The idea and the concept of e-commerce is the activity of electronically buying or selling products online over the internet. This process requires electronic gadgets like mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management system, and automated data collection system. The process of e-commerce is driven by technological advancements and is the largest sector of the electronics industry.
Modern electronic commerce uses the world wide web for at least one part of the transactions life cycle, although it could also use e-mail. Typical e-commerce purchases include books, bags, groceries, medicines, and to a lesser extent, customized/personalized liquor store inventory services.
Understanding how to Build, Launch, and Grow a profitable online store.
a) Identifying the product To Sell: Passion for your product
We often hear that in the world of business, we need to follow our minds and not our hearts. But with eCommerce, this is not the case. Here, when the customers are passionate about something they will always be ready to spend more money, directly or indirectly generating our needs.
b) Where to look for product ideas and how?
–Write your own plan: To give your business a good start, first and foremost it’s important to draft a plan that helps to execute your ideas in a proper and systematic way so that if something gets missed in the future, the plan can be worked upon and updated.
–Where to identify your need? This point should make you think, from where can you fetch your ideas, that you are willing to sell online. You can start it with your own needs as well.
–Look in your vicinity: In the time that we are living presently, it is important to make ourselves competitive enough so that we can exist with the ongoing competition. To make this point successful, one can fetch ideas from around, or what they see. Example: If there’s some lady who is well versed with the skill of stitching work, one could help her with providing ideas on her social media platform. This could be your unique approach in promoting the business too.
c) Social Media Networking
In today’s social media age, all of us are connected on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Linked In, and other social media handles. Keeping in touch on these platforms increases social awareness as well as, one can get ideas too.
These sites have several groups that allow people to join them, free of cost. These groups are a good platform to fetch unique ideas.
d) It is very important that you obtain the product: Up until now, we gathered information about which product could be sold online and from where can we get the potential audience for the product.
It is equally important to know, which products should be sold, which ones are required to be manufactured, or which are the ones, you will pay for to some other manufacturers.
e) Make your own product: Making your own product will give you a level of satisfaction that you will not get if you are purchasing it from someone else. But manufacturing a product includes some advantages as well as some disadvantages.
f) Setting up the business: Setting up the business is the most important step which may have several aspects like setting up your store name, logo, tag line, etc. We will discuss each one in detail. It includes:
A) Naming the business:
Apart from finding the best product to be sold through online platforms, the first step is to find the name of the products. We have to keep in mind, that naming the product will also create the identity of the product. The name has to be so unique that it creates an impact in the mind of the people. Some important aspects we need to pay attention to:
- Try to keep the name of the business short, simple as well different than that of the rest!
- Create your own logo: After you have decided on a name for your online store, and registered your domain also, you have to create a logo for your brand. This should be unique and must have its own essence. This can be done with the help of a professional.
- After creating your logo it`s important to build a store, the way it should look over the website. It might so happen, that you have to also do a photoshoot of your product and store as well.
B) Launch of the Online Website
After you are ready with the name, design, and logo of the website, it’s time for it to be launched! The first question that arises with this process is regarding the shipping partner, the shipping strategy that needs to be used, and the range of the products that you wish to launch.
C) Post Launch:
The post-launch of your online store is a mammoth task. There are some basic steps of the post-launch period:
- Market your product: Marketing your product is hectic work. It requires proper marketing of the product so that you could receive the fruits of your hard work.
- Google and ad words: Both of these are tools of google that help in speeding up the sale.
- Enlarge your social circle: To market your product well, it’s necessary to also enlarge your product. This means, the more social you become and your horizons widen up, you will be able to speak about your product more and let it reach people by word of mouth.
- Facebook Marketing: Facebook is a place, where you can even create your own store, by availing paid service. This will help in garnering consistency in your store and more people will be connected to you, and it will ultimately help in the promotion of your brand.
- Email Marketing: Email marketing is another marketing aspect that lets you deliver your message to the target audience of your product. The one thing that you require for this is a stable database, and hiring some experts could also help, as they push laces of emails on their database.
D) The Role of Inventory management:
Inventory management software like ZapERP Software will help you to manage your stocks from your warehouse. It makes the entire process of fulfilling the client’s needs on time, fast and easy. Inventory management makes sure that your stocks are optimal, are neither less nor more. Inventory represents one of the most important assets of a business because the turnover of inventory represents one of the primary sources of revenue generation and subsequent earnings for the company’s shareholders.
The entire process of building, launching, and growing your online store depends upon this structured process. It is a highly time-consuming process. But, trying to design your own online store after thorough research on the target audience, the range of products, the stocks, and other elements that are required to make your online store a success, will help you develop a profitable business for yourself.
Start using ZapInventory today
