The growing period of technology has indulged in the thought of asking questions like, How to start an e-commerce business from scratch? From where to start an e-commerce business? Is my business big enough for e-commerce?
Well, we are here to guide you in brief for the first two questions. And for the third one, do remember what we heard in Raees,
“Ammi Jaan kehti thi,
koi dhanda chota nahi hota, aur,
dhandy sy bada koi dharam nai hota”
Starting an e-commerce business from scratch gets hold of our peace. We are all caught up in the thoughts of where to begin with. You don’t need a big setup to start with; however, you can create your e-commerce business in just few step.
These simple steps can help you get started today.
Step 1: Identify the Need of the Market
First and foremost important while starting a business is knowing what you want to sell. Moreover, the market and customers’ demands are changing. At such moments, grabbing the right need is like getting “Alibaba’s Chirag.”
Pro tip: List down all the E-commerce business ideas and choose the current market need you can easily handle.
You can search for what people are looking for on SEO websites like Google Ads, Semrush, and aherfs. These tools are free and easily finable. You can search them and start brainstorming for the keywords.
Step 2: Know Your Market
Once you decide the need, you have to start researching the market; your competitors, Market pricing, Offering, Operational plans, Marketing Strategies, and your Target market.
After deciding this, you have to evaluate how you will be presenting your business. This can be simply done by answering the 7 Ws;
What?
Where?
Why?
Who?
When?
How?
These 7 Ws will help you to develop your best business strategies more easily without starting from zero.
Step 3: Create An Attractive Website
Choose the right people to build your virtual existence.
Developing an e-commerce website might not be that difficult but grabbing your customers; attention is. Your e-commerce website is the first impression of your business. It is not as simple as attracting customers in psychical stores.
Your unique input on the websites increases your chance to stand out from others. Moreover, it is mandatory not to complicate things for the end-users. Keep it user-friendly, which brings visitors and potential consumers.
Do keep in mind that
“People dislike websites and close immediately, which is the barrier to reaching the target audience.”
Step 4: Create Easy to Navigate Product Pages
The cherry on the cake is; Product page that generates sales.
Creating product pages as per the categories of your product offerings distributes the needs of the customers. Therefore, it makes it easy for them to navigate the product list.
The next thing a customer wants is the range of information for that product and options for filtering their needs. Meanwhile, the information provided on the products page should be concise and simple.
Just follow the COP, which is
“Concise – Options – Presentation”
Step 5: Set up your Checkout and Wishlist
Do not skip a single fragment to lose your customers.
With all that hard work, you don’t want your customer to get frustrated in the end. Make sure the Checkout option is easy peasy.
Even if your potential customer is not interested in buying, make sure the scrolling does not go wasted. Feel their wishes are acknowledged and make a wishlist for them. Try to add uniqueness to your wishlist that grabs your customers’ attention.
Step 6: Build Your Social Media Presence and Content
Meanwhile, building your e-commerce website scatters your presence on every social media platform. This will develop your reach and assist you in attracting an audience from your content, posting, and Ads.
The strategies you develop for your e-commerce business will be displayed on all the accounts where your potential customers can reach you.
Additionally, the blog feature can help to increase your social media reach. Add blogs that best justify your e-commerce business.
Step 7: Search Engine Optimization
All your diligence for your e-commerce business will be pointless until you don’t work on Search Engine Optimization.
Your work needs to be seen on the front page whenever your customers need the product you are selling. You have to optimize the content on your website by adding keywords to rank it.
You don’t need to go deep into the SEO process at the start; your initial goal should be to add keywords to your website. Both on-page and off-page SEO are essential for your business. These will generate traffic to your website. Off-page SEO adds 70% of your traffic and is done continuously and more often than on-page SEO.
Conclusion
On the whole, to start an e-commerce business from scratch is just 7 simple steps away. These tips will guide you on where to start and how to establish your business step-wise.
A little input of yours will help to go a long way. Starting an e-commerce business in Pakistan is manageable with these steps. The key is to go step-wise.