Starting an eCommerce store is a great way to create your own business. Online sales are booming and will likely continue to increase in the future. Believe it or not, the total eCommerce sales in 2022 are expected to cross $1 trillion for the first time.
However, starting a store doesn’t mean you can easily make sales.
You’ll need to learn a few things before starting an eCommerce business. Keep reading to learn how to start an eCommerce store.
Table of Contents
1. Research Your Niche and Industry
The first step to getting started in the eCommerce world is to figure out what you want to sell. If you’re starting from scratch and just want a store, you’ll need to do market research to determine your most ideal products.
Think of the products you want to sell and see what’s currently on the market. Try to see if there is something popular already selling. If so, there’s market demand for your offering.
The same is true if you’re creating your own product. You’ll want to see if your product solves a problem and if people are willing to pay for a solution.
If you don’t get enough information with research, you’ll need to demo your product to customers. Ideally, you’ll get feedback that will help validate your idea and refine your product to make it better.
2. Pick Your Business Name
Your business name is a critical part of starting an eCommerce business. It’s what your customers will think of when they want to buy one of your products.
Ideally, you’ll get something that’s memorable. You don’t necessarily want to be generic and use your product in the name. However, you don’t want something completely irrelevant to what you offer.
Look at your competitors to see how they handle their business names. Use those names to come up with inspiration for your store’s name.
Once you have your name, talk about it with people who may have an interest in your products. They’ll help you determine if a brand name is worth considering.
3. Get a Business License
Once you have your business name and product, it’s time to form your business. You don’t want to start as an individual and take on personal risk. You want to create a business structure that protects your business and personal assets.
If you plan to do this independently, an LLC will work fine. It’s a pass-through business structure that separates your personal and business life. You can even create an LLC partnership and start your company with a partner.
However, you’ll need more structure if you plan to grow a big business and hire employees. A corporation will give you that structure. You’ll be on the payroll for your business and can hire all the help you need to run your company.
4. Choose an eCommerce Platform
Once you have your business structure in place, you need a place to sell your products online. Luckily, that’s easier than ever to do these days.
Many hosted eCommerce platforms allow you to set up a store in a few minutes. Shopify and BigCommerce are two of the biggest ones. You don’t need any programming knowledge and don’t need to set up any software yourself.
You can also self-host an eCommerce store. WordPress, for instance, has an eCommerce plugin called WooCommerce that integrates eCommerce abilities in WordPress. You can also use standalone stores like Magento and host them on your own web server.
5. Design Your eCommerce Store
When you decide on your eCommerce platform, you’re ready to design your store. Luckily, that isn’t hard to do these days.
There are themes available like https://debutify.com/theme/ that will install a theme with a few clicks of a button. It’s a great way to get your store up and running quickly.
However, you can still work with a designer to create a custom design if you want something more unique. There are countless designers for every eCommerce platform, so check the pricing to see if a custom design makes more sense.
6. Source Your Products
You’ll need to have products before you launch your new store. That means you’ll need to find reliable suppliers to meet the demand of your customers.
One way to do this is dropshipping. Instead of stocking items yourself, you’ll sell products in your store and send the order to your supplier. You’ll have a smaller profit margin, but you won’t need to deal with inventory yourself.
You’ll need to find a manufacturer to create your products if you have something unique. Send your design to the manufacturers you find and get quotes for production. Make sure you check each company’s history to work with a reputable company.
7. Market Your Store
With how competitive the online space is, you won’t get attention just by opening a store. You’ll need to create a marketing plan to get attention for your products.
One common place eCommerce store owners start is social media. They create accounts to get followers and post informative content for their fans. This content can go viral and bring more attention to your store.
Of course, there are other marketing methods like SEO and paid ads. Investigate each one to see which offers the best value for the money.
Now You Know How to Start an eCommerce Store
Starting an online store is easy enough, but turning it into a success is another matter. Many eCommerce companies will compete with you, so you need to learn how to start an eCommerce company the right way. Now that you know more about starting an eCommerce store, make sure you do things right to maximize your chance of success.
Check out the blog to find more tips that will help you send customers to your new online store.
