10 Things to Know BEFORE You Start an E-commerce Business

Introduction

It’s the perfect time to start an ecommerce business. In this article, I’ll share

• The basics of what goes into an E-Business. There are two basic types of products sold on the Internet, Digital and Physical. There are pros and cons to each.
• We’ll look briefly at the 10 top website platforms.
• Lastly, I’ll share with you 10 of my rules of engagement. These rules are guidelines that I’ve learned from over 30 years in business. My Marketing and Branding Agency is both a physical store and an online space.  

Getting Ready To Start an eCommerce Business

Brief about E-business and it’s history

E-Business or E-commerce is where you can electronically purchase goods and services between individuals, companies, and groups.  I’m talking about business done online, on the Internet.

Online commerce has been around ever since the Internet started in 1983.  Total global revenues of E-Commerce will hit over 4 trillion dollars this year.  They have been growing by nearly 20% per year for the past five years. Sales should exceed 6.5 Trillion dollars by the end of 2021.  

Like all brick and mortar stores, 2020 was a challenging year. In the United States, over 55% of small brick and mortar businesses have gone out of business in 2020, never to reopen.  I don’t have the stats on other country’s business closings. All high-touch companies have been affected. Especially service industry businesses and workers are limited.

Most companies have survived by increased their digital footprint. After working through 4 major market crashes now, I’ve developed some engagement rules when launching and running an online or E-Business.   For those courageous enough to enter into business online, these rules will help you to prosper.  

Even if your venture into E-Commerce is a side hustle for you, the work can be challenging because you have to learn things. Still, once you understand the work, the result is more thinking and creating than physical labor. Managing your own business can be very rewarding.  Let’s now look at the types of companies that we find online.

What are types of products can sell online?

There are many e-commerce opportunities, but they are separated mainly into two major categories. On one side are businesses that sell physical merchandise.   On the other side, companies selling digital merchandise.  

Total E-Commerce sales are estimated to top 800 Billion dollars in sales in just the United States in 2020.  

Digital products include software, media, images, video, sound, and applications. The profit margins on these digital type products and the passive income one can expect they are very high. 

Any product that does not require handling, shipping, or transportation can lead you to passive income.

You don’t need to know who to write code to develop and sell digital products. There are brands with white label rights that you can relabel and resell as your product. Code Canyon is a great source to purchase code to build a digital product.

These products are produced once and marketed or remarketed as often as they continue to be profitable. Examples of top-selling digital products include eBooks, Audio Courses, Graphic Designs, Video, Photography, Software-as-s-Service, as well as Productized Services.  

On the other hand, physical merchandise sales require manufacture, storage, inventory, shipping, and handling.  The bottom line is that Physical Merchandise requires more handling.

Despite the unique needs and lower margins, E-Commerce for physical goods has been growing exponentially. Increasingly people shop only online due to personal time constraints, scheduling, or physical limitations. 

One problem with Physical product e-business needs advertising to get initial sales. Paid advertising is an excellent source of momentum traffic. Laser targeted traffic. SEO and Search traffic takes longer to gain traction. Though free, it does take an and initial and ongoing time commitment and know-how to be effective.

Advantages to sell online

There are many advantages to selling Physical products online. One obvious advantage for small businesses is that it’s a virtual online store. Such a store does not have the same overhead costs of a physical location, a brick and mortar store. 

Drive More Visitors to your store

Views and searches on the Internet have replaced foot traffic to a store location. Over 70% of searches are on mobile devices and voice searches.  

An effective marketing campaign will increase traffic volume on its Website without spending a lot of money on advertisements.  Effective marketing begins with Search optimization. Before you can get customers into your virtual store, you need to get them to your virtual door.  

Strategies to increase sales

Once a potential buyer finds your store online, there are multiple strategies to show your offer and sell. An example of this is, Sellers of physical products can use digital downloads at the purchase checkout as an upsell or one-time offer. Experience shows you can get an immediate bump in revenue of 15%. It can be quick and easy to set up a small business website to sell digital products. Furthermore, digital product upsells as a companion to a physical product can be bundled together as long as they are congruent.  

