Buying and Selling Goods, Services or anything of value over the internet is simply known as eCommerce, also mentioned as electronic commerce and eCom.
In this guide, we are going deep inside the world of eCommerce business. Starting from the absolute basics, we’ll be guiding you through every needed step, like…
- What is eCommerce
- What is the future of e-commerce
- Needs of eCom Business
- Social Media – The Marketplace
- What are the Best eCommerce platforms
- How to get goods to sell on your store
- Best Advertising practices
In short, We’re gonna tell you How to set up and run an eCom business in 2020.
With this step-by-step training guide, even a beginner to advanced eCom player will learn something new.
Let’s begin…
What is eCommerce?
E-commerce is usually associated with buying and selling over the Internet, or conducting any transaction involving the transfer of ownership or rights to use goods or services. These transactions occur either…
- Business to Business
- Business to Consumer
- Consumer to Business
- Consumer to Consumer
The world first heard the term e-commerce during the 1960s. And since then, e-commerce has gradually become a necessary component of business strategy and a strong catalyst for economic development.
The integration of technology in business has revolutionized it for forever. Technology has enhanced productivity, encouraged greater customer participation, and enabled mass customization, besides reducing costs.
The ability of a company or any individual to determine emerging opportunities and utilize the necessary skills (such as intellectual resources) to make the most of these opportunities through an e-business has become simple, workable and practicable.
With its effect of leveling the playing field, e-commerce coupled with the appropriate strategy and policy has given a fair chance to small and medium scale enterprises to compete with large and capital-rich businesses.
In simple words, eCom has given access to the global marketplace to everyone, where they can compete with anyone and build a fortune out of it.
Can you imagine someone from a remote village in Bihar can sell to an American Billionaire, directly? Who would have thought that before eCommerce!
E-Commerce has already seen unparalleled growth since the past few years. And it’s a no brainer that Internet commerce is a powerful tool in the economic growth of developing countries today.
The retail industries have recorded annual growth of 40-50%, huge investments are expected to flow into the logistics sector in the future.
Amazon invested $2 billion in the Indian market in 2014, following the news of Flipkart raising $1 billion in funding. And today there are uncountable companies and individuals in the ecommerce business already.
How to Start eCommerce Business
Now if you decided to start an eCommerce venture of your own then you need to know there are basically three eCom business models you can start with. Those are…
- Drop-shipping
- Self Fulfilment
- Marketplaces
Dropshipping Business Model
Drop-shipping is there for a long time but it got huge popularity in recent years. And a big credit goes to the rise of Shopify and AliExpress.
This business model is best to start with as in this amazing system of eCom Biz you can sell anything without even having it. Sounds crazy? Yes, it is, but it’s true.
In a drop shipping model, the e-commerce business takes no physical possession of the items on sale. The store owner does not keep products in stock and there is no inventory held.
You first sell a product and then buy it directly for the customer. it’s that simple.
The biggest benefit of Drop-shipping is your stock never dead as you don’t posses any.
Problem with this eCom business model is, there is very limited control in your hand. You don’t get to see the product the supplier has been sending to your customer and sometime this thing can cause numerous problems.
Self/Traditional Order Fulfilment Model
This model is the same as the traditional offline business you see all around you like a general store outlet. In this method, you first buy goods from a supplier or wholesaler and hold it at your place like a shopkeeper do, and then sell to your customers.
The biggest benefit of Self fulfilment model is you control everything and ensure the customer satisfaction.
The problem with the Traditional method is sometimes you fail to sell the last quantity of the product you’re holding and it causes huge losses sometimes. Also, you need to manage a lot of stuff while doing business in this model.
eCommerce Marketplaces
Along with Drop-shipping and Self-fulfilment, there is another game to play for the sellers.
You can sell your goods on Amazon, Flipkart, and so many famous eCommerce stores. You just need to give a portion of the sale value to the marketplace and they will handle almost everything for you.
Top Benefit of selling over e-commerce marketplaces is you don’t need to worry about anything technical, store speed, optimization, order processing, customer support etc.
The biggest drawback of this model is, marketplaces keep customer above all and sometimes this cause serious problems to sellers. Like someone purchased a shoe from you through amazon, you ship it, the customer receives the product, used it for some occasion and then apply for return and refund and you can barely do anything about this. Yeah, there is the appeal and all but that doesn’t help much!
