Want to know how to open an online shop? This guide will walk you through the basics, from registering your business to setting up payment processing.
Research shows that 63% of purchases are made online. For this reason, creating an online store is more lucrative and profitable than a traditional store. Two of the most attractive features of online stores are an easy start-up and low investment.
Creating an online store gives you a lot of flexibility. Connect with people around the world from the comfort of your own home. You can bring your business anywhere.
For these reasons and more, starting an online store has become a part of the new normal. Big brands to small local businesses, already have or are creating an online presence for themselves, and you can too!
If you are ready to create an online store right now, then keep reading on!
Contents
- How to Start an Online Store
- 1. Choose Your Target Audience
- 2. Find Your Product
- 3. Choose a Suitable eCommerce Platform
- 4. Find Suppliers/Manufacturers
- 5. Finalize the branding elements
- 6. Customize your eCommerce store
- 7. Add products to your eCommerce store
- 8. Connect payment and logistics partners
- 9. Start selling and market your eCommerce site
- FAQs
- Conclusion
How to Start an Online Store
So, without further ado, let’s get right into the steps to build an online store today.
1. Choose Your Target Audience
The first step to starting an online store, like any new project, is to do thorough research.
This research begins with narrowing down your target audience based on your business plan. Since you’re reading this article, let’s assume you have a solid e-commerce business idea.
If you don’t have one, it’s never too late to start! One business idea can build an e-commerce website that looks like a million dollars.
Once you have an idea for your business, create your own online store or embark on the journey of creating an online presence for your business.
The first step in this journey, however, is researching and determining your target market.
A target market or customer base is the best group of people to do business with.
Your target market consists of people who can easily convert into paying customers for your business. This requires an in-depth study of the market and competitors.
Creating buyer personas also makes it easier to move to the next step of product research and selection. Buyer personas are profiles you create for your ideal customers based on your market and product research.
Buyer personas are an important part of your marketing strategy. It helps you better understand your customers and choose the right marketing strategy.
Competitor analysis can help you choose your target market. Who are your competitors attracted to and why?
Finding answers to these questions will help you reach your target market more easily and accurately.
Pro tip 💡
Selling everything to everyone is certainly not a good business plan. Especially if you’re just starting out. Find niche products that are popular with a small audience. This will help you increase sales and grow your business.
2. Find Your Product
After identifying your target market, research what products to sell to this target group.
For instance, when you decide on catering to, let’s say, retired men in the USA, you can then look for services or products that would be popular with this group of people.
Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.Seth Godin
When you have your target market and product research in hand, it will help you determine the product pricing, website design, product description, shipping, & marketing strategies among others.
Choose one or more products to sell based on your research
When your research is done about both–your target customer type and the market, the next step is to choose a product based on that research.
To find a competitive edge, you can try doing the following:
1. Introducing a new product or service in the market
Through constant innovation, there are many new technologies and products that will keep you hooked.
This works well in any industry, especially in personal care and technology-related products.
See how Samsung bought back the foldable phone with this stylish product.
2. Tapping into an undiscovered market
The new world of online business is bridging the gap between the traditional physical store and the world of e-commerce.
Enter undiscovered markets and reap the benefits of getting up early, like US retirees.
How Plix Life Made Apple Cider Vinegar Effervescent Tablets
3. Improved products
You can modify existing products and services to sell to your customers to meet the needs of today’s market and your ever-changing target audience.
Many of the products that were best sellers in the 70’s and 80’s have been revived in recent years. With just a little hype and marketing, you can sell anything online.
It’s hard to believe how much-added value this Lego toy offers. They made their famous building blocks out of recycled plastic.
Here are a few more tips to follow while choosing your products
1. Logistics involved with products
You should consider the logistics involved in product selection and whether you can afford the costs. Before choosing a product, make sure you can afford the additional costs.
You can always try to make and sell things from home if you are into that kind of stuff.
2. Profit margins
This is self-explanatory. You can’t build a business if your profit margins are bad.
Generally, an online business owner sets a markup between 10% and 20% of the cost of the product plus shipping. This way the product doesn’t look too expensive and you can still make money.
