5 Make Or Break Factors To Consider Before Starting an ECommerce Business
Selling things on the internet is what an ecommerce business does, and with lots of skill and a little luck, it can be highly profitable as well. However, before you jump in with both feet it is important to carefully consider the following factors, as they can make or break your ecommerce business efforts.
Is there a genuine market for your products?
First of all, it’s important to understand that the ecommerce market is highly competitive right now. This is due to many things including how easy and quick it is to set up such a store, meaning just about anyone can do it, as well as the increasing popularity of online shopping.
What this means is that before you jump into the waters of ecommerce it’s a good idea to check to see that there is a genuine market for the specific products you will be selling. Market research can be very helpful for this, as can competitor analysis if there are already 10 sites with the same items you will at the same price or cheaper, it’s unlikely that your site will get many sales.
Which ecommerce platform will you use?
You could always have an ecommerce store built for you from scratch, but this is likely to be very expensive and need constant updating. Also, not even all the biggest names in retail have scratch-build sites, preferring instead to use established platforms like Shopify, Magneto, Wix, WooCommerce, and Square Space.
Before choosing an ecommerce platform be sure to look at the different features and services they offer including whether it’s easy to use by customers, whether it’s built for SEO, whether it offers sufficient security and whether it can easily be integrated with other software.
Last of all, whichever ecommerce platform you choose, be sure it offers top-class customer service. You don’t want to be waiting on hold or for an email reply for hours when you have a major problem with your site.
How will you accept payments?
One of the most essential aspects of running an ecommerce site is being able to accept customer payments online. Indeed, this can be one of the most challenging aspects of e-commerce because problems at the payment stage of the buying process can be disastrous in that they can cause customers to abandon their cart and for your business to lose a sale.
That is why you must pick well from the various payment APIs that are on offer. Payment APIs are a technology that allows you to take payments on your website easily, securely and quickly. Remember customers care about all three of these things ease, security, and speed so by providing them with payment options that meet these requirements you can ensure as many people proceed with a purchase on your eCommerce store as possible.
How will you approach SEO?
When running an e-commerce business SEO is crucial to success. This is because good SEO will ensure that your store comes up in the results when someone searches for a term related to it.
There are many different aspects to SEO, which can be broadly split into on-site and offsite. Onsite SEO for an ecommerce store includes any actions you take on your website to make it easier to find online including:
- Optimizing product pages
- Keywords
- Internal linking
- Optimize website speed
- URLs should be SEO-friendly
- Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
Offsite SEO for an ecommerce store is anything you do outside of your site to help your store get found online including:
- Social media marketing and brand mentions
- Content marketing and guest posts
- Influencer campaigns.
- Affiliate marketing
- Local SEO and review sites
- Q-and-A sites.
What delivery and return options will you offer your customers?
Last of all, when selling to people online it’s vital to remember that there are more barriers than when selling to people in real life. Once such barrier is the concern that because they cannot see, test, or try the product at the time of purchase it may not be right, and so the customer will need to return it. Indeed, it is this concern about making a return and the hassle and time involved that can keep many customers from going ahead with a purchase. That is why it’s so important to consider the returns and delivery options you offer your customers carefully.
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Ideally, you will offer fast delivery for free or at a low cost. Similarly, offering free, easy-to-process returns will help break down this barrier and shorten the journey between seeing and liking your product and buying it online.
Salman Zafar is an ecopreneur, consultant, advisor, speaker and journalist with expertise in waste management, waste-to-energy, renewable energy, environment protection, conservation and sustainable development. His geographical areas of focus include Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe. Salman is the Founder of EcoMENA, a popular voluntary organization based in Qatar. He is also the Founder and CEO of BioEnergy Consult, a reputed consulting firm active in biomass, waste-to-energy and waste management segments.
Salman is a professional environmental writer with more than 350 popular articles to his credit. He is proactively engaged in creating mass environmental awareness in different parts of the world.
Salman Zafar can be reached at salman@ecomena.org or salman@bioenergyconsult.com
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