There was a time when shopping online was considered a luxury. Today, it is a necessity. The eCommerce industry has been growing rapidly for a while, but it is exploding since the pandemic hit the world in 2020. In 2024, eCommerce sales are expected to account for 22.1 percent of retail sales worldwide.

The industry is growing so fast that eCommerce will contribute a whopping 24.0 percent of retail sales worldwide by 2024.

I have been in the eCommerce development and marketing business since 2005. I have helped businesses launch profitable online stores and marketed small and large brands online.

There is an unprecedented amount of interest in eCommerce business right now. If you’re planning to start your own eCommerce business, there’s a lot that you need to do.

From researching the best products to sell, choosing a brand name, developing and launching a new online store to marketing the store to increase sales. To help you, I have put together a comprehensive guide for starting an eCommerce business.

Step 1 – Research, Research, and Research

The eCommerce space is vast. It is no longer limited to clothing and accessories. Today, you can sell anything online to start an eCommerce business.

The first step is to research the market and your niche. Because that is going to affect your business for the long term.

i) Research about the products or services

Consider what exactly your eCommerce business is going to offer. Do you want to sell products or services? There are two product categories you can sell:

• Commoditized products: These are high demand goods or services that everybody needs, such as food, clothing, toys, decor items, etc.

• Niche products: These are products or services that meet the needs of a specific customer base, such as vegan products, handmade goods, leather items, etc.

Commoditized Products
There is fierce competition in the commodity market, especially when big brands like Amazon, Walmart, Flipkart, and Myntra are present in the market.

It may not be impossible to start a profitable eCommerce business offering commoditized products, but it is going to be challenging.

Niche Products
With niche products, you can better serve customers by offering a number of choices, the convenience of big brands, and good digital marketing tactics.

ii) Find the products or services you will sell

I know you want to become the next big brand in the eCommerce space, but the truth is, it is difficult to do so unless your products solve real customers’ problems.

To help you find what you should sell, I have compiled a few ideas to get started right now:

– Find products and improve them

There will be a million products available in the market. Learn about them and see what features they lack. How you can improve the features and tap a new market unrealized by your competitors.

With unique product positioning and marketing, you can become successful like Kyle Kirkpatrick, an Olympic gymnastics coach.

Big companies like Apple and Samsung offer earpieces to customers, but Kyle Kirkpatrick went ahead to improve earpieces for training athletes and created an online store – Decibullz.com.

The company sells earpieces or earplugs that can be used by athletes to listen to music, regardless of whether they are running or jumping on the trampoline.

Another example is Bliss, a modern spa in New York City. The brand has been there in the market since 1996. With time, new technologies, and changing customer needs, Bliss realized that it needs to improve its products and serve customers in a better way.

Bliss introduced ingenious clean beauty products that are PETA-certified, cruelty-free, and work for every budget.

– What’s in trend now

The best way to capitalize on your business is to hop on the trending products and services bandwagon. Find out what’s trending in the market now.

For example, when the pandemic hit the world and lockdown was announced in many countries, people started looking for opportunities to find solutions that can hit peak popularity.

Many tourist destinations started offering ‘work-from-anywhere’ packages to cater to the telecommuting customers.

Organic products have been in trend for some time now. Not just kids, there is a huge demand for organic food products and skincare products among adults.

Start thinking of products or services that have been trending recently and utilizing digital marketing to establish yourself as a leader within the market.

– Find products that solve problems and guilty pleasures

The best way to find such products or services is to search for problems that you face in your daily life. Brian Chesky, the co-founder of Airbnb, faced a problem in finding a space to stay and eat during a visit to a city.

He came up with this brilliant idea wherein people can book their desired home or space to stay and eat in any location around the world, whether they are visiting for a vacation or business.

Another proven successful product will be the one that serves people’s passion or guilty pleasures. Jeni’s Ice Cream sought to capture this emotion very well.

Jeni creates ice creams with fresh ingredients and extensive flavors that make people come again and again.

iii) Find out how to source products

You’ve found your product, great! Now you need to look for product sourcing channels. It will be critical to your future success.

