A quick, helpful e-commerce checklist for critical points you need to consider before you start an eCommerce business.
E-Commerce also is known as Electronic Business is the trade of goods and services online over the internet also known as Online Shopping.
E-Commerce is shaping the future of shopping. It is so convenient and easy that billions of customers are shopping via E-Commerce.
At the end of this article, you will also be able to start your E-Commerce business and make income. Here are the things to consider before starting an E-Commerce business.
The Essential e-commerce checklist for Every fresh Ecommerce Site
1. Niche Research
Profitable Niche Research is the key point to success in E-Commerce. You have to consider niche before starting an E-Commerce business.
However, the main idea is that the niche you select should be profitable, high demanding and have less competition.
Here is the list of the niches to consider in the E-Commerce business in 2020.
In fact, if you have a budget you can pick up any niche and can start your E-Commerce business.
However, before picking up a niche in E-Commerce business you do have to ensure that the niche you pick is demanding in the area which you target.
Besides, you also have products related to that particular niche.
As there are tons of E-Commerce stores on the web so picking up less competitive niche and products is the key to your success in the E-Commerce business.
Here is a list of the top trending products in E-Commerce these days.
- Bluetooth Speakers
- Drones and Accessories
- Online Food Delivery
- LED Lightning
- Tea and Matcha Powder
- Hair Removal
- Dog Bowls
- Make up
- Party Accessories
- Cellulite Removal
- E-Cigarettes
- Subscription Boxes
- Denim
- Shapewear
- Magnetic Phone Accessories
- Watches
- Natural Hair Products
- Men and Women Fashion
- Outdoor Speakers
2. Great Website Design
Great Website Design is the second most important factor that will ensure your success in E-Commerce.
Before starting any E-Commerce business, you have to estimate the cost of developing a website as well as maintaining it.
E-Commerce website allows you to transfer goods and funds online.
Gone, are the days when E-Commerce is done through E-mails and phone calls. Now with a great website you can carry every aspect of the shopping online.
Here are the four types of E-Commerce websites
Business to Consumer (B2C): B2C E-Commerce website allows the business to sell products and services to consumers.
Consumer to Business (C2B): C2B E-Commerce website allows consumers to sell their products or services to the business for example Social Media Influencers like Instagram Celebrities make money through Influencer Marketing.
Consumer to Consumer (C2C): C2C E-Commerce website allows the exchange of goods and services between consumers with the involvement of the third party. For example, OLX.
Business to Business (B2B): B2B E-Commerce website allows the exchange of goods and services between businesses.
Following are the world’s leading E-Commerce websites.
- Amazon
- Ali Baba
- E-Bay
- Walmart
- Taobao
- Etsy
- AliExpress
E-Commerce website allows you to showcase your business’s products and services to a worldwide community.
It has a wide range of benefits over the physical stores. E-Commerce website allows you to make sales worldwide, besides, it is also much beneficial form of business.
You don’t need to be a web developer or software engineer to build your E-Commerce store.
Nowadays there are tons of tools out in the market that will allow you to develop and customize your E-Commerce store. WIX and WordPress are some of the best examples.
In this regard, you can also hire a web developer that will make the job much easier.
Besides, different E-Commerce as well as website development tools exist in the market with which you can develop any type of E-Commerce store.
Here is a list of the top 5 best E-Commerce website builders that can aid you in the development of your E-Commerce store in 2020.
- Woo Commerce and WordPress
- Shopify
- Magento
- WIX
- Big Commerce
Woo Commerce and WordPress are considered as one of the best platforms to build any type of E-Commerce store.
With Woo Commerce and WordPress, you can create your E-Commerce store on your own.
Besides, here you can also hire a web developer if you need advance functionality in your E-Commerce store.
Here are the top steps to start your E-Commerce business using Woo Commerce and WordPress.
