Table of Contents
What is Online Business?
The e-commerce industry is undoubtedly booming at a pace faster than ever. With the Covid19 pandemic shaking the world and changing the way we lead our lives, complete digitisation is the future. Especially in a very busy and developing nation like India, e-commerce store business received its much-anticipated push during the multiple lockdowns. From essentials to apparel, from groceries to veggies, Indians want to sell everything online, and they are doing it successfully.
One challenge, however, remains stronger than ever, which is the digitisation of the local shops and vendors. Huge investments from giants into the hyper-locally managed sector so far has raised a lot of worries for the already existing retail businesses. So in 2022, it is vital that you take your store online and start scaling your business beginning from your own locality. If you’re wondering about how you can build, launch, and grow an online store, this guide is for you. Keep reading for a brief discussion on how you can quickly start your own online store and scale your online business.
Begin by brainstorming your e-commerce business strategy. Document your plan consisting of what you’ll be offering online and how would you go about selling it. Utilising a powerful framework and various online tools by your side, you could begin establishing your brand and launch your e-commerce business efficiently.
How to Start an Online Business?
Starting a business is not a very difficult task today, you just have to discover one business opportunity from the numerous business opportunities and for that you have to follow a detailed process of starting your business online.
Choose Your Niche
If you want to build a successful online business, finding the ideal niche is the first step to the ladder. Identify your interests and passion, execute them to create products, analyse how you could optimise the marketing of your business and sell more online.
Start by researching what’s trending currently, and keep a close look at your competitors – what they’re doing and why are they selling successfully. When looking at a popular e-commerce business as an example in your industry, ask yourself:
- How are they reaching customers?
- What appeals to you about their website?
- What is their business model?
Focus on Research
Once you find competitors in your space and research their history and business model, finalise your offerings and whatever you are going to sell online. Analyse what you can do in a way similar to what they are doing. Discover the products with the highest demand in your niche and try to deliver them in a unique enhanced way.
Another thing you should cover is to detect the potential blocks to enter your field and how you can overcome them. Keep in mind that it is totally alright to begin with baby steps when building an e-commerce business.
Choose Your Product and Target Market
There are several tried-and-tested frameworks you could utilise to find your build profitable e-commerce business. Try solving a well-known pain point in the market, brand yourself to a small niche market, or dive into your personal passion. These tactics could help you find the perfect product or service to sell.
#1 Brainstorming Your Products to Sell
To finalise your product to sell, do a deep analysis of your own experiences. Have you tried your hands in a certain industry you feel you can understand better than others?
Is there a void in the current market that people will need to be filled soon based on trends in your industry? Discovering a relevant trend earlier can establish you as a leader in the market.
Some ways you can spot trends by:
- Social listening
- Following search trends
- Browsing e-commerce websites and aggregator sites
#2 Finding Your Target Market
When collecting product information, analyse your target market. Who can be your ideal buyer? How do they behave? Now you would need to create customer personas.
Ask questions like:
- How old is this person?
- Where do they live?
- How much money do they make?
- What causes matter to them?
Decide How You’ll Get Your Product
Let’s say you’re trying to sell a physical product. In that case, you’ll need to create a system for getting it and shipping them to the buyers. You can explore various models for the same:
- Make it
- Manufacture it
- Purchase wholesale and resell
- Dropship it
Create Your Business Plan
Now you’ll require a business plan to follow and be on track. Once the basics are set right, drafting a business plan will help you in many ways.
Define your goals in the plan and dive into what are your requirements to run your e-commerce business and grow it by reaching more customers.
Additionally, even if you want a business loan, the first thing lenders and investors will look at is your business plan. Create your plan in a detailed and professional way.
Your business plan template should ideally include:
- What is your business all about?
- What are you selling?
- How will your business earn money?
- A list of employees and executive staff
- Where are you getting your capital from?
- What’s are your operation framework?
Keep in mind your target audience when you build your plan. If you are reaching out to investors, ensure they can transparently check and know what you’re doing. And if you’re going to hire more people to work at your organisation, allow them to acquire your business values and assure them that they will be treated with care.
Your business plan should cover all of the following:
- Executive summary
- Brand overview
- Market analysis
- Products and services
- Business plan
- Marketing ideas
- Logistics and operations plan
- Financial plan
Decide Your Business Name and Legal Structure
An ideal business name will immediately establish a tone for your brand. Take SleepyOwl Coffee, for example. The name right away tells you that this online store is for people who want coffee to avoid sleepiness. Clearly, a brand’s name plays an important role in setting up the tone and predicting the kind of consumers drawn towards it.
When it comes to selecting your business name, keep in mind to:
- Keep it subtle
- Be as unique as possible
- Creativity is your key
- Be original
You’ll also need to register your business using the name you select. Moving on, how you register your business will affect you legally and financially moving forward. Therefore, it’s best to do a good amount of research and consultation to finalise which type of legal structure is the perfect fit for you.
You’ll have to file registration for your business as one of the following:
- Sole proprietorship
- General partnership
- LLC
- Private Limited Company
Create Your Online Store Now with Bikayi
You’re all set to build your e-commerce store now, so choose a platform and start creating your online store. Numerous e-commerce platforms can help you establish your e-commerce business, so you’ll want to see which satisfies your needs best.
Bikayi is India’s leading mobile commerce enabler empowering businesses who want to have full control over their online business. Entrepreneurs can access everything they need to effectively market and sell products — all in one place. From unlimited products, WhatsApp catalogue sharing and automated order management to sales reports and more, Bikayi has all the features needed to launch your store. With Bikayi, business owners can flexibly manage their marketing, orders, dispatches, customer queries, payments, staff, and the list goes on endlessly.
Additionally, once you create a Bikayi Store, you can get an exclusive e-commerce website for your business customised as per your requirements. You can also opt for having your own e-commerce mobile app, hence giving you the opportunity to scale your online business as much as you want.
Market Your New Business
Once your e-commerce store is up and running, it’s finally time to start the marketing for your new business and sell your products. To market your store, selecting a platform is important in fact the platform which is most popular between your customers and to make it remember we launched BIK.ai, which can help you market your store with the power of WhatsApp Business Marketing. Try to optimise your audience research so that you can plan your content marketing and ads (if any).
Don’t hesitate to use different channels to market to your target audience. If you just published a blog recently, promote it on your social handles.
Create content relevant to your niche on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. Try and test various strategies in your marketing plan, like Instagram marketing or Influencer marketing.
You’ll also want to curate your online store landing page to attract more quality leads. Be creative with your landing page copy, product descriptions and optimise them as per SEO standards. Ensure easy navigation and simplicity in your website.
Get Started With Bikayi
A lot needs to be invested into starting an e-commerce business. The process can feel a bit intimidating at the beginning, but that’s how good things are meant to be! Move forward step by step, and don’t worry about making things perfect when starting out. Bikayi can be your own one-stop e-commerce enabler and marketing solution. Contact our e-commerce experts or book a demo call to start an online business you can be proud of.
