What You Need To Start An Online Store
Thinking of launching your own online store? Here are just a few tips detailing exactly what you need to get start an online store.
A product
First, you need to work out exactly what kind of products you’ll be selling via your online store. This could be anything from handmade clothes to retro video games.
Don’t be afraid to go very niche. There are a lot of websites on the internet - going niche could help you to stand out from the crowd. For instance, there are no shortage of online jewelry stores. Focusing on hypoallergenic earrings could be a much more effective strategy (you can still sell other jewelry products, however it’s worth having a main niche jewelry product to focus on).
A Website
Next, you’ll need to build a website to sell your product via. Start by considering your online store’s name and try to find an affordable domain name that fits this name. You can read tips on choosing a domain name here.
Once you’ve bought a domain name you can then start building a website for this domain. You could hire a web developer to build a website for you or you could build a website yourself. Platforms like Shopify have made it easy to build a website without any coding knowledge. They are a very popular option for ecommerce startups.
Consider paying a professional photographer to take some photographs of your products. You want all your photos to be high quality and in a particular style to create a sense of brand consistency. Additional things you may want to look into could include paying a graphic designer to create a logo or paying copywriters to write content.
A Courier Service
How will you get your product to your customers? It’s likely you’ll need a courier service to pick up products for you and take them to the right address.
First you should consider where to store your inventory. Will you store products at your home, rent out local warehouse space or rely on drop shipping? The latter option could be the most convenient when selling big brand items - this involves finding the nearest supplier warehouse to your customer and delivering the product from there so that you don’t have to stock the product yourself.
There are all kinds of different shipping options to choose from. A low-cost option could be to bid on freelance delivery drivers to facilitate deliveries. Shop around for services that offer this.
An important point that you shouldn’t overlook: if you’re getting your product picked up from your premises, you’ll need to package it yourself. Consider investing in some cardboard boxes and void fill materials.
The Right Marketing Channels
To attract customers, you need to market your online store. There are a few effective ways that you can do this.
SEO: This is a marketing strategy used to boost your rankings on search engines. It could help more customers to stumble across you on search engines when typing in specific keywords. It’s worth hiring an SEO company to handle this for you.
Social media marketing: This involves promoting your product through social media. This is likely to only be worthwhile for consumer products, although LinkedIn can be a good platform for promoting commercial products.
Online advertising: Adverts across the internet will help to build brand awareness. It’s worth investing in a few ads.
Email marketing: Emails can be a great tool for attracting return customers. By getting customers to sign up to your mailing list, you can keep them updated on new products and discounts.