Ecommerce-Steps to follow for a successful online venture

Over the recent years, internet has gained significant momentum and enabled lot of businesses of various scale on both B2B and B2C ecommerce fronts to compete aggressively in this tough business environment. Some are just trying to catch the glimpse of the future, while others ponder if this model is really a retail scenario of tomorrow. Ecommerce technologies have helped several brands and manufacturers to get into the business retailing online. Commercial transaction carried out electronically is called Ecommerce. In simple terms, “buying and selling online”.

India is amongst the quickest developing ecommerce market in the world. In spite of the fact that thousand of ecommerce startups are launched each year, very few survive in the first crucial year. Why is it so? Here are some key focuses each ecommerce business person must remember when beginning the venture:

1.       Planning for Ecommerce startup.

Planning an effective business strategy is making the correct decisions that will help achieve the expressed business goals. There should be a clear vision, mission and target about what goal will be accomplished, in how much time, within what budget, identifying the correct resources and limitations of the strategies mentioned in business plan, and what components will be considered for roadmap.

The deep understanding and knowledge of digital marketing techniques and tools that helps in acquiring and reaching customers is very much required. Remember your business must reach to the customers who are online across multiple platforms..

2.       Technology selecting, Website Audit and Analysis.

Keeping in mind the end goal to give the greatest advantage to the end client, your picked ecommerce technology should be completely equipped for being adjustable and customizable, and have the capacity to supplement the plan of action. If you are a retailer and taking a first step into ecommerce pond, various functionalities on ecommerce website should be carefully planned based on industry, target audience, and customers who may buying the products and services. It is equally important to analyze and monitor the Ecommerce process regularly.

3.       Customer Acquisition.

Popular or online digital marketing encompasses multiple tools for connecting era of customers who are effectively engaged in utilising multiple devices through search engine optimization, search engine marketing (paid advertisement), social media marketing, setting up email campaigns and displaying advertisements using multiple ad networks.

The cost of customer acquisition is very high for the brands and retailers that are newly establishing their products online. 

4.       Customer Engagement

Connecting with clients through different online networking channels likewise ingrains higher trust in the minds of customers. Customers nowadays are effectively trying to engage with brands to understand their core advantages and a unique value that brand offers also discounts and special offers on various seasonal occasions, their support for queries regarding product and customer care services for returns and exchange of product, etc.

5.       Optimizing key metrics.

A portion of the key points to measure the ecommerce venture are the aggregate income created, cost of customer procurement, % of customer changed over and % of customers entering the site through different channels. However, these metrics may vary essentially in view of the business objective thus every business needs a completely modified approach for characterizing the key metrics and further analysis.

6.       Customer insights and business analysis.

The last stage in the whole procedure is about fine tuning and understanding the categories of products that have performed very well compared with different items showed in the web store.  Surveying this is essential since each of these categories and items inside those categories occupy the stand in the online world – the web store.

Ecommerce strategy, if arranged and executed well, can be a vital methods for reinforcing revenues, increasing brand awareness, giving best in class support and shopping experience to the new generation of customers.