Needs of the eCom Business
If a person wants to get into an eCommerce business then there are some basic requirements needed to get started, those are…
- A Computer or Laptop
- Internet Connection
- Email ID
- About $500-$1000 (Minimum)
- Legal Docs for Business (can start without these)
If you’ve just these right now, you can start right away.
What is The future of E-Commerce?
Very important to know about something you’re going to spend your precious life and money on. And the answer is…
If anything in this world has the brightest future then it’s eCommerce! There is no (and never should be) doubt, even remotely.
eCom is already growing with lightning speed and increasing mobile users everyday are like Ghee in the fire.
Mobile commerce is finding increased infiltration in the ecommerce market. Mobile transactions are increasing every day, the value of these transactions are estimated to be Rs 36,000 crore according to Forester research.
According to Google India managing director India adds five million internet users a month which are mobile users.
The world’s biggest multinational retail corporation WALMART invested $16 Billion (approx 100,000 crore INR) to acquire India’s one of the biggest ecommerce store, FlipKart. And this amount is more than enough to say where the future is heading.
In coming years more high profile mergers and acquisitions are expected to take place in the digital commerce sector. Future of ecommerce is also looking promising because more and more companies will be investing in small business startups.
E-Commerce investment list was big in India in recent years, more investments are expected in the coming years.
Social Media – The Marketplace
Social media has become a marketing place for merchants where they can advertise and promote their product freely. The expansion of mobile networks and social media in commerce will take ecommerce to new horizons that will change online retail markets in future.
Internet connectivity has become a basic obligation in not only urban cities but also in rural ones.
Mark Zuckerberg is already one of the top richest in the world now and that’s because of Facebook as Facebook has emerged as the most essential platform for both customers and sellers.
People and companies are spending millions and billions of dollars on digital marketing (Ads) and most of that amount goes to Facebook & Google.
What are the Best eCommerce Platforms
In the past, if someone wanted an online store, they had to build the functionality themself then came shopping carts, but people still had to have developer skills to integrate them into their store or hire a developer to get it done.
But that’s the past, Now we have platforms, so many. And with eCommerce platforms, you get everything in one hand and can get started right away.
Choosing the best eCommerce platform is not an easy task. The market is huge and so there are numerous factors to consider before choosing the right suit for one’s need but as you’re just starting right now you don’t need to get into too much detailing or anything.
There are many platforms to run an ecom store, Shopify and WooCommerce are my top two picks for you.
Shopify – Best for Beginners
If you have some money to spend I would suggest you to go with Shopify as it is very simple and easy to get started with, no technical knowledge or work needed, just enter your email and within a fraction of minute your store is ready for you to work on it.
Shopify has three basic plans that start with $29/month and by paying this amount you don’t need to worry about anything technical like website hosting, server load etc.
WooCommerce – Free but a lil Complex
In case you don’t want to spend your cash before there is no other way then you can go with WooCommerce. It’s a free eCommerce platform by WordPress. If you have some basic knowledge of WordPress already then it will be fine for you.
In case you have never been into WordPress Dashboard before then it can be a little tough for you but if you’re a quick learner you will figure it out. There are many tutorials out there on YouTube for this, you can watch some and customize your store.
There are many other e-commerce platforms as well so once you get started and dollars already start rolling in, you can explore other eCommerce platforms in your free time as well.
e-Commerce Platforms
- BigCommerce
- 3dcart
- Volusion
- Prestashop
- Weebly
- Squarespace
- Magento
- Wix
Companies that want to expand their business need to spend resources in the advertisement, branding, logistics, reverse logistics, supply chain management and customer services.
Conclusion
eCommerce growth is inevitable and has very strong potential for growth owing to rising internet users. Millions of new Internet users are becoming online customers every day. People are getting used to technology and the process is highly appreciable.
I tried to explain the key knowledge about the eCommerce business here and I hope it must have helped all those who wanted to know, how to make money online with an e-commerce business. There are so many more stuff you need to know while doing eCom business and you’ll find them on Game of Selling. Just stay tuned for more knowledge bombs.
In case you have to ask something of say something, feel free to comment below and I’ll get back to you asap.