For physical products, you need a reliable supplier whom you can trust and partner with for the long term. If you’re selling a digital service like online courses, you will still need to look for partners who can help you create online courses, such as professors, students, academicians, etc.

If you plan to work with a product sourcing agent, look for these qualities – business license, experience and industry expertise, and communication skills.

After working with hundreds of eCommerce brands and helping them grow their brand, I have found these product sourcing strategies to be useful for a newbie:

• Work with a reputable wholesaler. You can purchase small or large quantities of products at low prices without the cost of needing to manufacture them yourself.

• Work directly with a manufacturer. If you want to cut out any potential middlemen costs, work with a manufacturer that can manufacture the products according to your needs.

• Start working on handmade products. As a newbie, you will be a small independent business. You may not be able to pay bulk fees and costs. You can start small and manufacture handmade products at your home.

• Visit a trade show. You will be able to check the products up close and make a good relationship with a seller or supplier to start sourcing for your own business.

iv) Research your competitors

The next step in the research phase is to thoroughly know more about your competition so you know how you can differentiate your business. Here are the points to look for when doing a competitive analysis:

• Number of competitors in the market for the same product you will sell
• Who their target customers are and customer demographics
• What their main unique selling points
• Features/benefits of their products as found online and social media
• What are their price points
• Whether they’re bootstrapped or receiving venture capital

Competitive analysis matters for starting your own eCommerce business. When you’re done with competitive analysis, try to look for these specific details:

• How is their website design and layout
• How is the checkout process, customer support, and mobile experience
• What is their content marketing strategy for promotions
• What is their social media approach
• What are their marketing tactics
• Do they use an email marketing approach
• How customers are perceiving their products and their reviews

Doing competitive intelligence is the most effective way to start the business with the right data. It will help you make more informed marketing decisions, identify industry trends, find a unique value proposition for your business, determine pricing structure, find new ways to reach customers, and identify a gap in the market that you can fulfill.

v) Finalize the eCommerce Model

Many would-be eCommerce business owners just don’t know what different types of eCommerce models are available to them.

First, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with each type of business model before you start your eCommerce business:

• Business-to-Business eCommerce: These online stores deal with other businesses directly such as software companies, office furniture, wholesale providers, and more.

• Business To Consumer eCommerce: The B2C sector is the deepest eCommerce market and a majority of retail businesses fall under this category, such as Walmart, Target, REI, and Gap.

• Consumer-to-Consumer eCommerce: These eCommerce websites allow customers to trade, buy, and sell items and in return they provide a commission to the site.

• Consumer-to-business eCommerce: C2B businesses provide a platform to individuals to sell products and services to companies. Upwork is a great example of this business model.

Depending on the product you will sell and to whom, it is important to choose the business model that can suit your product and meet customer expectations.

Vi) Decide the Delivery Mode

There are multiple ways you can deliver your products to the customers.

When you ship yourself: You get products from the supplier →List them on the site→customer orders the product and pay online or cash on delivery →you send the product to their address

When you do drop-shipping: You list the products on your website →customer buys the product →you ask the supplier to send the product to the customer

Direct to consumer: You sell your products directly to your end customers without taking help of third-party retailers. Companies such as Harry’s,Blue Apron, Bonobos, Barkbox, and Warby Parker apply this delivery model to build a loyal customer base.

Wholesaling: You can sell products in bulk quantities at a discount. Traditionally, it is a B2B practice, but many retailers are offering wholesaling options to budget-conscious consumers.

Subscription Model: Today, the popularity of subscription services has increased to the eCommerce sector as companies want to bring convenience and savings to customers.

Initially, when you start your eCommerce business, opting for drop-shipping pays off. When you expand and grow your business, you can rent a warehouse and start shipping your own products like Amazon, Flipkart, and alike.

If you’re providing digital services, go for the subscription model.

Step 2: Create Your Brand

i) Decide brand name and model

Enough with the research part, now comes the most important and crucial step in your eCommerce journey.

