Are you interested in starting an eCommerce brand but find it difficult to start one? Do you know where to start? There is no need to worry.

In this article we intend to discuss ten important steps in the process of launching your own eCommerce brand today, which you should follow in order to launch your new brand within a few months. Below mentioned are the ten important steps to launch your own ecommerce brand.

  • Choosing the Right Product

Creating profitable, in-demand products is one of the biggest challenges aspiring entrepreneurs face, whether it is a single product or a full line of products that fill a niche in a market. For altogether newcomers to the market, it will surely be a daunting task when compared to already successful offline business owners. You must find your USP, a unique selling point based on color, pattern, design, or product itself. Tools like Google Trends can be used to find the trending products along with real-time data of the product you wish to sell on other websites.

  • Business Models & Business Strategy

You must be known to the marketplace you wish to enter. For instance, if you wish to enter the clothing business you must aware of all the business models in that particular market. To name some, missiclothing.com, miowwholesale.com, eworldtrade.com in the B2B business model, and ZARA, Fashion nova, Forever21, and Anthropologie are some of the brands in the B2C business model. Then there is also C2C business where consumers sell or rent out to consumers themselves such as theclothingrental.com, flyrob.com, and stage3.com. The other one is B2B2C for those offline business owners who already have a dealer-distributorship network and now are seeking an online business opportunity.

Heading on, a robust business strategy is a prerequisite for developing a successful business plan. You should consider several basic qualitative factors such as understanding the niche market, gender, class, age, or demographics you wish to target. It is necessary to have a thorough knowledge of your peers and competitors, their strategy, revenue models, etc. Websites like similarweb.com and semrush.com could help you in understanding your competitor’s business rank-wise as well as category-wise along with knowing where they generate their maximum traffic from. Other important factors to keep an eye on are your logistics, supply chain, digital marketing strategy, and IT & software integration. 

  • Developing a Business Plan

The success of retail startups can often be attributed to a carefully crafted eCommerce business plan. When writing a business plan for an eCommerce startup, you must consider the audience. After determining the purpose of the project, you should determine if there are any gaps that need to be patched. The current market trends can help you draft your eCommerce business plan to ensure success and growth. A comprehensive business plan should cover capital investment, operating cost, breakeven point, ROI, Market Place Commission, Packaging cost, Transport cost, etc. along with a flexible pricing strategy to survive in the competitive market.

  • Organogram

  Organization charts are also known as organograms. The chart shows the structure of an organization and how the roles relate to each other. Often used in organizations to show the chain of command and relative ranking of various positions, it may also contain information such as job titles, names, and responsibilities of the employees. It solves all your queries such as how many people you require at the backhand, frontend, and other operations along with what kind of work you expect from your employees on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It is very important to organize this structure to ensure that you as an owner stay out of daily business operations and can focus on business development more efficiently.

  • Branding

Whether you plan to launch an affordable brand or a luxury one, it is very important to have the right brand positioning to leave a good image of your brand in the minds of the customers. For instance, if you target the toddler age group, you should focus on giving a cheerful, colorful image. Your branding strategy should focus on name, logo, color, packaging, brand story, and each and everything that is directly or indirectly connected with the end consumers.

  • SOPs

The Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of an organization define the processes that ensure that services and products are provided consistently every time. Standard operating procedures are often used to demonstrate compliance with regulations or operational practices and to document how tasks should be completed at your organization.  

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are an essential part of any Quality System. They should be aligned and follow separate standardized and explicit guidelines for departments such as purchase, accounts, sales, marketing, and supply chain. A proper SOP for these departments will make your eCommerce business scale towards phenomenal growth.

  • Webstore & UX-UI Designing

To put it simply, the goal of a typical user experience (UX) design is to get into the mind of your end-user and figure out how to provide them with a simple, logical, and enjoyable shopping experience. User experience in eCommerce, on the other hand, refers to the perception that a user has after interacting with your site.

Did you know that 76 out of every 100 visitors to your website abandon their shopping carts? Your website should have easy-to-use navigation, catalog, checkout, order management, and payment management features along with aesthetically appealing looks and design that meet the expectations of your consumers.  After all, it is the amazing customer experience that matters the most in customer acquisition. Shopify, Magento, Woocommerce, Presta Shop, and WordPress are some of the leading platforms that could help design your website.

  • Third-Party Tie-Ups

It can be said that for new entrepreneurs it is one of the most crucial departments to deal with. Having a good network of third-party businesses will help you outsource essential services such as Logistics, courier services, Digital Marketing,  Technology/Development Partners, Product Photography, Packaging solutions, Branding solution providers, etc. at affordable prices. Along with that, there are basic third-party platforms that host and manage online sales for businesses. 

  • IT Integration

Choosing the right software for managing your payment getaways, customer service, warehouse management, inventory management, and other background management could help place your brand at the apex of the marketplace you wish to enter. The reason is the efficiency of the IT & software integration. The software you use should speak real-time data such as MOQ levels (minimum reorder quantity), cart abandonment rate, return rate, etc., and analyze the model closely so as to minimize the chances of any error or possible threats in the whole process.

  • Process Automation

Innovations in digital platforms have exponentially increased the need for business process automation. To keep up with the needs of the market and customer expectations, business owners are nowadays trying to automate most of the processes from receiving the order to the order fulfillment. Another reason for more automation is that in most cases the tasks given to the employees are often misunderstood, to ensure these tasks are followed upon, automation is essential. There are plenty of tools available to make your organization more system-dependent and less people-dependent. 

Why Choose YRC

Ready to set sail into ecommerce industry? We are here to ease the process for you.

Your Retail Coach is a boutique retail and ecommerce management consultancy firm that aims to provide impeccable services to the aspiring online retailers, be it mid scale or large scale. Experts at YRC are committed towards building an online business model that is consistent and progressive. From SOPs to business finance, business process automation, we make sure everything is in order. For more information about e-commerce business, talk to YRC experts today.

For more insights on Retail & E-commerce refer to YRC Vlogs: https://www.youtube.com/c/YOURRETAILCOACH

To learn more on the topic, refer to following video by Dr. Rupal Agarwal