3. Suppliers/manufacturers/fulfillment centers
You should create a database of all suppliers for your selected product so that you can compare their quality, price, delivery time, and other details that you think will affect your business.
We also encourage you to choose products from multiple suppliers. This allows you to quickly switch suppliers without losing revenue if a supplier fails for any reason.
In your research, you’ve probably come across these three steps listed interchangeably.
This looks confusing, but I get it. But it’s okay.
Getting started is important here. Once you start, the next steps become clearer and clearer.
For example, if you already have a product idea, you can use it to identify your target market. Or, if you want to target a specific audience, you can use this to select the right products.
Remember to define your business goals, business strategy, and marketing strategy as clearly as possible.
📚 Recommended reading:
3. Choose a Suitable eCommerce Platform
An e-commerce platform is like an online marketplace that sets up an online store. The best thing about choosing an e-commerce platform to start your online store is that you don’t need a lot of technical expertise to set up your store.
I’m sure you know this by now, but if you’re wondering why this is a better option than opening a physical store, let me explain.
Think of it like this:
For a brick-and-mortar shop,
Your location is very important. A great location can bring a lot of footsteps and increase sales.
Next, it’s the size of your shop. The size of the shop depends on the product type, assortment, display space and storage space.
Next is the rent. If the location is good and the area is large, the rent will be high.
Next, you need to decide on the aesthetics of your store: lighting, shelving, wall colors, banners, etc.
Now apply the same logic to create an online store
The primary location of your online store is determined by the e-commerce software you choose. A great e-commerce website builder allows you to create an online website, list your products and sell online to anyone in the world.
Depending on the size of your business and the number of products you offer in your online store, you can choose the subscription plan that best suits you.
Finally, you can make your online storefront aesthetically pleasing by choosing the right theme and customizing it with your branding elements.
Think of these three things as the three pillars of your online store’s success.
The best eCommerce platform will take care of your product management, shipping, customer database, and everything in between.
When you choose a platform, keep these things in mind:
Does it have the right tools for you?
The right tools are essential to setting up a professional-looking online store and running your business efficiently. Think of them as employees responsible for various aspects of your business.
For example, to create a short SEO-friendly product description, use the product description generator tool.
If you’re building an online store, you should be able to automate chat support, email marketing, etc. with the right plugins.
Tools and plugins play a huge role in running your online store successfully and efficiently.
Is it easy to use?
It is the internet and you’re already frustrated with those complicated procedures and the more features you need, the more tech-savvy you need to be.
We share your frustration and in our research; we found out that there are a few platforms like SellKer, Wix, etc. that are really easy to use.
Though legacy platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, etc. will be the first to pop up in your mind, there is a very steep learning curve involved with them.
The fact of the minute is, that you don’t need any technical knowledge or a lot of time to set up your online store, all you need is a phone number and a few minutes!
Will you need external help?
External assistance means the support you need to get your business up and running and running your business efficiently.
For example, WooCommerce is free to download and customize to your liking. However, using this plugin requires a lot of programming experience. Otherwise, you’ll need to hire a developer to create your e-commerce store.
If you pay for an e-commerce platform to set up your online store, you should get all the features and plugins. If you have to pay for external plugins and tools that can be very expensive, this is not the platform for you.
Can you list all your products?
The chosen platform should be able to list all products regardless of the number of products.
This may sound like a minor concern, but once you’ve set everything up and realize there’s a limit to how many products you can list, all your efforts go to waste.
Remember, you can save a lot of time and money by having a clear understanding of any limitations that your platform may entail.
Can you sell anywhere?
When you start an online store, it is mainly for selling across borders.
Your platform should enable you to sell anywhere in the world, without any unnecessary restrictions. You can start a home business with your own online store and sell to customers halfway around the world!
Check if your platform supports this. If there are countries where the online store is not visible due to restrictions, we need to know in advance.
If the platform also allows you to sell through multiple distribution channels, that’s an added advantage.
Can you customize your online store?
When you start your online store, you should be able to make it your own. That’s what customization is all about.
You should be able to change your business to stand out from your competitors and attract customers.
Check out how many customization options are available. B. Number of themes, paid or not, design elements, plugin integrations, etc. Also, make sure the customization process is easy.