You need to come up with the perfect name for your brand that is – short and easy to remember, reflect your products, and unique.

Next, you need to decide what kind of business your brand will be:

• Sole proprietorship (no limitation of liability)
• One-person company
• Limited liability partnership (LLP)
• Private limited company

ii) Register Your Company

It is essential to register your company and complete all the legal formalities to start your own eCommerce business. Here is what you need to do:

• Apply for the Director’s Identification Number (DIN)
• Apply to the Registrar of Companies (ROC)
• Apply for the Goods and Service Tax (GST) certification
• Apply to open up a Provident Fund (PF) if you will employ people in your company

After receiving confirmations on everything, you can incorporate the proposed company within one month by paying certain fees.

iii) Open a Bank Account

When you’re done with registrations and legal formalities, it’s time to open up a bank account for your company. Having a business bank account is a recommended way to separate your business and personal finances.

It will help you effectively track your business cash flow, pay your employees (if any), and manage and organize what is necessary for taxes and deductions at year end.

Step 3 – Build Your eCommerce Site

i) Purchase and Register your domain

The most recommended domain name will be the one that contains only your unique brand name with the .com extension. The main service providers for domain names are Google Domains, GoDaddy, Namecheap and many more.

Finalize the domain name registrar company and register your domain name. Pay with a credit card or PayPal. Use your real contact information to purchase domain name.

Register your domain for one or more years and renew it when your time is up. You may get discounts if you purchase the name for longer terms.

ii) Create a Logo

Once you’ve registered a corresponding domain, it’s time to find an eCommerce design and development company. The company can help you create an amazing logo for your brand.

If you want your brand to stand out, you need professional designers for the same. If you have a small budget and don’t want to invest much in the logo design, go for free logo makers online such as Canva, Hatchful etc.

iii) Build your online store

There are so many eCommerce website framework and builders in the market, such as Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Shopify.

To make the best choice, you need to understand the pros and cons of each eCommerce platform, such as ease of content management, operational model, and technical requirements.

• Shopify – It has a proprietary payment processor, secure shopping cart functionality, and direct HTML/CSS editing.

• Magento – It is open source with on-premise functionality and unlimited customization and extension options.

• WooCommerce – It is a WordPress plugin that integrates with 140 payment gateways and hundreds of extensions.

• BigCommerce – It has a drag-and-drop page builder, supports up to 600 SKUs per product, supports 140+ local currencies, and integrates with 55+ payment gateways.

• Squarespace – It is user-friendly for all types of users and has many features, tools, or add-ons.

Once you decide on the eCommerce framework and builder, you need to work with the eCommerce design and development company to configure color scheme according to logo colors, customize pages and product layouts, embed social media accounts, configure a blog page, customize fonts and text sizes, and add high-quality product images.

iv) Customize Your Online Store

Though eCommerce builders like Shopify and WooCommerce have many features, they don’t fit all eCommerce models and needs. A custom eCommerce website gives you a greater control, flexibility, and scalability. eCommerce customization helps you:

• Set unique shipping options,
• Add multiple vendors in the back-end system,
• Add custom coupon or promo codes,
• Integrate a specific credit card processor,
• Optimize the shopping cart,
• Maintain website speed at the highest level,
• Enhance security and site features, and
• Implement an omnichannel experience

If you hire an experienced developer to do the job of customization, make sure they have knowledge and expertise in advanced programming languages and technologies, such as PHP, Java, Laravel, Node.js, Python, MEAN, CSS, JavaScript, ASP.Net, Angular, Vue.js, and Ruby on Rails.

While you can use all of these technologies to build your eCommerce website, the better approach is to select a combination of technologies that will complement your customization needs.

Your needs, deadlines, goals, and budgets can also affect the choice of technologies.

v) Integrate Payment Gateways

While shopping online, people like to pay using credit cards, debit cards, and net banking. You must integrate payment gateways for your eCommerce business to offer multiple payment options to customers.

