April 03, 2019

How to Launch an Ecommerce Business that Quickly Generates Meaningful Revenue

Brands had spent more than $330 billion in the United States via e-commerce businesses. That number has increased each year since 2007 and shows no signs of slowing down.

While traditional brick and mortar retailers may be hard hit, e-commerce businesses like Amazon, Boxed and Jet have become successful multi-billion dollar companies.

How to Launch an Ecommerce Business that Quickly Generates Meaningful Revenue: eAskme
How to Launch an Ecommerce Business that Quickly Generates Meaningful Revenue: eAskme

Other people are reading: The Complete Guide To Starting An E-Commerce Site

But e-commerce businesses don’t need to employ thousands of people or offer tens of thousands of products to be successful.

In fact, savvy entrepreneurs can create successful e-commerce businesses by compellingly providing the right products.

How to Launch an Ecommerce Business that Quickly Generates Meaningful Revenue: eAskme
How to Launch an Ecommerce Business that Quickly Generates Meaningful Revenue: eAskme

This article will help readers interested in launching successful e-commerce businesses to do just that thanks to four simple principles.

Use drop shipping to limit overhead expenses:

Traditionally, retailers are forced to grapple with many costly overhead expenses that can make it difficult to compete with big-box stores.

But thanks to dropping shipping, even small e-commerce businesses have a shot at being successful.

Drop shipping takes place when wholesale suppliers ship items purchased from your website directly to the consumer, rather than shipping it to the retailer first.

Since the wholesaler (often the maker of the product being sold on your eCommerce site) ships products directly to your customers, there is no need for you (the e-commerce business) to warehouse or ship items yourself.

Drop shipping is a fantastic strategy for e-commerce owners interested in getting started without having to commit to significant orders that require upfront payments.

One way to decrease unnecessary costs is to have fewer delivery errors to have to compensate. Amongst these, damaged goods are a significant cause of loss for many eCommerce businesses. Ensuring that you use trustworthy delivery services, if not dropshipping, and investing in sturdy mailing boxes, as well as supplies to secure them during transit can help you fight that loss.

Cater to an underserved niche audience:

The best way for small businesses to gain early traction is by focusing on serving an underserved niche audience.

This is the same strategy employed during the old days of companies like Amazon and Airbnb, and it can also work for your eCommerce business.

Whether you are selling baseball gloves, or are offering information that can help with SSI application forms in sunset hills, identifying an audience that does not already have access to e-commerce products of interest to them is a great way to begin an e-commerce business.

Consider researching products coveted by hobbyists by surveying hobbyists from a variety of interests to learn if a specific segment may find it challenging to acquire essential items online.

To test various markets, entrepreneurs may want to get targeted Facebook ads that lead to a simple e-commerce site.

If the ads get proper engagement, or if purchases were made, then it is a good sign an underserved niche was uncovered.

Outsource time-consuming e-commerce tasks using freelancing platforms:

Launching an e-commerce business can be slow and technically challenging.

Successful e-commerce brands have fast-loading websites that offer intuitive navigation, and well-written product descriptions.

If you feel like building an e-commerce website on your own is too complicated, consider outsourcing time-consuming tasks to a freelancer.

Platforms like Fiverr, Upwork feature thousands of talented freelancers who specialize in everything from website development to copywriting, to business operations.

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With the time saved, you can instead focus on finding products that prospective customers will love.

Use website analytics to monitor performance and improve shopper experience:

According to a Google study, roughly 40 percent of website visitors will leave a page that takes 3 seconds or more to load.

In other words, e-commerce website visitors (like all visitors) are fickle and expect perfect online experiences.

E-commerce business owners need to invest the time and money in collecting accurate website analytics.

Using behavior workflows, entrepreneurs can determine the best and worst performing e-commerce website flows and then use A/B testing to improve streams that are not working.

Even better, e-commerce business owners can use digital advertising to drive shoppers through website flows that are proven to convert visitors at high percentages.

To get started, tools like Google Analytics provide e-commerce entrepreneurs with access to rich website analytics for free.

Website optimization tools like Optimizely or VWO can help entrepreneurs to conduct A/B tests capable of comparing multiple webpage layouts to determine which one performs better.

Conclusion:

Launching a successful eCommerce business does involve some challenges. After all, there are many other e-commerce companies out there.

However, by sticking to the best practices outlined in this article, readers will put themselves in position to have a shot at business success.

To get started, consider partnering with wholesalers who are willing to drop ship goods as this will help to keep overhead costs down and will allow your business to start selling products the moment your e-commerce site is live.

Invest time in identifying an underserved audience to reduce the number of other e-commerce businesses you’re forced to compete with and be sure to turn to freelancers and website analytics tools to quickly create a memorable e-commerce shopping experience.

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