What You Need To Know Before Starting Your E-commerce journey

In today’s market landscape, many businesses are looking to partially (or even completely) shift their operations online. More people are looking to find new ways to connect with their customer base online. Accordingly, commence is an exciting avenue for success for both product and service-oriented businesses. Through leveraging an online platform, businesses can begin their e-commerce journey and expand their user base. 

Yet, for a business that has mostly worked offline, it is difficult to begin a successful ecommerce journey. While it may be simple to set up shop, a successful ecommerce business must also have a strong revenue model. Creating a plan of action is necessary to prioritise your resources as you develop your new ecommerce business model.

In this article, Team Luxeveda outlines some of the foundations of a business’ ecommerce journey. Indeed, the key difference between failure and success of ecommerce stores lies in initial steps taken to develop the business model. Stages like branding, investment and marketing play an important role in the future prediction of an ecommerce business. 

Researching Business Models and Competitors:

Before beginning your ecommerce journey, you need to understand the different business models available to create a blueprint for your business structure. These include models like dropshipping, wholesaling or warehousing model and a white labeling and manufacturing model. Overwhelming as it is, research is integral to the success of your e-commerce store. 

Once you have chosen a business model, it is important to understand your competition in the same space. This is especially true if your competitors have experience using ecommerce and you are just beginning to make this transition. For example, do competitors invest heavily in marketing right from the beginning?

Knowing the amount of resources required to invest in your e-commerce journey will affect your product range, web development and other essential features. Indeed, research will help you identify ways to improve your current products or venture into other relative products. Furthermore, it can help you differentiate yourself from your competition so that customers see the value of your product. Consequently, this will motivate you to execute creative marketing campaigns like subscriptions, where products can be delivered at regular intervals to your customers.

Understanding Early-Stage Marketing:

To build your store, first choose a website theme that suits your target audience and prices that reflect your business goals and value proposition. When your website is ready from both a front and backend perspective, do a test order to make sure the process is smooth for the customer. Remove all unnecessary steps needed to buy something and only ask for information that is essential for the check out process. 

After the store launch, concentrate heavily on ecommerce marketing. Take time to find the right channel for your products and perfect your marketing strategy. Once you get to a comfortable stage with your marketing, optimise your store design and invest in great branding. Ecommerce marketing will make your company stand out from your competitors and help generate sales.

Best-In-Class Customer Service:

Relevant and timely customer service is essential to your business’ e-commerce journey. The bare minimum you should offer is live chat support and product reviews to build trust with your customers. These will give your store valuable social proof and create loyal customers. Over and above, your customer service should extend to your customers even after their purchase by showing them relevant information and offers that they can avail. This will keep them connected to your commerce business and your business community. 

Clearly, every e-commerce journey is unique to a business. It is important to develop your own e-commerce business plan and focus on a revenue-generating model. Learn by doing. Invest funds into an e-commerce marketing plan to sustain business growth. If you are looking for a comprehensive marketing plan for your e-commerce business, contact Luxeveda for tailored services and insights.