eCommerce And Why You’re Missing Out
Success Starts Here
Before we start the trek to ways I can bring you success with your eCommerce business let’s speak more about what it really is.
eCommerce can be seen simply as transactions made online or any transactions created by way of the internet.
The traditional way of selling eCommerce has been tangible good and always will be the bulk of it, but there are ways people are utilizing eCommerce to sell nonintangible items such as digital content and services.
Depending on how you conduct it, the following models are the most common: B2C, B2B, and C2C styles:
B2B: Stands for business-to-business, a good example of this is an agency such as agencies selling services to other businesses. Another would be Adobe selling Photoshop to a company.
B2C: Business-to-consumer, this is the most common. A good example is that of Nike or Amazon. They have a consumer-facing model and market towards their targeted customer base.
C2C: Consumer-to-consumer, eBay, Craigslist, Amazon. Any place where anyone can log in and make an account take a few pictures and put up a listing. Amazon and eBay do have a way you can scale up and become a great seller, but they will take fees when doing this.
We’re going to be focusing more on a B2C or Direct-2-Consumer style because that is the most common on startup.
The Benefits of eCommerce
eCommerce has endless reasons why it could be a fit for you. There is a reason why people in your network are starting their own eCommerce business. As more people are constantly on the internet this allows for the everyday person to really add an extremely lucrative chapter to their life. It’s easier than it has ever been to start your own business.
No need for a storefront: Noone likes paying for a space to sell their product, so why not start small out of your garage as most companies have in the past. In turn, you can now service potential customers out of the country. The best part of this is the testing process is very affordable and easy to measure. And don’t forget, the rent isn’t cheap. High-speed internet is.
Always open. Don’t want to close? You don’t have to with eCommerce. Your business can literally never close, this really helps with conversions and sales for you. For your customers, you have now just given them the freedom to be a customer when they want. This is really great for potential customers that are out of state or out of the country. Additionally, Amazon has trained the world that receiving goods that were bought online as the cultural norm.
Low operating costs. One of the biggest attractions to eCommerce is the low startup cost and low business operating cost. You can start very small and grow with your business when you are ready. You can easily choose a product that fits well with the amount you are willing to invest. Since there is very little cost, you don’t need to hire employees and you don’t need to pick a product that requires a lot of storage. This gives the store owner to freely choose the way they run and price their business. This all gives someone the option to try out a bunch of different items.
Inventory and storage. Making sure you pick the correct product is key. Storing flash drives with Kim Jong Un’s face on it is a lot easier than storing ski racks. Really understand what you are getting into before you invest. Amazon has a great program called Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon). That is becoming more popular than ever due to the market share and trust people put in Amazon.
Strategic Marketing: With eCommerce, you have endless ways to capture customer information to better target things like buying habits. This allows you or us to help with creating a way to earn new and retain old customers by serving them a custom-tailored customer experience. This will help with new product ideas and also keep your marketing budget at a lower cost per acquisition. It’s great to be flexible especially since customer trends can change on a dime.
Targeting niches: Since you do not have to start with a brick-and-mortar storefront, you can create a store with a mission and with products with something you are very passionate about. Since you can connect with the global market at your fingertips it’s never been easier to specialize in what you do. As you should. Targeting niches are a great and well-thought way to go about your eCommerce business.
Work Remotely: One of the most desired parts of running your own eCommerce business is the ability to work from anywhere you want. You’re the boss, work abroad, on your couch whatever. You make your own hours.
Sounds cool? So how can you start it?
Just like most things, there is somewhat of a formula to actually build the store, but we’re also good at that (link). Probably more important than creating a site, would be to create/find your core product or products you want to sell. This would mainly consist of researching different markets and see what really hasn’t been done. This is a very important process and should be backed by data and well thought out. Try to find your niche, or we can do that for you.
Which product is right for you?
It’s great to passionate about what you want your business to be, but it’s just as important to make sure there is profit for you. This is going to take some time to find the right fit, but with hard work and dedication, you should be there in no time. Start your search with the mindset of profit margins. You can do this by pricing everything out to your best ability that way you can really predict things like upfront investment and the ROI on that. Along with that, is how are you going to source this product. Don’t start a business just to find out you have too expensive important from Switzerland.
Conducting research and planning ahead.
