bounce rates low and to retain users. It should have a clear focus on customers and usability. Ultimately, your website should be aimed at selling to the customer, so it’s important to have adequate call-to-action. All in all, professional website design, development, and analysis are of paramount importance.
4. Speak Their Language
To build a great ecommerce website, you need to be ready and willing to serve foreign markets. If you’re an international or continental company, you need to have a translation team working for you. Wherever their office is, you should stay in contact 24/7, so when you add new products and deals to your website, they can be asked to translate product descriptions, pages, prices, etc, into the languages whose markets you're in. Having an ecommerce website with several language options, is going to immediately open up your business up to millions of more people.
5. Product Sourcing
If your e-commerce business revolves around selling an FMCG, product sourcing is one of your most important roles. Depending on whether or not you are buying or manufacturing the products, the recommended strategy will vary massively.
However, the most important factor is that you research all options before choosing a supplier. If you are importing from an international source, ensure that you are up to speed on how this process works. Make sure you are covered from a legal perspective and become well versed in import strategy. There are businesses who specialise in handling the importation of goods for international e-commerce. Using these to handle distribution from another country could be a useful option to consider.
6. Warehousing
If you’re selling a product, you are going to need to store the items before they’re sold. If you’re going down the route of a small scale e-commerce business, you could consider using Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA). In a nutshell, you sell your items on the Amazon platform like normal, but storage, delivery, customer service, and returns are handled by Amazon. This is a fantastic option for someone with little space and experience in e-commerce.
Alternatively, you could consider investing in a warehouse. If you opt for this route, one of the most important aspects of running a successful warehouse is efficiency. Leave no stone unturned in operating your warehouse and make sure to research tips to improve efficiency.
7. Free Shipping
Image: Morning Brew on Unsplash
Offering free shipping is extremely important when it comes to customers. A recent study claimed that 90% of shoppers regard free shipping as the main incentive that could influence them to buy more online.
To facilitate free shipping, your business doesn’t have to take a financial hit. There are ways around covering the costs of shipping without losing profits.