Is it budget-friendly?
Let’s be honest, we sometimes feel that what we are paying is more than what we are getting for it.
That sucks.
A lot of platforms charge a lot but don’t provide you with all the services. For every extra feature you need, you will also have to pay furthermore.
Check whether your platform is budget-friendly, to make sure that you get your money’s worth.
Is it compatible with multiple devices?
Device compatibility is when a platform is able to work smoothly on different smart devices, like phones, tablets, laptops, etc.
If your site runs smoothly on your customers’ mobile phones and tablets as well as it does on their computers, you get ahead of the game.
Another aspect of this is app compatibility. Your site should be able to sell through multiple platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, etc.
If you ask us, “Is there an online platform that checks all these boxes?” then we would point you toward SellKer. Starting your online store on SellKer is as easy as creating a WhatsApp group. It takes less than a minute and you do not need coding skills.
Now, after everything you have learned about choosing the right eCommerce website builder for your online store, you may feel a little overwhelmed and look for an easier way out!
Starting a business may be easy, however, it is completely different from running a business successfully. For this very reason, we would recommend against starting an online business on social media.
It may seem simple and budget-friendly at first, but as your business grows, it can become very hectic to manage efficiently.
This concludes most of our research.
Now that you’ve done the hard work, the next few steps will be easier and faster.
4. Find Suppliers/Manufacturers
So by now, you have your products, target customers, and eCommerce platforms ready.
The next step is to find suppliers for your products.
Whether you want to start a dropshipping business or a traditional online business, where you hold your inventory and ship your products, in both cases, your supplier plays an important role.
Here you have three options:
Creating/ manufacturing your own products:
If you choose to sell a product that you have designed or manufactured yourself, you have full control over the quality, look and feel of the product.
But that doesn’t mean you don’t need suppliers. Here you need to find a supplier of the raw materials required to manufacture your product.
As your business scales and demands, so does the number of products you manufacture. In this case, it is necessary to find a supplier who can provide the necessary raw materials in large quantities. When you try to make your own products, it takes a lot of expenses and initial investment. Inventories of raw materials and finished goods must be maintained and managed.
Another key factor is the logistics of these raw materials from supplier warehouse to warehouse. Materials, whether small or large, must arrive on time and of high quality.
Procuring fully manufactured products:
This is a much easier way to start a business that sources fully manufactured products from trusted suppliers and lists them on your online store. This method significantly reduces overhead and initial investment.
Sourcing fully manufactured products also helps create a diverse catalog for customers. If one of the products is selling quickly, you can add variations of that product in your store.
You can also offer DIY and custom products to your customers by adding small design elements to products sourced from your suppliers.
Procurement of products from suppliers and manufacturers involves many contracts and negotiations. Price should be negotiated based on product category, demand, quantity, shipping, etc.
Dropshipping the products directly to customers:
Dropshipping is the easiest and most affordable way to create an online store. This way you don’t have to keep inventory.
Find a supplier or wholesaler who sells the product of your choice and negotiate a price. After you set up your online store, you basically list your products with marked-up prices.
When your store receives an order for a product, you order the same product from your supplier and provide your customer’s address details. The supplier then ships the product to the customer.
When pricing products in your store, consider shipping costs to maintain your profit margins.
These are three ways that you can cater to suppliers/manufacturers of products for your online store.
Here are a few things that can help you choose a suitable supplier:
Reliability: Products are a company’s most important asset, so suppliers must be reliable.
If you can’t find a reliable supplier, you can’t deliver quality products to your customers on time. It damages your reputation and you lose customers.
Product Quality: Only quality products can build your brand and grow your business. Whatever product you want to sell online, make sure it is. Therefore, only do business with suppliers with quality products. Always place a test order for yourself to check the quality of the product before purchasing in bulk.
Delivery time and cost: Delivery time plays a big role as customers are getting impatient by the day. Being able to offer fast shipping can be a huge competitive advantage for your business.
Since this is how we calculate the markup price for our products, we also need to consider shipping costs.
Also, customers abandon their shopping carts due to high shipping costs and long delivery times.
Reach: It is not always feasible to find suppliers that are close to your location. There are suppliers that have a great reach and you can choose them for your products.