What is Prelaunch Marketing?

You let people know about your product, brand, or service by Marketing. You make people aware that your product exists thru marketing. If you introduce something new, to be successful, you complete a process we call Prelaunch Marketing. If you do your prelaunch marketing correctly, you begin to build traction in the market. If done correctly, you develop name recognition. If you are bringing value to the market, you will start to grow a following.

It’s a fast way of testing to see any interest in your idea, brand, or product.  

Importance of Brand engagement

Brand engagement begins with community building.  Membership sites, loyalty programs, and a seamless mobile and desktop user experience enhance affiliation. User penetration so far is 46.6% in 2020 and is expected to hit 63.1% by 2025. In plain terms, that means that almost half of the population worldwide searched for a product online.  Whether digital or Physical products, slightly over 100% of people who made an online purchase in the past 12 months will make another online purchase within that same 12-month duration.

Platforms to Start your E-Business

Here are My top 10 best E-Commerce platforms and the specialty role each type of site represents.

Examples of the top-selling products on Physical merchandise websites include Shapewear, Travel accessories, Healthy and beauty products, Smartwatches, Health Care, Skin Care, Hobbies and Craft, Lamps, and Shades.

My top 10 best E-Commerce platforms include:

1. WIX: The Best Ecommerce Platform for Small Business ($23/month).
2. BigCommerce: Best Ecommerce Platform for Large Businesses ($29.95/mo). These are flexible sites and can grow as your business grows.
3. Shopify: Great Ecommerce Software ($29/month). Shopify is the best platform for Dropshipping services.
4. Square Online: For Retailers and Local Businesses (Free – $72/month). The big trend has been to move a brick and mortar business to an online presence to keep revenue flowing. Besides, Physical stores can increase revenues by increasing their digital presence. Branding messages can reach the masses faster, with less cost in advertising if done online.
5. Zyro: A New Ecommerce Platform Best for Multi-Channel Sales ($14.99/month).
6. Ecwid: The Best Online Store Builder For Existing Websites ($35/month).
7. 3dcart: Best Ecommerce Platform for Small Business Sites ($19/month).
8. Woocommerce: E-commerce Platform for WordPress. It’s Free + there are Tons of Paid Add-Ons to Automate it. Woocommerce is one of the most popular for Physical product sales.
9. Sellfy: Best for Bloggers and Creators ($19/month).  *Concerning Google Adsense – Blog Websites are a great way of regularly providing fresh, consistent, and unique content. Remember, Google rewards User Experience with a boost in organic SEO. Updated regularly with new content daily or sometimes intraday, Google will drive free traffic to them just because they bring value. Google’s way of rewarding creators of fresh and unique content. Some blogs post new content daily or even hourly. In turn, this attracts advertisers paying to have their ads displayed on the Website through the Google AdSense program.
10. Shop base: Best Platform for White-Label (Private label), Cross-Border Commerce, and Print-on-Demand ($19/month). This type of platform is perfect for selling AliExpress products.

Ecommerce is not only helpful for consumers and merchants; it is also extremely beneficial to website owners.

Ways to earn more as a website owner

To get the most out of their Website and increase its traffic, website owners can utilize e-commerce business models. Features such as web banner ads, Google Adsense, email marketing, free hosting, autoresponders, and website content syndication will boost traffic revenues. See the notation listed above Concerning Google Adsense.*

To save money, website owners can also explore promotional E-Business offers, such as free website templates and hosting with advertising credits. Website owners can also explore ways to attract customers, such as discount coupons, special discounts for new customers, free trial memberships, free domain, and free set-up. With these and many other benefits, it’s no wonder that E-commerce businesses are becoming more popular.

Small businesses can use their custom designs for their online store, which allows them to differentiate themselves from the competition. Custom look and custom logos play and significant part in branding.

Remember, the goal of introducing a Different Spin on an existing product or service is to address prior pain points associated with that product.  

Listen your customer feedback

Consumer feedback is critical market information that you can use to create a Different product that addresses any pain points or shortcomings of the previous product.  Audiences and group forums such as Facebook Groups play a big part in talking with niche-specific potential buyers. You can use surveys or hold Facebook live question and answer sessions. 