- Select domain and hosting
- Install WordPress
- Install Woo Commerce Plugin
- Install and Activate Theme
- Optimize the website speed
- Add products to your E-Commerce website
All is done your E-Commerce store is live now. You are now fully in the position to make money.
In this way, great website design and great website development will allow you to stand apart in the competition and will differentiate you from your competitors.
3.Mobile Friendliness
46% of searches are performed on mobile while 48% of users will leave your site if it failed to download in 3 seconds due to technical problems.
According to Google statistics, 50% of all the searches performed on Google are with the help of mobile.
As 50% of all the searches are performed on mobile therefore, mobile-friendliness is one of the most important factors in the success of your E-Commerce Store.
By the end of 2020, more than 35% of all E-Commerce sales will be conducted through mobile.
In other studies and according to analysts an estimate of 53.9% of all e-commerce sales will occur on mobile devices. Globally, mobile commerce is supposed to even more widespread:
In 2020, if you want to stand apart in the competition you have to optimize your website for all the devices especially mobile.
4. Digital Marketing
E-Commerce is one of the forms of digital marketing.
If you are making your way into E-Commerce you have to calculate the amount of budget that digital marketing demands. Besides, it is also essential to understand digital marketing in detail.
The definition of digital marketing is very the same as traditional marketing.
To make your products or services more prominent in front of the audience and to generate leads for your business.
However, the working of digital marketing is very different than traditional marketing.
Digital Marketing allows you to market your E-Commerce business on digital media that is growing by leaps and bounds these days.
Billions of users are using digital media, while marketers are taking it as an opportunity and capturing the traffic on such digital mediums to grow their business.
Following is the list of digital media that you should consider in your digital marketing strategy while promoting your E-Commerce business.
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
- Influencer Marketing
- Content Marketing
- E-Mail Marketing
Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing or SMM allows you to market your E-Commerce store on major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Almost everything starts with a search.
More than 1.17 billion users are using Google on a monthly basis.
Therefore, marketing your business on Google or other search engines is a great way to grab the attention of billions of peoples.
SMM is paid, however, SEO is free and will allow you to capture traffic from search engines for free. SEO is discussed further in this article.
Social Media Marketing
Like Search Engines, Social Media platforms are also one of the best platforms to grab traffic for your E-Commerce store.
More than 2.4 billion users are using Facebook, while this number is 2 billion in the case of YouTube.
On the other hand, millions of users are using other social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Tik Tok.
You can have your E-Commerce store page on all the social platforms and capture your customers or traffic there from the crowd of billions.
Most of the social media platforms are paid, however, you can also achieve organic traffic from such social media platforms.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer Marketing will make your E-Commerce store reach its height just within a few days.
It is the most targeted form of digital marketing for the E-Commerce store or products and will allow you to achieve results just within a few days.
In influencer Marketing, you market your business through Influencers.
Influencers have millions of users following them on social media platforms and such users like to receive news from their influencers.
They follow their influencers and also try the products or services which their influencers recommend them.
Content Marketing
Content is a description of your products and services. Unique content will aid you a lot in ranking higher in the search results.
It allows you to achieve traffic for free both from search engines as well as social media platforms.
Here, you can market your content using the digital marketing strategies mentioned above.
E-Mail Marketing
E-Mail Marketing is the earliest form of digital marketing. However, it is still in existence today.
With the downfall of the postal industry, E-Mail marketing has filled the gap and is used in business on a very wide scale to make communication with one another.
With Mail Chimp, you can add a newsletter to your website. It allows the visitors of your site to subscribe to you.
In this way, they will receive permanent news from you whenever some change occurs on your website like new offers, new products, give way, greetings and others.
It is the best way to convert your visitors into subscribers and finally customers.
Related: 18 Reliable Email Marketing Services For Startups
5.Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization also is known as SEO is the opposite form of Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
Like SMM allows you to achieve traffic by paying something, SEO allows you to achieve traffic from the search engine for free.
SEO will make your website to rank higher in the search results and will differentiate you from your competitors.