If you are dropshipping products, then your supplier’s reach becomes a lot more important. So be sure that they can reach your customers’ location.
And that is everything you need to know about suppliers/ wholesalers to source products for your store.
Branding is one of the easiest ways to raise awareness for your business and build customer loyalty. Whether you are a small business or a large company, branding is an integral part of your business.
All customers want to know they are part of a community. Through branding, you can convey this sense of community to your target audience.
Building a brand is a lot of work, but this article will keep it simple and only cover the visual branding elements.
Business name
Just like people are identified by their names, your business name is how your customers identify you.
You can choose from a list of ideas and names, or brainstorm with friends and family to come up with great names.
Once the trade name is decided, it will be registered. In other words, you need to buy a domain with your business name to allow search engines to register your business under that name.
Your domain name should be clean, simple, and as similar to your business name as possible. Many e-commerce platforms let you get a custom domain name for your store.
Some of these platforms charge additional fees for custom domain names.
WordPress charges separate fees for domain registration and hosting. Domain name registration costs range from $10 to $50, and recurring hosting costs range from $10 to $200 per month.
That’s a lot of money. do you agree? Here are some of the best WordPress alternatives to try out today!
Other platforms like SellKer, on the other hand, offer custom domains included in the subscription cost. There are no extra costs here. This way you can save a lot of money!
Brand logo and colors
Once you’ve decided on a business name and registered a domain under it, the next step is to design your brand logo.
A brand logo is important for every business, whether it’s an online store or an offline store.
Your brand logo should contain an element of your company name. You can design around your company’s full name, or experiment with the initials of your name.
There are several tools available to help you design your brand logo, some of which are free to use. Canva is one of the most popular tools when it comes to designing anything, including brand logos.
Another important branding element to finish at this point is your brand colors.
Color plays a very important role in brand awareness and can be used in many places such as packaging, online store design, and online store shop banner design.
Once people become familiar with your brand’s colors, they will associate them with your product wherever they come across those colors.
Brand tagline
A brand slogan can say a lot about a brand. Are they sporty, romantic, classy, or funny? And with this tone, connect with the products the brand sells.
For example, Nike uses the slogan “Just Do It”. This uses a very bold and encouraging tone. It’s consistent and portrayed as overcoming all the hurdles.
Looking at the products, it’s a line of athletic shoes and apparel. So the slogan fits perfectly with your brand and the products you sell!
This is the best example of how to create a slogan and set the tone for your brand.
This tone can be maintained across multiple platforms such as social media, press releases, and ad copy. It creates consistency and helps customers better connect with your brand.
Pro Tip 💡
When you are designing your online store, the brand elements like the name, tagline, logo, etc. can be displayed at prime spots so that your customers connect with your eCommerce business every time they visit your store.
📚 Recommended reading:
6. Customize your eCommerce store
The next step is the store layout.
Have you ever walked into a store to buy something only to find it poorly lit, dirty, or overcrowded and simply turn around?
It doesn’t matter if you have a great quality inventory of all relevant products if people can’t get to your store.
It is not uncommon to judge a store by its storefront. This also applies to online shops. Your online storefront should look bright, cheery, and aesthetic while representing elements of your brand.
Lighting, wall color, product placement, etc. How do you make your offline shop attractive and structured?
Similarly, themes, customizations, banner images, categories, etc. make your online store more appealing. Here are some of the elements you should focus on to make your online store look attractive and aesthetically pleasing.
Store Theme
Choosing the right theme can affect or spoil the overall look and feel of your online store.
The e-commerce platform has a wide variety of themes, some of which are paid, allowing you to choose the one that best represents your business.
Yes, the themes for different types of businesses vary greatly in design and aesthetics.
These themes are available for e-commerce platforms and are highly customizable. You can edit theme design elements such as colors, text, and fonts. You can even add your company slogan and logo to the design to personalize it for your business.
This is a simple task for most e-commerce platforms. Some open-source platforms, such as WooCommerce, can make theme editing very difficult. In such cases, customization requires someone with design and programming skills.
Colors
Once the branding colors are done, this part becomes easy.
You want to convey a consistent image of your brand, so you need to customize your online store based on your brand colors.
