Over the past couple of years, people have grown more comfortable than ever shopping from their living room sofa. This practically means there’s never been a more favorable time to launch an eCommerce startup. Likewise, it has never been easier for small businesses to get into the eCommerce game, either.
In that regard, according to Statista, there are now over 2.14 billion active online shoppers worldwide. More than half of them shop more now than they ever did before the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Even more, online spending grew a staggering $183 billion over the past 365 days, with American citizens on track to spend north of $1 trillion in 2022. This would be a record amount if reached by the end of the year.
However, suppose you’re an eCommerce newbie. In that case, you may need some help developing your eCommerce startup regarding selecting the products to sell, learning how to build your shop from the ground up, finding your target audience, and closing the first deals.
To make things easier for you, we’ve gathered the most relevant information and tools you’ll probably need on your journey to launch your eCommerce startup both quickly and effectively.
Research and Concept-Test Your Idea
Before you launch your eCommerce startup, first, your should conduct a thorough market and product research to validate your idea and ensure that you’re using a viable business strategy:
- Test your concept with family and friends. Selling a new product that stands out from the rest is very important. However, to know that you have a product worth developing an eCommerce startup around, you should ask for the opinions of the people you know. Gathering this feedback is crucial to refining your product before going live.
- Find your niche. Did you know that many of the best product ideas are usually born from passions and hobbies? This is where you can discover a niche that no one is catering to.
- Define your target audience. Without a clearly defined target audience, your promotional efforts and sales will suffer. Even if your product is jaw-dropping and has never been seen before. For that reason, before you launch your business, ensure that you have statistical data related to your audience’s gender, age, marital status, household income, educational level, and location.
Register Your Business and Pick a Brand Name
If you want to launch a successful startup, you’ll definitely need to create a brand that will associate and connect with your target persona. In fact, knowing your target persona makes everything about building an eCommerce startup much, much easier.
For example, if you’re going to sell products to corporate, mid-aged businesswomen interested in living a more sustainable life, you might want to avoid girly images and colors when designing your shop.
But, before you get down to designing your eCommerce shop, you will need to register your business and select a catchy brand name. Select a unique business name and register your company. If you’re having trouble finding a catchy name for your eCommerce startup, you can always use an AI-powered business name generator that will help you find your perfect business name in a matter of seconds. Just make sure that whatever you select fits your particular niche.
Select a Theme for Your Store
Next in line is finding the fitting platform with the design options. This is to suit your future store’s own set of styles to get started. Most platforms offer free templates and paid options as well. The truth is that using a paid theme for your store is frequently more affordable than hiring a developer to design your eCommerce shop from scratch.
Furthermore, the most famous eCommerce platforms enable you to seamlessly customize their apps and plugins, which are essentially separate pieces of software that can add new functionalities to your theme and make your shop look even better. Some of these apps and plugins include email marketing databases, eCommerce functionality, add-on blogs, payment getaways, website analytics, and social media and SEO promotional tools.
Customer Service Matters More Than What You Might Think
While reputation might be among the last things on your mind, keep in mind that the repercussions of a bad reputation may disable your company before you even get truly started. In that context, you could implement a few low-cost measures right from the start to help your company deal with any arising issues and prevent poor online reputation. These measures include:
- Set up a different email for customer care;
- Always be quick to respond and fix any issue;
- Make sure to equip your customer service team with good-templated responses;
- Create an FAQ page for the most popular questions or complaints;
- Be generous with discounts and freebies for unhappy clients.
Final Words
This is by no means a comprehensive list of tips for creating your first eCommerce startup. Still, the above-mentioned four key tips might prove crucial. As once you’ve gone through them, you can launch your startup with confidence. And one more tip: don’t forget to enjoy the process of building your eCommerce empire along the way.