Market research helps you determine the need for a product. Keep consumer demand in mind when producing a product to sell. Just because you think it’s a good idea does not mean there is a demand for it.

Let me also share with you two critical things that have guided me in business. Firstly, Customer experience is at the heart of your activities as well as your communications. Secondly, Remember, there will always be more consumers than there are creators or sellers. You simply have to find a niche that you have a passion and some knowledge of and be comfortable sharing what you know.

Begin to market to your audience

There is so much freedom in running an online business. A few examples are as follows. Small companies can start an online store in any country worldwide. With an Internet connection available, you can build the platform for your E-Business. The venue is a website. Depending on the goal of your business, there are specialized websites to suit everyone’s needs. For existing businesses, it’s an excellent opportunity to expand into other markets. The Internet allows low startup costs because you don’t need to pay for office space or other equipment. Little to no capital is required, just time and specialized knowledge. I hope you can learn some technical expertise you need to succeed in any E-Business venture from this article.  

E-Businesses are easy to operate and are hassle-free.  Thru testing, anyone can find an effective marketing campaign that targets people in specific locations and demographics.

A shortcut to discovering what’s working in a niche is to visit a company website that offers the E-Business that interests you.

How to getting paid in E-Business?

Let’s talk about getting paid now. E-commerce allows for a large number of businesses to process credit cards. Especially useful for small, independent companies that need to process payments quickly and securely. 

The most common type of e-commerce used for payment processing involves C2B consumer and merchant accounts. C2B consumer account is for everyday purchases such as groceries, gas, etc. In contrast, merchant accounts are for significant assets such as airline tickets, cars, etc. There are also other types of E-commerce, including telestrator, ticketing, and membership websites. 

From my top 10 best website platforms list above, you can pick a website type that best suits your needs. Remember, as your business needs change, so can your Website. Don’t be overly concerned with that now. The key is to take action based on the information you are gathering.

I’ll be discussing the Best Platforms for SEO ranking in my upcoming article.  Search engine optimization will aid you in getting found on the Internet. These free strategies will pay you big time when running an E-Business.  

My Top 10 Rules of E-Business Engagement

Here now are 10 Rules of Engagement when running and E-Business.  These are tough lessons I’ve learned over the past 30 years in business, online, and off-line. If you follow these rules, you’ll make a great living and enjoy every minute of it.

1. Follow your passion. Pick a niche about which you enjoy thinking, writing, and talking. We call it a labor of love. 
2. Stick with what is working. It’s okay to be creative, but go where the traffic is. You want to get plenty of eyeballs to your brand, product, or service. After researching what other businesses dominate the niche you are entering, see how you can improve customer experience.
3. It’s okay to spend money on advertising. Especially in the beginning to get some momentum and brand awareness going.  You can expect to spend as much as 90 percent on paid ads initially and 10 percent on content marketing.  Once you get sales rolling, you will need to spend less on paid ads and more content marketing time. Organic, free methods such as SEO ranking, content creation, backlinking, and search strategies should comprise 60% of marketing efforts. The other 40% you should distribute to targeted paid ads.
4. Always remember that inventory kills.  An example is the Amazon model. You might buy a product cheaply, stock it with Amazon, and resell it at a higher price. If you keep inventory, you may have a ton of cash stagnating. What if you get into a price war with other sellers on Amazon? Pretty soon, you’re cutting your price and undercutting your projected initial profit margins. Now all of a sudden, your profit model has gone out the window. I would encourage you to stay away from Amazon initially.
5. Find a systematic model.  Amazon is the biggest marketplace. However, Amazon is a crowded marketplace and a competitive one.  Warning: Newbies avoid selling on Amazon and avoid keeping inventory.  
6. Reduce your product offerings. You have to be incredibly disciplined and not to offer too many products. The more products, the more inventory is needed. If you cannot avoid maintaining inventory, then reduce your product offerings: private Label programs may be a source of great opportunity. However, reduce the number of product offerings, and you’ll keep your risk and inventory down.
7. Carefully Vet your team members, avoid the naysayers. Once your team members are in place, give them responsibilities and firm deadlines. Find technical expertise with excellent communication and accountability skills. Once trained, Leave them alone and let them do their job. Always know how to do team members’ jobs to see if they are doing a good job or a lousy job, If they are working quickly or just puttering. The moment a good reliable team member turns into a bad one, give them the talk and show them the exit.
8. Remember, Marketing is more important than launching a new brand.  To successfully launch a new brand, Website, product, or service, you will need money to do paid targeted advertising. Be sure you have the resources to do the paid advertising. Paid Targeted advertising is essential to create a buzz. You should make money right away by making some sales. Do not proceed with your launch until you have the prelaunch marketing in place. Marketing is more important than the product itself. 
9. Begin marketing a new brand, product, or service before spending any money or resources developing a new product.  Now that’s a bold statement. You should be trying to survey interest in your new product, brand, or service to start with sales on launch day.
10. You should do a complete and proper prelaunch strategy with every new business, brand, or product launch.

