Let’s assume you have a great idea for an item that you can sell online.
There appears to be some good demand for the item.
The margin percent and dollar look good.
You’ve sold a few with guerilla efforts where you haven’t put in much effort or much investment, but have still sold more and you’ve gotten good feedback.
After all those things now you’re in the position where you can ramp things up with a real ecommerce plan to sell your item on your own website.
Here are the critical decisions you’ll have at this point that could determine the success of your new company both in the short and long-term.
1. Platform
The first choice you have when launching your website is what platform or website software you’ll use for your ecommerce website.
There are a number of different options like Big Commerce, Shopify and a number of others and even custom solutions.
Whatever you decide I think there are some important considerations to help decide on the best platform for you.
First, make sure you own the domain. It’s vitally important that you own the domain and that the ecommerce store is hosted on that domain. This gives you flexibility to retain the authority you build for that domain whether you stick with the same platform or move to another platform in the future. You own the content and everything on the site. It might cost a little more initially, but it’s well worth it.
Second, make sure there is support for the platform. You might work with a designer and developer that work with the platform you choose, but ensure that if those two people decide they don’t want to work with you anymore that there are plenty of other designers and developers that specialize in working with the platform you choose.
Third, make sure that the platform has the potential to scale. It’s okay to think about your business becoming the next Amazon. It might not happen, but why not set things up with the potential to get there if things really start taking off? You don’t want your platform holding you back.
2. Pricing // Discounting
Before we get into marketing I want to mention the decision about pricing strategy and discounting strategy.
Some would put this under marketing especially the idea of discounting your prices to promote your ecommerce site and its products, but I really feel that discounting and pricing are unique from marketing.
However, if you decide that your business will be doing discounting then go with it 100%. If you do promotions then the promotion will become part of the product you’re selling. There are many customers that look for promotions as part of their buying habits.
It’s not that promotions are more important than the actual product, but it can feel that way. To many people the promotion is almost as important as the product.
My thoughts are that if you’re going to discount you need to do it all the time. You can get creative with the discounts and promotions, but if you don’t want to do it then you have to avoid it and set your price and maybe adjust it when necessary, but always with the idea that you’re not going to discount that price for a promotion. It means not participating in Cyber Monday and Black Friday unless you do something cool like this.
3. Marketing Channels
Now comes the decision that is often overlooked.
When you put your ecommerce site online people will not simply show up.
If a tree falls in the forest it might make a sound, but if nobody is around they don’t hear the sound and they don’t care about the tree.
It’s the same for your ecommerce website. You have to get people to know that it exists.
You could launch your site first and figure out the marketing channels after, but you’ll need to plan the marketing channels at some point.
One channel could be organic like social media and SEO, but those still take effort and are often long-term efforts.
For each channel, look at the potential revenue, expenses, resources needed and who those resources will be.
Potential channels include:
- Organic Search (SEO)
- Social Media
- Search Advertising
- Display Advertising
- Retargeting
- Affiliate
- Side Projects
- Blogging
- Public Relations
- Partnerships
- And more
Lay these all out. Prioritize them. Figure out revenue, expenses and resources and begin.
I think Organic Search and Email should be part of any effort, but they are long-term projects (unless you already have an email list). But while you’re building those you can invest in advertising.
4. Reporting
Next up is reporting.
Whatever platform you choose will probably come with an analytics package or you can use Google Analytics, but what’s important with reporting is setting up key indicators so you can always know the pulse of your ecommerce business.
And it just so happens that last week we looked at key metrics for ecommerce businesses.
5. Vision
Finally I want to add in an important part that can easily be overlooked and that is your vision for the company.
As the founder or leader of your ecommerce business it’s important to have an idea of what you want the company to become.
You don’t necessarily need to put a timeline on the vision, but knowing what you would like to achieve gives you and your team something to work toward.
With vision, there is a focus with every task. You can determine if a task is getting you closer to your vision. Your team will feel like they’re part of achieving something instead of just doing tasks and going through the motions.
Conclusion
This is a scary situation for just about everyone that gets into it. I’m not sure why it’s scary because running an ecommerce business is exciting, but it’s usually a unique situation for people and that makes it uncomfortable. Maybe that’s the right word instead of scary.
But you can make it through and even if you don’t have experience you can put yourself in position to make good decisions. You’ll have to go through the steps described above at some point. The best time is right now whether you’re just starting out or if you’ve been floundering for a while.
Go through the steps above and you’ll be setting your business up for future success.