You can edit the color elements of the selected theme and replace them with your brand colors.
Brand colors are typically a palette of 5 to 10 colors that complement each other. This means that it can be confusing as to which color should be given to which part of the website.
We recommend creating a simple strategy for your brand’s primary colors. You can add these to the frames of your e-commerce site. Secondary and tertiary colors are available for website tabs and text elements.
Clean layout
Your store should look clean and be easy to navigate.
If a user comes to your website and finds it too busy, they will leave without doing anything.
This is equivalent to visiting a store where the products are uncategorized and scattered all over the place.
Instead, when your customers visit your store, you want them to immediately know what you’re selling, bestsellers, and what’s on sale.
They should be able to find what they are looking for without too much effort.
Neat tabs on the home page, categorized products, and business information on the home page are all things that can make your store layout look clean and attractive.
Responsiveness
Does your ecommerce website load quickly with no issues? Do the URLs connect to your store’s homepage? Are your CTAs clear and direct to the correct URL?
These are just a few things to ensure your site is responsive.
If your store takes a long time to load, users will lose trust and leave without even visiting your store. Just like a crowded store keeps people away, a busy online store slows down your website.
All elements of your online store should be optimized to keep load times short.
You should also make sure that the e-commerce platform you choose is prepared to handle sudden spikes in traffic to your online store.
Useful plugins
Lastly, getting traffic to your website is not enough to increase conversion rates. Users usually need a little nudge towards making a purchase.
This nudge can be provided by some simple plugins like a pop-up, hello bar, live chat, etc.
A hello bar can be used to display ongoing offers and discounts, or a quick look at the bestsellers. Anything that will catch the attention of your customers and make them linger on your eCommerce website for a little longer.
Pop-ups can be used to collect useful information about your customers like their phone numbers, email IDs, etc. This can then be used for SMS marketing and email marketing.
Live chat helps you connect with your customers on a timely basis to answer their queries and encourage them to explore your site more.
These are a few pointers that can help you customize your store in the best way. Keep in mind to think of your customers’ convenience when you design your store.
7. Add products to your eCommerce store
The next thing to do on the list is to add products to your store, provide accurate descriptions and price them smartly.
Product Photography
Capturing the best features of a product is a true talent. Visual cues have proven to be far more effective in persuading customers to purchase your product.
In contrast to random selfies and photos, the product photography is much more technical and has a lot of meaning. Lighting, background, focus, quality, and all the little things make a big difference.
Whichever product you choose, be it food, clothing, or jewelry, these little tips can help you go a long way-
- Make sure the lighting is adequate. Clothing and accessories may require a cool, bright light. However, food requires warm lighting. Experiment with different lighting settings to find what works best for you.
- Products and their placement play an important role in product photography. Make sure the product is neat and clean. Editing blemishes and blemishes on the product will reduce the quality of the image.
- Some products, such as clothing, look better in mockups, while others, like books, look better in flatlay. Find ways to move things around and shoot your product better.
- Do not overload the room with some elements. When shooting a product, you should focus on the product. Everything else is a distraction. Keep these items to a minimum.
Pro Tip 💡
You can remove the background after you have clicked an image, and replace it with a plain background for a cleaner look.
Product Listing
Uploading products to your store indiscriminately can seem like a hectic and tedious task.
We recommend that you spend some time categorizing your products and upload them in bulk based on their category.
Even if you’re a small business with limited product choices, it’s a good idea to get sorted now. That way, as your business, grows and scales, your store layout, and product listings won’t be a problem.
Listing products can be a tedious and time-consuming task if you have to do it manually.
Sites like SellKer let you add products yourself, one at a time, or in bulk. This is a fairly simple task.
Pretty convenient, isn’t it?
Product Description
After adding your product listing, you need to create a product description for your product.
Writing a description can seem like a daunting, mechanical task. However, you can easily convert potential customers into paying customers by providing an engaging and accurate description.
Your product description should be accurate and explain everything you want your customers to know about your product. You should include your product’s unique selling proposition along with all other marketing points for your product. Also, product descriptions should be very simple, easy to read, understand, and grammatically correct. If the description is difficult to understand, it does not serve its purpose.
