Ecommerce is an area where everyone
wants to enter. And each one has a plan for himself. But what should
you know before you make the big jump? What are the prerequisites to
success here? These are some of the questions that we hope will be
answered by the end of this article.
1. What is the advantage you’re
starting with?
In other words, what is your USP? Every
start up needs to have one, because otherwise how do you hope to
distinguish yourself from the rest? You need to have some really good
reason to convince people as to why they should consider buying from
your store instead of trying someone else. It could be that your site
is quicker or that it has better offers etc, but it needs to
differentiate your site from the rest.
2. What are the products that you’re
going to offer?
Choose the product category that you
are going to offer carefully. Do your products have sufficient
demand? This is important as it is through the sale of these products
that you are going to break even. Products that are new to the market
or products that belong to the ‘niche’ category can be risky as
you may not see a sufficient return on investment.
3. How do you plan to promote yourself?
For a start up, promotion is crucial to
increasing traffic. Get people to talk about it. Internet, TV, print,
FM, use all media to popularize your site. Firstly, your site’s
name needs to become commonly mentioned. For this, you need to
generate a buzz about your site and it needs to be pushed from behind
by a strong sales team that can convert those visitors into
customers.
4. Are you going to hold stock or
depend on Suppliers?
Most suppliers charge a hefty fee for a
direct despatch to customers. And being a start up, you can’t
afford to spend too much on suppliers who discontinue the product
once they find the stock is low. In such a scenario, it is best to do
the despatch yourself and thereby build a rapport with the customer.
5. Payment gateways
This is the final gap to be plugged but
in many ways the most important one. The merchant that you choose
will determine to what extent your customer trusts you. Never
compromise here as customers are extremely wary of security lapses in
payment softwares. Don't settle for anything other than the best when
it comes to payment gateway solutions.
These are just some of the questions
that we thought were pertinent to a budding online store. There are
more, but these are the fundamental ones.