Once you have your product mapped out it’s time to check out the landscape of your selected market. This will include more research. Things that you would need information on would be competitors, industry pricing strategies and models. Make sure you understand your shipping well, figure out how and in what you are going to be shipping your product. People love packaging. You should also figure out what benefit and utility you are going to be presented to your potential customers. Ask yourself “What problem am I solving for my customer”. Next, you should create a list of goals, and milestones of growth for your business. This would include any challenges that may be in your future as a new business or just perhaps specifically due to the market you have chosen to be a part of.
Branding
Pick out your domain, or a few early! Don’t hesitate, take a good amount of time planning to obtain and domain you like. In turn, you should make sure identical or similar social media channel names are available. You can use namechecker to make sure. Once your product is picked out and you clearly understand what your cost and profit will be, then you can start to visualize the creative part of your store. This would include your brand name and URL, hopefully, you can use the same for both, we highly suggest it. SEO research is super important when starting a new business, especially in a competitive market. Invest in a good SEO tool or us. Next would be guidelines of your brand such as look and colors. Lastly, your logo. Getting this right on the first go is important for various reasons. So, pick wisely.
How will you go about this?
Custom: You would create something from the ground up, and most likely hire developers like us.
Shopping Cart Platforms: Most people already have their shopping cart platform. We can help by creating custom solutions for your store with the mindset of gaining new customers and creating sales.
After you put in all this effort you are going to be so excited to flip the switch! We don’t blame you, we love bringing people’s ideas to market. Prior to your launch ensure your goals are updated in case any new opportunities and challenges have appeared. This will keep you on track. Setting up your Google analytics will help to understand your store once it’s off the ground, we strongly suggest it. Starting with email marketing will help you turn possible customers into customers.
My store has been up for a month what do I do?
It’s important to be realistic with your store. Ask yourself how are people finding me? How can I acquire new customers? These are all burning questions.
eCommerce is never stagnant, you must update and modernize your business, but that’s what we can help with. You run your store’s operations and we will bring you sales.
How can we help you bring you success?
The team and I have years of experience selling online. We have been successful in different marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay but also selling directly from Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and all the other big shopping cart platforms. We not only have success, but we also have the numbers to back it up.
We can understand your pain points quickly, as to why your store is not performing to where you want it. With our expertise, we will conduct an audit to see where we can improve in collaboration with you and your team. You will gain some valuable insight on our first call guaranteed.
Perhaps your site is your greatest opportunity for growth, we can get your site up to speed to compete with your competitors and increase your preferred conversion goal.
We can focus on your KPI’s, we have experienced increased sales, traffic, and user acquisition by way of a healthy Marketing mix.
At Western Bagel, utilizing our eCommerce strategy we saw an increase in annual revenue by 286% and gain the company 25,000 new customers, and helped them create a pricing structure that made sense.
How did we do it?
eCommerce Strategy: Auditing the current strategy and identify where the biggest room for growth was. You will be surprised at what we can find and how easy the implementation will be.
Influencer Marketing: Western Bagel utilized influencer marketing and received some great results! Even if you don’t think you know of any in your industry, we will find you some. Check out this article to learn more.
Email Marketing: After gaining new customers we were able to segment these people into different lists to serve them more tailored content. Additionally, we can create some automation rules to drive sales based on the behavior on their website. There’s a reason why companies have been pouring marketing budgets into email marketing.
Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing efforts greatly increased new customer acquisition. It’s easy to see if it’s working. Western Bagel saw on average 17% of their monthly revenue coming in from affiliate marketing. Let’s make your current customers bring in new customers for you. You’ll be able to measure this success instantly.
Remarketing: Do you get a lot of views on some of your most important pages? Western Bagel saw an ROI of 129% in two months with Facebook, Instagram, and Google remarketing tactics. Converting customers that left the funnel at the last step are the ones to go after. Don’t leave cash on the table for someone else to take.
More consumers are becoming even more dependent on eCommerce businesses as hard goods are no longer the largest part of the industry. You have food companies shipping all across the country and the world such as Goldbelly, Amazon, and Western Bagel. Not adding eCommerce to your business plan is literally leaving money out for others. We can even tell you who in your market is capitalizing on your hard work and keywords.
Ready for our free 15-minute consultation as to where we can help? Contact us today to get started. We would be happy to learn more about your business and find a path to bring you success.
