Using your own eCommerce platform is one of the simpler ways to get into business, particularly if you’re starting from the bottom without years of experience and huge amounts of money to invest in your project. However, there’s still a lot of challenges for you to overcome before you can catch up with all of your competitors, so read on to find out what you can do to make up the difference and make our eCommerce business a success.
Planning
There’s no substitute for a comprehensive business plan, and trying to make do without one could be one of the factors that is setting you back. Your plan should include all of your market research, as well as an analysis of your financial situation and ideas for how to move forward. Even if you think you can hold all of the relevant information in your head, get it down on paper as it’ll make a huge difference to your strategy and organisational techniques.
Pre-launch
Before the launch, you’ll of course need to have your trading website designed. If you have the resources, the know-how and the right staff, then you should be able to design the website in-house. However, it’s often a cheaper solution to have it designed by an external web design company. It’s also important that you generate some excitement for your launch. For this, you’ll need to have a marketing strategy in place early on in the process.
Post-launch
After the launch, it’s essential that everything is running smoothly. Many new customers will quickly lose trust in a new business if they encounter any issues with it, so make sure they aren’t encountering any problems when they use your service. Hire out a company like BugFinders to perform all the website testing you need. This will ensure your site is up to trading with customers using mobile devices or who live in another country, as website testers will map out the customer’s journey through your site to iron out any creases.
Storage and Logistics
There are many different companies offering storage and logistics services in all parts of the country, so you will have a great many options to choose between. It’s essential that you get the best deal you can, as you can’t afford to waste finances anywhere. Look at what your competitors are doing to overcome these challenges, and don’t be afraid to negotiate with the services you find.
Customer Services
Any problems with customer services in your business could have a huge effect, so make sure that the effect is a positive one. Poor customer service will result in not only lost customers but disgruntled customers, who won’t mind sharing their opinions all over the web. It’s very easy for disgruntled customers to get heard, but there is something you can do. Firstly, make sure your customer services are function as they should and maintaining a professional outlook at all times. You can also respond to any negative comments to show other customers that you genuinely want to satiate their concerns. Good customer service, however, can create loyal customers if you can help them, and they’ll often want to share that on the web too.
Human Resources
If your business is going to be a success, then you need to have the best team around you that you possibly can, and that comes down to your choices when looking for staff. It’s easy to make mistakes when putting a team together, partly because many employers look vaguely for a charismatic employee who will ‘fit in’. Instead, make a list of the kind of candidate you’re looking for before you meet anyone. You don’t have to find somebody who ticks all the boxes, but don’t go on personality alone. It’s also important to know when to let a member of staff go. Do this when it becomes clear that they aren’t trying, don’t care about succeeding at your business, or when they become unreliable. However, if the threat of a firing is always in the air, it won’t generate a positive working environment for any of the staff.
Managing finances
Your finances are the most accurate way to measure your success and to know when you need to take action to stay afloat, so a comprehensive knowledge of them at all times is essential, particularly when devising a strategy of thinking forward in anyway. However, you also need to make sure that appropriate security is in place to protect both your finances and any customer details from cyberattack.
Marketing
This is a vital part of your business plan that you simply can’t afford to neglect. There are also a lot of options, whether you’ve designated a significant chunk of your finances towards your marketing plan or whether you’re operating it on a shoestring budget. If you have the funds then outsourcing your marketing to an SEO company will make it much easier for customers to find you, pre- or post-launch. If you don’t have the funds, you can still market on online through a social media page and website blog, which will improve your online visibility. It could be worth contacting a social media influencer to help you spread the word about your company, or even investigate the possibility of email marketing.
Expansion
When you’ve achieved some success with your eCommerce business, then it’s time to maximise that success by expanding. When expanding your business, timing is essential but easy to get wrong. Expanding too soon could stretch your budget more than you can cope with, however, if you expand too late than you run the risk of missing the wave of interest that you need to carry you through. Expansion comprises a huge change in your strategy, so make sure you are planning and projecting so that you’ll meet as few surprises along the way as possible.
Location
Many newly started eCommerce businesses can be operated from a home office or spare room, with members of your team only connected through the internet, but as your company grows, it’s important that you can communicate verbally and have group discussions about strategy. Your location is important, and the atmosphere will set the mood of your employees, so make sure you choose somewhere comfortable and easy to get to.
For more information, check out bugfinders.com.
