Online E-Commerce Store

Online E-Commerce Store

How to create e-commerce store, different platforms, benefits and what is drop shipping?

Just put, an online e-commerce store is any site where a user can purchase something. Perhaps the most well known e-commerce site is Amazon.com, though e-commerce sites come in many different shapes and forms. The thing being purchased can be a physical item, like a book or clothing, or something intangible like a service or a hotel reservation. As long as money is being transacted on the website in exchange for a good or service, it's an online e-commerce store.

Different platforms

By chance several platforms exist to make it easier than ever to launch an e-commerce store. Once you've determined what you'll be selling and you'll need to choose which platform to use. After that, the next steps include designing the appearance of your store (including any customization), adding the products for sale, and in some cases setting up a payment gateway. While e-commerce platforms guide you through a lot of these steps, experts are also available to help you launch your e-commerce store.

There are a multitude of e-commerce platforms to choose from, however the most common are Shopify, Woocommerce, and Magento. They each offer their own drawbacks and benefits. For instance, Woocommerce is great for small businesses, but it is a WordPress plug-in and not a standalone platform. Shopify is extremely affordable and easy-to-use, but doesn't offer complete flexibility. Magento offers a robust platform with a lot of flexibility, but it may be more costly and complicated.

Drop shipping :

is a mode of e-commerce in which the seller doesn't actually keep the item(s) they're selling in stock. Rather, when someone purchases an item, the seller acquires it from a third party and then sends it to the buyer. Drop shipping is beneficial to the seller because they don't carry any risk of unsold inventory and don't have to lay out much capital to get started. However, it also presents challenges, such as low margins and potential snafus with inventory of third-party sellers. Best drop shipping platforms of online e-commerce store are Doba, Oberlo, Dropship Direct, Sunrise Wholesale, Wholesale 2B.

How to Build an Online Store :

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1. Find your perfect e-commerce website builder.
2. Choose the best plan for you.
3. Get a domain name for your store.
4. Pick your e-commerce template.
5. Customize your e-commerce template.
6. Add your products.
7. Set up payment methods.
8. Sort out your shipping settings.
9. Preview, test and publish your online store.

Select a niche

The niche you select needs to be laser-focused and something you are genuinely interested in. A product range that isn’t focused will be difficult to market. If you aren’t passionate about the niche you select, you will be more apt to becoming discouraged, because it takes a lot of work to successfully scale online e-commerce store. Here are some points to consider when selecting your niche.

Perform competition research.

Remember, you will be competing with other drop shipping operations as well as retail giants such as Walmart and Amazon. This is where a lot of potential drop shippers go wrong, because they look for a product that has little to no competition. That’s a sign there isn’t demand for that particular product.

There are many reasons why a product might not have a lot of competition, including high shipping costs, supplier and manufacturing issues or poor profit margins. Look for products that have competition, as it’s a sign that there is a high demand and the business model is sustainable. 

Secure a supplier

Partnering with the wrong supplier can ruin your business, so it’s important that you don’t rush this step. Conduct proper due diligence. Most drop shipping suppliers are located overseas, making communication extremely important, both in terms of response speed and the ability to understand each other. If you are not 100 percent confident in the communication abilities of a potential supplier, move on and continue your search.

Alibaba has become one of the largest online resources to identify and communicate with potential manufacturers and suppliers. Make sure to ask a lot of questions and learn what their production capabilities are in the event that your business grows exponentially. You want to be certain they have the ability to scale with you.

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Build your ecommerce website

The fastest way to launch a website that supports a drop shipping business model is to use a simple ecommerce platform such as Shopify. You don’t need a tech background to get up and running, and it has plenty of apps to help increase sales.

Even if you have a sizable budget that would allow you to hire a web design and development company to create a custom solution, it’s a much wiser move to use one of the plug-and-play options, especially in the beginning. Once you are established and the revenue is coming in, then you can explore additional website customization.

Create a customer acquisition plan

Having a great product and a website is great, but without customers looking to buy, you don’t have a business. There are several ways to attract potential customers, but the most effective option is to start a Facebook ad campaign.

This allows you to generate sales and revenue right from the start, which can contribute to quick scaling. Facebook allows you to place your offer directly in front of a highly targeted audience. This gives you the ability to compete with the largest brands and retailers immediately.

Analyze and optimize

You need to track all of the data and metrics available to grow your online e-commerce store. This includes Google Analytics traffic and Facebook conversion pixel data, if that is your main customer acquisition channel. When you are able to track every single conversion -- to know where the customer originated from and what path they took on your website that eventually led to a sale -- it enables you to scale what works and eliminate what doesn’t.

You will never have a set-and-forget advertising or marketing solution. You need to constantly test new opportunities and fine-tune current campaigns, which allows you to know when to optimize or shift campaign spend.

High quality web design

Adding to that precedent, by general rule of thumb, consumers make a first impression of your site within 10 seconds. It goes without saying that quality online store design can make or break customer retention.

Crowded web design is one of the most popular mistakes made by small businesses. Too much content (e.g. text, visuals, advertisements) can steer customers away from your site due to feeling frustrated and overwhelmed.

Other common mishaps include lack of call to action (CTA) buttons and whitespace, poor web typography, and hidden navigation.

What can you do to attract your customers? Implement a flat design, a modern-day user interface (UI) approach – recognizable by its simplistic, clean, and less data-heavy characteristics.

Clear CTA buttons, legible, typography, crisp imagery, and an easy path-to-purchase all promote coenfidence in your customers’ experience with your online store.

High quality product photos and description

Convince your customers that your site is the one for them by implementing standards for product images and descriptions.

Your high-quality product image standard should include these three rules -

Each product should be captured at different angles (bonus points if you enable 360 image view functionality, like this one.

Each product should be displayed on a solid color background (preferably white).

Each product should have a marketing styled photo (e.g. a modeled handbag).

When it comes to product descriptions, your standard should include these three rules:

Each description should be clear and concise, only including attributes and product type.

Each description should be written in title case.

Each description should include relative search engine optimization (SEO) product keywords.

Your online business’s marketing strategy will benefit from high-quality photos and product descriptions.