Market enthusiasts have rightly said not everyone possesses the art of running a business but if you think you can be the one, the recent craze of online shopping has made it easier for you. Now setting up a business does not cost you your lifetime wealth, time, or even test your technical expertise. A recent marketing survey has shown that around 17.2% of the retail sales are composed of eCommerce selling accounts whereas online shopping in itself is expanding at the rate of 13.7%. So if you are looking for any motivation on how to set up an online store along with your brick and mortar business, now is the time.
From creating a fusion of your own to selecting from the diverse range of businesses like selling products, dropshipping, warehousing, wholesaling, or even private labeling, eCommerce comes with a pool of options. To further simplify your needs in setting up an online store we have discussed five main steps to launch an ecological yet sustainably running online store.
1. Product/Niche Selection Accuracy
In order to begin with how to set up an online store, the foremost step is to find the product or niche which is the soul of your online selling platform. Here you must select the option which is rare or holds a significant touch of your individuality yet meets the demand and supply nature of the market in the longer run.
By choosing the term right niche or right product we mean that your selected option must show your individuality with the spice of uniqueness. As it will ultimately be the reason for your store’s ecological success.
2. Filling The Industry Gaps
Though when you will first step into the ocean of e-commerce retailing you would feel all the right niches are already taken. That’s totally a matter. With the usage of apt keyword research for niche selection, conduction of S.W.O.T. analysis, and efforts you can still find the unfulfilled gaps and demands of consumers. And yes, here you’ll rise and begin to serve as a consumer’s hero or their true savior.
In order to be more accurate with findings of industrial gaps you can hop on to:
- Researching through social media the complaints requests or recommendations of consumers.
- Hopping on google trends to contrast or compare the search volume of products.
- Studying top sellers and finding out what their consumers ate missing or complaining about.
3. Forum Preferences
After the selection of a niche, the most crucial step is to identify which form of eCommerce platform you want in the search of how to set up an online store. To ease the confusion you can also go for eCommerce service providers or builders but before that select which form of eCommerce, you are willing to have. The options include;
- Buying a domain with the hiring of professional developers to start it from scratch
- Getting a domain with the option of an open-sourced eCommerce forum
- Simply purchasing an established online platform
4. Designing The Interface
Though the idea of judging the book by its copper is considered shallow by many, in the case of how to set up an online store you must care about how the online store will give its first impression. That can only be created through designing a picture-perfect yet user-friendly website interface. Make sure your selected layout or theme is the actual depiction of your business’s nature whereas customized forms of layouts may offer you the following options to design the site;
- Customization of text sizes
- Addition of branded assets with high-resolution visuals
- Color scheme configurations
- Embedment of social media handles
- Experimentation with listing of products with diverse and creative page layouts
5. Mastering Marketing
Wait, your struggle has just begun as the main task of promoting your site has arrived i.e. marketing the platform. The idea of promotion has become the easiest with the help of marketing your platform through different online channels, SEO ads as well as social networking advertisements.
Ads highly help in increasing the visibility of your brand’s content as well as uplifting your revenues. Firstly, you can earn from running ad campaigns through google ad revenue. Secondly, you can generate bigger sales as the more the ads will be run around different sites the greater will be the visibility, and the higher will be the number of viewers who are your ultimate potential buyers.
With the higher recommendation of other digital marketing methodologies, you can also opt for blogging, online advertising, and running social media campaigns.
The Bottom Line
The scope of setting up an online business has been increasing with each passing hour with the uncanny indulgence of digitization in mundane lifestyles. Having said that 50% of the time of today’s generation is spent on mobile phones which is a good touchpoint to connect with a variety of interactions all around the funnel.
Setting up an online store is yet another example where one can easily generate higher profits especially if following ecological business practices. So don’t forget to go green and shine as bright as the queen!
