Thinking about launching an online business? We bet you’re already getting pretty excited! So many of us, though, are more excited by the idea of having our own business rather than actually executing and strategizing on actions that we never get started.
However, now is the best time to start a business especially one based online, as nearly 80% of Americans shop online. That’s a huge statistic, and it’s only going to grow. If you’re ready to start an online business or storefront today, here are some simple tips to help you get started.
Determine what product or service you will offer to sell
Finding the right product to sell on your online business is of utmost importance.
But how do you really know if your product will really sell? There are a few ways to determine this. The easiest is to pop onto an online retail service like Ali Express, pick out a few products or niches you’re interested in, and see how many orders have already been made. If there are well over a hundred — and especially if there are thousands — you know there is great demand for this specific product.
You can also head to Google Keyword Planner to see how many people are searching for something niche that hasn’t really been turned into a product yet or create an MVP (minimum viable product — basically, a prototype) and test it out on your targeted market to see if people would actually buy it.
Build a website
You don’t have to be a professional web designer to launch a website! Instead, you can use a peer-to-peer eCommerce site like Etsy to establish a storefront or Squarespace to design a professional portfolio for your services. Alternatively, you could build your own self-hosted eCommerce website from the ground up. However you put your online store together, make sure the layout is clean, your contact information is easily visible, and the site is easy to access across all devices from mobile to desktop.
Source your products
Once you’ve decided on a product, you then need to source it. You could drop-ship, which means you source and list products from another vendor and then have said vendor ship them directly to your customer. Doing this requires no inventory or shipping involved for you.
Other places to find your products before selling them on for a profit include eBay, car boot sales, and craft markets. Alternatively, if you choose to go down the digital product route (such as an eBook), you don’t even need to source anything if you are writing it yourself.
Drive traffic to your site
Once you’ve got your site set up and ready to go, you need to start driving traffic to it. This is essential for getting people into your store in the first place. Here are a few tips for how you can drive traffic.
Remember to sell offline
Millennials who are driving the increase in online shopping may also want to be able to purchase from you offline as well. Maybe they’d like to order online and pick up from a physical store. Having this kind of omnichannel strategy — which the competition may be implementing, too — will bring with it a few extra challenges in order to stay engaged with your customers. Chatbots, for example, will help with the customer experience online, while a point of service card reader is essential for offline sales.
Launching an online business is exciting, especially once you know how. Use these tips, get started, scale as soon as possible, and double down on anything that works.
Mitch Pazanski writes on behalf of MightySkins, a company that earns up to 1/4 of their revenue selling Amazon Echo skins, Google Home skins, and other electronic personalization products.
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