Ecommerce Website = Online Entrepreneur
Are you dreaming of giving up your day job to become an online entrepreneur? Then one of the best ways to achieve this is to create an ecommerce website. At Ignition Media we like to make dreams come true and help people just like you become online entrepreneurs. We do this by creating successful ecommerce websites, and I’m not talking about crappy ecommerce websites that you have to pay a monthly fee to lease. I’m talking about 100% custom-made and owned websites that you have full control of.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, in this article I want to help you see how you can live the dream simply by finding a niche and creating an ecommerce website.
How to Make a Successful Ecommerce Business
The overall success of your ecommerce business relies on many factors, including your attitude toward it. You have to run it like any other business! You have to be patient, persevering, persistent and smart. You need to learn how to take calculated risks.
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But you can also increase your chances of achieving your goals by doing the following:
Find a niche
A niche simply means your targeted market and it can be anything, from mobile devices to pet supplies. After all, there’s almost nothing you cannot sell online.
However, it’s incredibly important that you find the RIGHT niche for you:
- Make sure the market isn’t already flooded with the product and that there is not too much competition. In the world of ecommerce, there’s really no such thing as market saturation because it continues to expand. But as a beginner, you’ll find an already developed huge market with several players more difficult to manage and beat. In other words, you may not be able to realize your goals and enjoy returns on your investments very quickly.
- It helps when you go for a niche you’re already at least familiar with. You’ll find setting up and ultimately running the business a lot easier. You know to whom you should market the business, the kinds of products you must offer, the best delivery options, etc. Your familiarity can help you get on board and on track in no time.
- Go for the one you’re passionate about. Running an ecommerce business requires hard work, especially in its first few months when you’re still trying to build an online entity and credibility. When you love what you’re doing, you’re always motivated to give your best and, as they say, the entire experience stops feeling like work.
Create a product or find a product for that niche
An ecommerce website doesn’t exist without products! Now, you have two options: create them or get them from a supplier.
There are many advantages in creating your own product. First of all, you have free rein when it comes to its price as you also have more control on the raw materials. It’s also easy to innovate their design and function as your target market’s needs and demands change.
But there are also challenges, including additional funding. As your business grows, you’ll require more space not only to store your products but also to manufacture them.
The other option is to obtain your products from your suppliers. In Australia, you have several good suppliers to choose from. You can be a:
- Wholesale or even exclusive distributor
- Dropshipper (in which you don’t maintain a physical inventory but rather the company delivers the goods purchased from your website directly to them)
- Business partner (you can make a deal with perhaps an offline supplier that you’ll be the one to sell their products online and vice versa, or you cross-sell products to widen market reach)
Have a realistic budget to order stock and build your ecommerce website
How much you actually spend for your ecommerce website depends on the complexity of the design, people working on building it, the cost of your products, etc. One of the general rules, however, is to be realistic. To come up with good figures, you can:
- Ask us about it. We can give you a free quote on building your ecommerce website.
- Decide how much you can afford. Take note that, like other businesses, there will be expenses every month, including internet marketing and website maintenance.
- Know how much your customers are willing to pay for the products. Again, it’s not about you but them.
Promote your ecommerce website online via Google with Paid Ads and SEO and social media networks
Once you have your ecommerce website set up, it’s now time to do your marketing. We suggest combining Google Paid Ads (SEM), SEO and social media marketing to:
- Help maximize your investment or the cost of ecommerce (we can do organic social media and SEO marketing)
- Get the word out very quickly (paid ads are effective in this one)
- Provide you with more control over advertising expenses
When it comes to getting an ecommerce website, you can either have it hosted or prefer self-hosted. Between the two, we highly recommend self-hosted since it gives you the most control over your website. By having more control, you can steer it in the direction that you want and you have more power over your long-term success.
When you open an ecommerce website, expect to have birth pains—it’s not going to be as easy as you’d like to think. However, with the right niche, product and marketing methods, you can make it really work and be more confident in its success.
Ignition Media specialises in ecommerce websites using WordPress’s WooCommerce that’s truly easy to work with. Please visit our ecommerce page for more information.
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