Things are needed for Prelaunch strategy

• A website with virtual mockups, sales pages, check out pages, upsells, opt-ins, and thank you pages.  
• A custom logo helps build your brand. Symbols are a shortcut to words and stories.
• Emails and follow-up sequences so you can build a relationship and trust with your audience over time.  
• Social media pages, target audiences, and groups should be in place.
• Newsletter so you can continue to inform and educate your audience.
• YouTube Channel for video communication.  Remember, video converts eight times better than the written word. People would rather watch a video than any other medium.

Let’s review a few basic principles.

Think about topics you know and enjoy. That is the area you want to start your E-Business.

There will always be more creators than consumers, so don’t worry about saturation.

Begin by Survey a niche-specific audience. You can refine their needs for a new product by asking questions. If you communicate to and build your audience, they will reward you with trust and loyalty. Create your brand with custom logos and engage them on your Website. Communicate with them thru emails and social networks. You will create an audience that is aware of and engaged with your brand.  If you educate them thru a newsletter and YouTube channel, you bring value to them regularly. If you offer them a product, be sure you provide a complete product that addresses the people’s needs within their niche. 

Engagement, conversions, and sales are the reward for delivering value. The amount of time your audience spends with you and your resources is a statement of worth. Your YouTube videos and your Website both provide a forum that brings together a community of like-minded people. Community building gives people a sense of belonging. Belonging is a basic human need.  

See yourself as a community builder.  Help yourself and your community by preparing correctly. You want to be effective in your efforts. Always complete your prelaunch strategy before you launch any new brand, product, or service. Reaching out to your audience. Discover their pain points, struggles, and complaints. The result is you’ll get a huge leg up and make sales from day one. 

What an excellent service you can provide, bringing people together, giving value.

Instead of focusing on what you can sell them, focus on how you can serve them.

Your creative energy will flow into thinking of what great products and services you can provide for your community to use. As E-Business owners, we are merely fulfilling a need.

Conclusion

As a side note, dedicated to learning and teaching—service to others was a top priority. Every day, I’m grateful that I can make a good living by simply sharing what I know. I’ve found several niches that I know well and love talking about and engaging with people. My business partner Nagu is like-minded and helps me refine and direct my ideas to build our community.

My job is hassle-free.  My focus is on becoming a better communicator than I was yesterday.  I’m not interested in engaging an entire population. I’m only interested in the folks interested and excited about the same topics. Some folks will like and value these topics. Others will be repelled by what I’m saying. That’s okay. It is our goal and intention to help you find meaningful work. E-Business can be the source of fantastic freedom, creativity, and wealth.

Finding meaningful work is essential to my partner Nagendran Ponnan and me. Nagendran, we call him Nagu, is an engineer and holds a Master’s degree in computer science. He started his online business career back in 2006 and currently manages a team of engineers working on improving India’s online e-commerce platforms. He brings his technical expertise to the team and his laser focus and tireless work ethic. I’m thankful to have him. We help execute each other’s ideas. I’m grateful that you have joined us on this journey of discovery. Nagu and I always say if you can spend 5-10 minutes focused and learn something new that you can use, it’s time well spent. Thanks for your time and kind attention.