Finally, the product name and description should also be suitable for his SEO. The largest advertisers of products are search engines. If your product description is not search engine friendly, it will not appear in search results.
Keep your product descriptions smart, but also simple and easy to understand. This works to your advantage when building your brand.
Product Pricing
If you have good product images and you’re listing them on your e-commerce store with good product descriptions, you should also pay attention to pricing.
If your product is priced too high, you may lose customers and lose sales. If the price is too low, the profit margin will decrease and affect sales.
Products must be priced appropriately to encourage customer purchases while maintaining profit margins.
By researching your competitors and the top players in your market, you can get an idea of what range your product should be priced within.
At the same time, other costs associated with completing the order cycle, such as packaging, shipping, etc., should also be considered.
If you feel that your products are not selling well, you can always offer discounts or coupons to increase sales.
8. Connect payment and logistics partners
At this point, you have your store completely set up and ready to bring in sales. However, there are a few other important integrations before you go ahead!
Payment gateways
If you want to sell a product online, then you must have a payment gateway in place to process the payments.
A payment gateway is a service provider that authorizes payments made via multiple modes like credit cards, debit cards, international cards, UPI, etc.
There are multiple payment gateway providers around the world. eCommerce platforms will usually have tie-ups with a few payment gateways which can be connected to your online store on that platform.
Sellker Pay is based on Paymob which is one of the most popular payment gateways that support different payment modes.
Some of the popular payment providers are Debit/Credit Card, 1Link, JazzCash, Easy Paisa, etc..
Ensure that you provide by adding Sellker Pay to your E-commerce you provide as many payment methods as possible on your store’s checkout page.
Some of the options are:
- Credit/ debit card
- Store wallets
- Net banking
- Cash on delivery
- Credit (buy now, pay later options)
Logistics partner
The next important integration is your logistics partner. Unlike the logistics involved in sourcing your raw materials or finished goods from your supplier, this logistics is a lot more important as it connects your business directly with your customers.
You should have a trustworthy logistics partner in place that will pick up the orders from you and deliver them to your customers in a timely manner.
While delivering the orders, the package should stay neat and intact until your customer receives it. Even if the product is received in good quality, if the outer package is damaged, some customers may choose to return it!
Sometimes, a package may be damaged or lost in transit, and that is inevitable. However, if it happens too often, then it simply means that the shipping partner is not good enough.
When you are choosing your logistics partner, also ensure that you have cleared out the shipping rates with them.
Your ideal shipping partner would be quick, professional, trustworthy, and budget-friendly.
9. Start selling and market your eCommerce site
As promised, now you are ready to sell!
Your store is ready, you have a domain, and you have listed all your products in your store. Now you are ready to make your first sale in your store.
However, running a business is a continuous process and needs constant efforts in order to increase sales and scale your business.
You could be selling your products across multiple sales channels, and still not be able to bring in a lot of customers or drive new sales.
For now, we can say that creating your fully functional online store part of your business is done and dusted.
From this point on, you will shift your focus towards promoting and marketing your store in order to bring in traffic and increase sales. And it wouldn’t be fair on our part if we did not leave you with a few tricks for marketing your business.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
You know very well as we do that the major reason for marketing is to build awareness for your store, bring in consistent traffic, and keep the sales up.
One of the major sources of organic traffic is search engine optimization or SEO, and if this is done right, your store can get ranked on the search engines and pull traffic to your online store.
There is a reason why over 60% of marketers believe that a strong SEO strategy can lead to online success.
Especially for a small business, leveraging SEO to make your store show up on search results can save you a lot of money on promotions and paid marketing.
eCommerce SEO is a little different. Even simple tasks like writing SEO-friendly product names and descriptions can increase the SEO score for your online store.
You should also optimize the product pages and category pages by adding suitable keywords to the page title and meta description of the page.
Apart from this, ensure that your eCommerce site is responsive, loads quickly, and is mobile-friendly. Keep in mind to optimize and add alt text to all the product images on your site.
These may not necessarily seem like marketing tips, but the overall health of the site also affects the search engine scores.
📚 Recommended reading:
Social media marketing
If you want to sell your products easily, you should have a marketing strategy to promote the products.
