Let’s look at this graph below. This graph is a clear indication about the surge in eCommerce globally.
After the Declaration of global pandemic in week 13 sales orders increased by 40% and by end of week 16 it increased by 64% for eCommerce business on their websites
The whole world has learnt it pretty well and has changed our lives and going digital became the new norm.
Still, if you are thinking to start your own ecommerce venture, this is the best time.
What’s stopping you? I know you would be having many questions on your mind…Right!
- Like…How do I start it?
- How much to invest in starting this?
- How to Start an successful Business? How to start an ecommerce business ?
- Let’s look at all these question subsequently and I guarantee you, you will be able to start it as simple as 1-2-3
How to start an successful business/ Things you need to know before you get started.
First Thing, we try to learn What is E-commerce?
It is commerce on Internet i.e. Transaction happening through internet medium. People buy the products and services through online platforms like (websites, apps, and Social Media pages) and make the payments online though online payment options like net banking, paying through credit / debit cards, wallet payment etc.
What are advantages of e-commerce?
Advantages of ecommerce to Organizations
- Using E-Commerce, organisation can expand their market to national and international markets with minimum capital investment. An organisation can easily locate more customers, best suppliers and suitable business partners across the globe.
- E-Commerce helps organization to reduce the cost to create process, distribute, retrieve and manage the paper based information by digitizing the information.
- E-commerce improves the brand image of the company.
- E-commerce helps organization to provide better customer services.
- E-Commerce helps to simplify the business processes and make them faster and efficient.
- E-Commerce reduces paper work a lot.
- E-Commerce increases the productivity of the organization.
Advantages of Ecommerce Customers
- 24×7 supports. Customer can do transactions for the product or enquiry about any product/services provided by a company anytime, anywhere from any location. Here 24×7 refers to 24 hours of each seven days of a week.
- E-Commerce application provides user more options and quicker delivery of products.
- E-Commerce application provides user more options to compare and select the cheaper and better option.
- A customer can put review comments about a product and can see what others are buying or see the review comments of other customers before making a final buy.
- Readily available information. A customer can see the relevant detailed information within seconds rather than waiting for days or weeks.
- E-Commerce increases competition among the organizations and as result organizations provides substantial discounts to customers.
Advantages of Ecommerce to Society
- Customers need not to travel to shop a product thus less traffic on road and low air pollution.
- E-Commerce helps reducing cost of products so less affluent people can also afford the products.
- E-Commerce has enabled access to services and products to rural areas as well which are otherwise not available to them.
- E-Commerce helps government to deliver public services like health care, education, social services at reduced cost and in improved way.
Here are latest stats on ecommerce penetration in your country; and you could the immense potential to grow and start today
How to start an ecommerce business ?
What all you need to start eCommerce?
So, if you planning to start your own ecommerce business, you need
- Research the ecommerce space and find your niche.
- Select your business name and form a legal entity.
- Get CIN (Company Information Number) and Taxation Number.
- Get business permits and licenses.
- Choose your ecommerce platform and create your website/ App/ Social Pages.
- Source or develop your products.
- Payment Gateway to receive payment
- Delivery partner( if physical product)
- Packaging ( If physical Product)
- Market your Ecommerce Website/ app/ social pages
What are Different Types of Ecommerce Business Models
- B2C – Business to consumer– B2C businesses sell to their end customers. The B2C model is the most common business model
- B2B – Business to business.- In a B2B business model, a business sells its product or service to another business. Sometimes the buyer is the end user, but often the buyer resells to the consumer. Example walmart, Amazon Seller Central
- C2B – Consumer to business. – C2B businesses allow individuals to sell goods and services to companies. Example Upworks, truelancer
- C2C – Consumer to consumer. A C2C business – also called an online marketplace — connects consumers to exchange goods and services and typically make their money by charging transaction or listing fees. Like Ebay
Most Popular Delivery methods in Ecommerce Business
- D2C – Direct to consumer. By cutting out the middleman the product directly reaches to the consumer. Example Online retailers like Warby Parker and Casper
- White label and private label. “white label” is all about applying your name and brand to a generic product purchased from a distributor. AND In “private labelling“, a retailer hires a manufacturer to create a unique product for them to sell exclusively.
