When you think of starting an E-commerce startup, you might become overwhelmed with all the questions you have. At first, you might get confused about where to start and what things you need to do. When you first decide to start a startup, you might have thought it would be fun, and you can make quick money. But when you step into any business, sooner or later, you realize that you need to do a lot of hard work.
2020 was a nightmare year for every business, and the world’s economy collapsed. Still, people learned the importance of doing business online and that it is profitable even during a pandemic. You don’t need office space initially; you can start your e-commerce startup anywhere; your system and a good internet connection are all you need. Except this what matters is your hard work and dedication to your business.
Now let’s start the online business journey; kindly read till the end to get the full information and benefits to help your top e-commerce startup business. Here are the six important things to know before starting an online business.
1. Create a foolproof business plan
Before you begin to start your e-commerce business, you must look out for a suitable business plan. Appropriate planning of the business is the first step and the foundation of every business. Although your plan should include a forte in which you are going to work, at the same time.
2. Contact Sellers
After forming a business model, one must contact sellers and ask for their support. This would avoid the situation where you have a marketplace but no seller to sell on your eCommerce platform.
3. Choose the right seller
Even after the strategy, things might not work when you choose the wrong seller. Therefore, even outlining the business’s idea, it becomes crucial to choose the right seller and check what kind of product they will sell on your platform. Check the seller’s background and ask them from where they buy products because there are a lot of fake products available in the market. And in this case, your brand name will suffer loss if any customer gets a fake product from your platform. Customers will hardly remember the name of sellers, they will remember from which platform they bought the product.
4. The domain name and site location
Once you are done mapping out the business idea and choosing the right sellers After this, you can proceed to set up your very own first official website and begin with your online business. However, in case you do not have much knowledge about the domain name and site location. In that case, it is always preferred to hire an expert who can give you the appropriate knowledge.
5. Adequate use of social media
Gone are those days when during the initial days, we thought social media platforms are just for chatting and stocking other profiles. In the last 10-15 years, social media became one of the strongest mediums to sell and advertise any brand and its products globally. Have you heard about startups like Nothing, Noise, and many others? These are the popular brands when it comes to music and accessories. They don’t have a retail outlet. They only sell their product on the e-commerce platform.
Whenever they launch a new product, they knock on the door of social media and start advertising their new products across various social media platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and many others. If your platform becomes popular then you will get a chance to collaborate with brands and sell exclusive products from your online platform, for instance, flash sales and first launch products. ‘Nothing’ an electronic brand launched their first TWS on Flipkart.
6. Ask for customer feedback
Well, to know whether your online platform is useful to customers or not, it is always important to ask for customer feedback. Customer feedback decides a path, and it gives you an idea of whether your e-commerce platform gives value to customers or not. If there is some negative feedback, don’t panic and don’t show anger. Always reply to your customers and assure them that you will take this complaint on high priority and improve the services.
Always remember every customer has their own point of view, and personal opinion might vary. So all you need is to analyze the reviews, and you will probably figure out the problems that your customers expect from you. And give assurance that you will improve your services.
Every online business and entrepreneurship is a mix of guts and glory. There are highs and lows as well. While hustling for the reward, you must never forget that all these lessons would add to your experience of starting a business on a large scale.
Keep these few things in mind, start with the best and prepare for the worst. Good luck.