Promoting your products need not always be a paid affair. You can use social media to easily reach out to a large audience with your products.
All you have to do is to come up with a smart content marketing strategy that catches the attention of the viewers.
Every marketing strategy is a structured process and similarly, using social media for marketing your business should be done in a step-by-step process.
- Start by creating social media accounts for your business across all the relevant platforms.
- Add your business logo, business name, and tagline to your social media accounts.
- Add a very catchy bio to your accounts.
- Add the relevant CTAs (call to action) like your website link, bestsellers page, WhatsApp, etc.
- Follow relevant accounts like your competitors, other small businesses, leading influencers in your niche, etc.
- Study the content posted by your competitors and the engagement on the posts to create a content strategy for your social media.
- Start creating and posting content across all accounts. Keep it consistent.
- Make sure to engage in the comments section of your account as well as the accounts of other relevant small businesses.
Paid Marketing
Not having a budget set aside to run paid ads can, in turn, end up costing you a lot more.
When you are starting a small business, it is understandable that you have budget constraints. However, depending solely on organic traffic can keep you waiting for way too long for a sale.
Building awareness for your business can be done quickly and easily through paid marketing. For search, you can use Google ads and for others, every platform has a version of paid marketing that they offer.
Facebook ads and Instagram ads seem to work a lot better when it comes to building awareness for online stores.
Before you start to run paid advertisements, ensure that you have the required expertise in order to not waste your money. Else, you can hire a marketing team to create, monitor, and handle the ad campaigns.
Also, specify your CTAs and test run to see if it is connected to the right URL. Ensure that the landing page entices users to buy your product or at least browse through your eCommerce site to see everything that you offer.
Now, those are a few things that you can do in terms of marketing your online business and bringing in relevant traffic that can be converted to sales.
Do not be thrown off by the money that you need to spend on marketing!
If you’ve created your store with a platform like SellKer, you will find that you still have some money to spare for marketing and promotion.
With an email marketing plugin, you can automate your email marketing.
SellKer also offers many marketing features like broadcast messaging, WhatsApp status templates, and much more that helps you can use to boost your online sales.
You might have to pay extra for marketing online, but SellKer has a range of amazing marketing features that you can access without spending anything extra.
What might cost you extra money on other platforms comes wrapped in a nice little premium package on SellKer.
FAQs
1. How to make an online store for free?
You can start a business for free on social media like the Facebook marketplace, Instagram shop, etc. However, if you want to build a fully functional online store, there is a subscription cost that will be involved. Most eCommerce platforms do offer a free trial that you can make use of.
2. How to start an online store without inventory?
If you do not want to deal with the hassle of inventory, then you can choose the dropshipping business model. List the products on your online store and when there is an order, get your supplier to ship the product to your customer.
3. How to find suppliers for an online store?
Local directories can help you find the manufacturers and wholesalers in your location. If you are looking for suppliers for trending products, you can research on Alibaba, wholesale central, etc.
4. How much does it cost to start an online store?
Creating an online store has been made very easy and cost-effective these days. On SellKer, you can set up your online store for just $11.99 per month. Your custom domain, own app, and a range of useful integrations are all covered in this cost!
5. How to drive traffic to your online store?
You can drive traffic to your online store through a solid marketing strategy that involves equal importance to organic marketing as well as paid marketing. SEO and social media engagement will drive organic traffic to your store.
Conclusion
By now, you should have a clear perspective on how to start your online store easily. Just in case you missed something, here is a quick recap:
- Choose Your Target Audience
- Find Your Product
- Choose a Suitable eCommerce Platform
- Find Suppliers/Manufacturers
- Finalize the branding elements
- Customize your eCommerce store
- Connect payment and logistics partners
- Start selling and market your eCommerce site
Until now, there was no other way to create your online business than with the big legacy platforms which are suited to meet the needs of huge brands, but now there are other, easier ways.
There are dynamic, modern platforms like SellKer which provide a simple, cost-effective solution to all your problems.
You have multiple options, great platforms, and easy steps to take in your stride now that you can open your online store all by yourself.
You should choose whichever way you feel is the best fit for your business.
Start your business without all the fanfare and frills, watch this video for more information
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