- Wholesaling. In this approach a retailer offers its product in bulk at a discount. Wholesaling is traditionally a B2B practice.
- Dropshipping. One of the fastest growing methods of eCommerce is drop shipping. Typically, drop shippers market and sell items fulfilled by a third party supplier, like Aliexpress or Printful. Dropshippers act as a middle man by connecting buyers to manufacturers.
- Subscription service. All the OTT platform could be the good example of subscription based ecommerce business. Today, virtually every industry has seen the arrival of subscription services to bring convenience and savings to customers.
5 Best ecommerce platform and why
- Shopify : This is quite easy as it doesn’t need any technical knowhow in setting up the store; but it might appear a bit costly due to monthly fee and using plugins and add-ons to have more functionality to your website
- Magento Commerce: This is one of the best Open source platforms; it doesn’t need any recurring monthly fees, but needs some technical understanding of working with websites and servers. From SEO point of View the best platform
- WooCommerce – most popular platform for website built on WordPress, absolutely free to use and one of the easiest to configure and run.
- Prestashop: This is also an open source platform, more simpler than magneto, easy to install and run the ecommerce store
- Wix: This is a paid platform to run ecommerce website and might incur recurring fee to run your ecommerce store
Best e-commerce payment methods
Paypal
- Features:
- PCI compliance
- Inventory tracking
- Shopping cart
- Virtual terminal
- Credit card reader
- Express checkout
- Mobile card reader
- Barcode scanning
- Online invoicing
- Bill me later
Amazon pay
- Features
- Automatic payments
- Merchant website integration
- Inline checkout
- Customer identity
- Fraud protection
Skrill
- Features
- Email transactions
- Quick access
- One place data
- Free account
- Supports 30 currencies
- Credit card transactions
Stripe
- Features:
- Mobile customer interface
- Multi-currency payouts
- Clean canvas
- Collaboration notes
- Payment options
- Embeddable checkout
- Authorization
- Custom UI toolkit
- Dispute handling
- Open-source plugin
- Consolidated reports
- Accounting integrations
- Unified payout
- Financial reporting
- Roles and permissions
2Checkout
- Features
- Level 1 PCI data security standard
- Multiple payment options
- Recurring billing
- Customized checkout options
- Integration with 100+ online carts and systems
- Create customized subscription plans
- Support – 87 currencies
- Support – 15 languages
- Account updater
- Features:
- E-check processing
- Retail payment
- Virtual terminal and batch upload
- Mail/phone payment
- Recurring billing
- Customer information manager
- Sync for quickbooks
- Advanced fraud detection Suite
Braintree ( A paypal Company)
- Features:
- Drop-in UI
- Supports 130 currencies
- 24*7 support
- Customised checkout workflow
- 2-day payout
- Dynamic control panel
- Braintree value
- Easy data migration
- Guaranteed uptime
- Advanced fraud protection
- Easy repeat billing
- Encryption
Follow this guide and you could easily setup your profitable e-commerce business.
Can I do it on my own? Yes… You can run your own ecommerce single handed on your own.
If you have knowledge of making a website, doing SEO, making social media pages and running e-commerce sales ads, then it’s going to be cakewalk for you and within months you website will start earning for you.
If you do not have knowledge about website and don’t know online marketing and advertising, do not worry!
We developed a full course consisting of more than 50 hours of online course, which will enable you to learn;
- Website making in wordpress
- Search Engine Optimization
- Social Media Marketing & advertising
- Dropshipping
- How to choose right product and build store.
Woo-commerce Tutorial for Beginners- How to setup woo-commerce in WordPress