Some of the popular payment gateways are PayPal, PayU and RazorPay. You need to submit the following documents to integrate one such payment gateway:

• The bank account name of the business
• PAN card or DIN of the business
• Incorporation Certificate
• Memorandum of Association
• Identity and address proof
• Website terms of use and privacy policy

This is a typical process that requires expert knowledge. It is recommended you work with an eCommerce website developer to integrate a payment gateway to your online store.

Step 4 – Setup Your Online Store

Your store is not ready until you add your product images, descriptions, and payment options. Then you need to optimize the pages according to SEO standards to rank high in the search engines and compete with big online stores.

I) Product Listing
List the inventory of your products in your online store based on different categories. The best way to name the products in the list is to use keywords that your customers use when searching for the products you sell.

Don’t forget to list the price of each product. If you’re offering discounts or offers, make sure you highlight them.

II) Product Descriptions
The best product descriptions address the needs of the target audience. Search for phrases and terms customers use and read on review sites to know how you can start a conversation with customers through product descriptions.

II) Product Image
Any product is useless until you provide a photo or video of that. Customers want to visualize what they’re getting before they hit buy now. Add quality photos and videos to each product for high conversion rates.

IV) Leverage customer reviews
Reviews have a significant impact on buyers. Good word of mouth is a huge value for your store, so don’t pass up the chance to convert more buyers into customers with reviews.

Place good positive reviews of your goods and services right next to the “Buy” button.

V) Mobile optimize your store
The annual mobile eCommerce sales in the US alone are projected to grow from $284 billion in 2020 to $488 billion in 2024.

That will become huge if you combine mobile sales data from other countries. Most website builders offer mobile optimization capability.

Still, it’s important to choose an eCommerce development company that helps you optimize your online store for mobile devices.

Vi) Organize your inventory
It is essential to assign each product a code based on size, features, colors, and more. Use an inventory management system to better manage product inventory.

This also helps you to update product stocks for customers and get notification when the customers are looking for the product and you need to fill your inventory soon.

Succeeding in eCommerce Business: What’s Next?

It’s Digital Marketing!

In the eCommerce space, “if you build it, they will come” doesn’t hold true. You need an effective digital marketing strategy to acquire visitors, retain customers, and build a profitable business.

Post-launch, there are many more things that you need to do to reap the benefits of the booming eCommerce industry. You need to invest in a variety of digital marketing tactics to set your foot in the ground and go up.

With eCommerce digital marketing, you can bring traffic to your store and turn them into sales. Here are the best eCommerce digital marketing tactics and strategies you should use:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Conduct keyword research to find phrases that your customers are searching for. You need to optimize the content on your site and product description for these words.
Well, there are three ways to search keywords:

• Amazon
• Competitor research
• SEO tools like SEMRush, Ahrefs, etc.

But SEO is more than just keywords. Here are other things that fall under eCommerce SEO:

• Setup your site navigation, category pages and product pages
• Build backlinks to your store from reputable websites
• Implement on-page SEO for eCommerce category pages, product pages, and blog content
• Do local SEO for your retail eCommerce business
• Focus on site speed and voice search

A simple SEO campaign for an eCommerce business can result in hundreds of extra sales. And it requires expert eCommerce SEO professionals to achieve this.

As a business owner, you might feel overwhelmed to do all this SEO stuff. Reach out to a professional eCommerce SEO services company to implement the best eCommerce SEO practices and get the best results.

2. Content Marketing

Content marketing is free if you do it yourself, but it always recommended to hire content marketers as they can help you develop your strategy and create content for engaging and converting products.

From blogs, descriptions, newsletters, e-mailers, to guides and videos, promote your products in as many ways as possible.

‘All Bird’, a clothing and shoe wear company, started its journey as a small eCommerce store. With content marketing and word of mouth, they were able to drive 60% of their business. With retargeted ads, they were able to boost engagement and sales.

3. Social Media Marketing

73% of businesses are investing in social media with nearly 95% thinking to increase their marketing budgets in 2020 and beyond. Social media is an excellent way to nurture relationships with customers.

The more followers, reach, and reviews you have on social media, the better is the conversion rates.

Red Bull implemented a social media marketing campaign on Instagram. They wanted to increase sales of their Summer Edition tropical energy drink in Australia.

Red Bull was able to reach 1.2 million consumers reached and got to increase 9-points in favorability.

4. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great channel to bring more customers. Emails or newsletters or announcements created with great visuals and personalized copy writing can deliver targeted can deliver amazing results.

Emails reach most people and email marketing should be an essential part of your marketing strategy. Email marketing has a high ROI.

5. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing may seem like a big task when you start your own business, but it is a really useful way to increase sales.

As an eCommerce store owner, you partner with websites that publish content and review products. You can leverage their expertise to direct traffic to your site and generate sales for your business.

Huckberry, a clothing and gear store, recently became popular on social media and online magazine publications. One of their most popular marketing campaigns the company used was affiliate marketing and that led to their growth.

6. Influencer Marketing

Your online store can leverage the popularity of influencers boost awareness and encourage your audience to buy products from your site. Influencers have more trust and engagement with their followers.

This makes it easier for your brand to get connected with your target customers.

MamaEarth is one such example. The brand spends marketing money on influencer marketing and work with YouTubers to increase brand awareness and sales.

The company which started only recently is now a 110 crore business. Thanks to influencer marketing tactics it used!

7. Paid Marketing

E-commerce paid marketing is the act of placing paid content on an online channel like Google, Facebook, etc.

• Facebook and Instagram Ads: Facebook provides a multitude of targeting options such as interest, location, connections, behaviors, and much more. Similarly, Instagram ads have gone up as eCommerce businesses are trying to grow their sales.

• Google Ads: Also referred to as PPC (pay-per-click) or SEM (search engine marketing), Google Ads is a great way to increase conversions, but it might be a bit expensive for your business when you’re just starting out.

Start with small budgets. When you may realize that it’s converting very well, start using the same keywords and utilize SEO and content strategies to rank organically on Google.

• Retargeting Ads: Retargeting is one of the best ways if you want to maximize the traffic to your site. Retargeting helps you influence customers to come back to your site.

• Display Ads: Display ads have become a sophisticated way to target people based on their interests, demographics, locations, and much more.

For your eCommerce business, start with a small budget and continue to increase the budget when you see your ads performing well down the line.

8. Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) has helped many retailers boost sales directly. A company specializing in CRO will help you improve your online store further pages to make sure that there are no technical or design flaws and provide strategies to:

• Increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts
• Convert visitors into buyers
• Identify ways to boost sales and revenues
• Enhance sales copy and design

To summarize, here a few key takeaways from this A-to-Z guide on how to start your own eCommerce business:

1. Search for the product you want to sell
2. Conduct research on other eCommerce businesses
3. Find the sourcing partner or create your own products
4. Look for a product shipping model
5. Purchase a domain name and register it
6. Hire a design company to create the logo
7. Build an online store with eCommerce builders
8. Optimize eCommerce store with content and images
9. Promote the site through SEO, content, SMO, SEM, and PPC
10. Provide great customer service
11. Focus on conversion optimization
12. Update your site and inventory frequently
13. Keep up with the latest eCommerce trends

Conclusion

Building your own eCommerce business is an exciting journey. There are many challenges but numerous untapped opportunities. There are a ton of things you will learn while choosing a product to sell, doing competitive analysis, building your online store, and marketing the products.

When you finally set-up your online business, everything feels worthwhile and rewarding.

I hope this eCommerce business A-to-Z guide helps you get started head one.

If you need eCommerce design and development services or marketing strategies to grow your small business, we are here to help you. Fuel4Media Technologies is a leading eCommerce development company in India that offers an array of design, development, and marketing services to global retailers.

About the Author

Naveen Gupta

Naveen Gupta is the founder and CEO of Fuel4Media Technologies. Fuel4Media is India’s fastest growing Mobile App Development, eCommerce Development, and Digital Marketing Company.

His forte lies in developing and executing innovative mobile and web technologies, digital marketing and mobile marketing strategies, and everything related to digital.