The greatest satisfaction in life is to be your own boss, to have the decision making power, to analyze and achieve your goals to get inner satisfaction but all that looks green is not easily achievable. Helping others is something I’ve always loved doing and today I will be telling you about the essential facts you need to know before getting into the eCommerce business.
eCommerce or Electronic commerce provides an excellent platform where customers can electronically get goods and services with no barriers of time or distance. With an excellent customer base and having a capacity to spend the bulk of money on online shopping, there’s never been a better time to start an eCommerce business furthermore you will be delighted to know that now there is a boom in this industry and by 2022 most of the businesses would be online. If and when implemented properly, e-commerce is often faster, cheaper and more convenient than the traditional methods.
I am sure by now you must be hopped up and eagerly waiting for me to start.
So friends without further delay let’s start…
It looks Fancy but it’s a Real Tough Game
Online business is booming but as it is said “All that glitters is not gold” so is the case with Online business. It is a total waste of time, energy and money to enter without knowing the small yet important factors of this business.
I’ve seen too many eCommerce businesses struggle to get traction simply due to a lack of awareness about this business. Many people start, hustle for a while and then shut their newly born business down as soon as they figure out it’s not that easy. So in case you’re also on the verge of getting into eCom then you should tighten your belt to hustle harder than ever.
Goldmine become coal mine without research
Research is the elementary requirement whether buying a product or even searching for a girl for marriage. It’s true, not a joke therefore always treat your online business as growing an investment so that you research properly. I suggest you learn from the big ecommerce companies about their progress from scratch to top then you can prepare yourself to enter in this business.
You need money every day – every time
It is important to understand this before starting your ecommerce venture even though you don’t need a very big amount in starting you’ll need money for every other day. Doesn’t matter how better you’ve prepared expenses plan there’s a huge possibility that you’ll be needing more money than you’ve calculated. It need money at every step and so you need to have a good amount of money if you want to reach somewhere worthwhile. Here’s a small example list where you’ll have to spend real money even though you’re not making any.
- _ Ads costing
- _ Products
- _ Fulfillment (Logistics)
- _ Rentals
- _ Salaries
- _ Refunds
- _ miscellaneous expenses
- _ Platform subscription fee
- _ Themes
- _ Designer fee (Banners & images)
It takes day and night working
We often say a proverb in Hindi “Din Raat Ek Karna” this proverb holds true in this case. Little ignorance and be ready to face a big setback. As you start your journey be prepared to give up your comforts. That means:
- You can’t take a day off.
- Relaxing means losing a business opportunity.
Import is a TASK
Import plays a vital role if you want to start an ecommerce business as the whole business revolves around this task but a word of caution: you’ll need not only reliable suppliers but also some knowledge about the place from where you are going to import (if possible language of that place). Listed below are some of the points to be taken care while importing a product:
Finding Reliable supplier
Best Quality Product in Best price
Import getting Expensive every day
Advertisement
You’ve started a business, you’ve products listed on your website to sell but no-one knows about you or your store, that’s where Advertisement comes into the game. Ads are the vital method to bring your business at the forefront as well as to create popularity.
That’s the reason Bollywood stars like Shahrukh khan are hired for BYJU’s Ad. Now if you have a ton of money and you can easily hire anyone to do your product’s advertisement then great, but in case you don’t have enough money to give it to another person to spend on ads and his fees for running your ads then you’ll have to learn it by yourself you simply can’t think about doing eCom without this. This is the most common factor for most failures in the industry.
The most popular Advertisement platforms for today’s eCom industry are Facebook and Google followed by Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat etc.
But a word of caution: you need to be vigilant at every stage when doing advertisement of your business else you may have to face problems like:
- Great result in start then the greater chaos
- Weird behavior of Ad platforms
- Money going every second
- Little Mistakes can lead to BIG Loss
Logistics in India is The Biggest issue
Logistics plays an important role in the success of any eCommerce business but at the same time it can also cause a lot of problems if not managed properly, in fact, I would say it is one of the factors that can lead to an increase in your planned budget.
After doing a lot of research we have come out with the common problems faced which are as follows…
- Fuel prices
- Improvement in Business Process
- Issues regarding driver shortage & their retention
- Government rules & regulations
- Environmental Issues
- Strategy & Implementation of Technology
- Improvement in Customer Service
90% Do wrong Calculation
This is one of the biggest problems faced by most of the startup entrepreneurs or planning to start an eCommerce business. The main reasons which can be attributed are
- Overconfidence
- Miscalculation due to ignoring certain facts
So my sincere advice is to sit calmly and figure out the total capital investment required and the ROI you will get, the better option is to sit with an expert or a person with financial experience of this field (if possible).
Avoid the Perfection
Since childhood we are told to achieve perfection in the work we do but in this case, the more we wait to achieve perfection, the more we lose not only our valuable time but unknowingly increase our expense or capital investment. So always follow these three steps when starting your eCommerce business:
- Plan
- Strategy
- execute
Just do it. Once you get started and you are all in to do everything it takes, it will get on the way sooner or later. You just don’t need to think again and again after you decided once. Don’t wait for the right time, if you want to do it let’s get started.
Now if you want to thank me or just in case I left something unclear and you need to know that clearly, just drop a comment below and I’m always there.