Here is a list of SEO strategies that you should consider in 2020 to generate free traffic for your E-Commerce store.
These strategies are followed using either paid or free seo tools.
- Keyword Research
- Content Marketing
- On-Page SEO
- Off-Page SEO
Keyword Research
Keyword Research is the core of SEO and is crucial in the success of your online E-Commerce store.
Once, you have selected a niche, it’s now time search for the right, low competition and high volume keywords.
Low Competition keywords allow you to rank your keywords in less budget. While high volume will result in your higher sales.
Let’s take an instance if you have selected a niche Laptops, you have to search for the keywords on the laptop.
Using the Uber Suggest Keyword Research tool you can come up with different keywords like.
- Best laptops for Gaming
- Best Laptops for Call of Duty
- Best Laptops for Medical Students
- Best Laptops for Engineering Students
- Best Laptops for Vlogging.
In Keyword Research, there are plenty of free as well as paid keyword research tools. Keyword Research is basically the job of an SEO Expert.
However, if you are an owner of any of the E-Commerce store, you can also perform the Keyword Research on your own.
It will save your money however consumes a lot of time.
On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO requires you to optimize the on-page content of your website such as proper keyword Density, Meta description, internal linking, outbound links, as well as the images of present on your website.
Besides, speed optimization is also one of the factors in On-Page SEO.
On-Page SEO has a 70% score in the website ranking in search engines and will allow your website to rank higher in the search results, thus acquiring a lot of organic and free traffic.
Off-Page SEO
Off-Page SEO has a 30% score in the website ranking and shows the trust of another website on your website in the form of backlinks.
In Backlinking or Link Building, you have to acquire links for your website by outreaching tons of websites or using backlink maker.
Avoid the use of PBN.
Search engine algorithms are so strict nowadays that they eventually detect PBN of your site resulting in the decrement in your rankings from the major search engines.
6.Shipping Method
After Niche Research, website design, Digital Marketing, and SEO. Shipping is the most important point that you have to consider.
E-Commerce is very smart in dealing with products and services. However, the shipping method has ruined top-notch E-Commerce companies.
For example, if you ship an item from America to India it will take months for the product to reach its rightful owner.
In this way, shipping creates a great problem for the E-Commerce business in the past.
However, in the 21st century, thousands of shipping companies came into existence that will allow you to ship any parcel to any corner of the world within a short range of time. Chinese companies are best in this regard.
They are cheap and also ensures less waiting for the customer to receive his/her product.
7. Payment Gateway
In the past E-Commerce business was only limited to a certain geographic area.
However, with the advent of the Internet and modern payment methods you can now receive payments from any corner of the world.
Pay Pal, Payoneer, Apple Pay, and Stripe allows you to send and receive payments from any corner of the world.
Such types of payment methods act as a third party between business and a customer and ensures the smooth transfer of funds between both the parties with a little deduction of fees.
In this regard, before starting an E-Commerce business you have to ensure that relevant shipping and payment method is available in your area.
However, if they are not available you can also adopt any alternate.
8. Drop-Shipping
Drop Shipping is one of the great forms of E-Commerce.
It allows you to purchase products from the third party with the packaging of your own and finally forward it to the customer.
E-Commerce allows you to produce your own products and services.
Drop-Shipping takes the existing products or services and resells them.
If you don’t have a budget to start an E-Commerce business you can start with Drop Shipping and can earn millions in a month.
Amazon Affiliate Marketing is one of the best examples of Drop Shipping with which millions of bloggers are making their way of income.
9. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is the number 1 E-Commerce business idea.
It allows you to promote other’s people products or services and acquire commission on the sale of each of the products.
Amazon, Click Bank, and E-Bay are one of the best examples.
Conclusion
A complete guide to start your E-Commerce business is made available to you.
With this guide, you can also start your own E-Commerce store and can capture some amount of money in the worldwide E-Commerce business.
Further readings: