What is the Easiest Way to Take a Online Retail Store?

In this ever moving world of ours, people favour convenient and time saving methods more than any traditional ones. The Covid-19 was just the last nail to the coffin for the brick and mortar stores.

As the severity of the pandemic’s lockdown increased the gap between the traditional stores and the online stores increased drastically. Business Insider has reported that in the United States alone over 12,000 stores will be closing this year.

Will this be the end of the era of the physical retail stores? – Though it might seem so, we can always strive and keep their legacy going by adapting to the ever changing technology and consumer behaviour, i.e by creating an online store.

As the famous saying goes – Change is the only permanent thing in this universe.

One might think that converting into an online store might need a lot of hardwork and complex planning and not to forget huge financial support too. All these were true in the past.

However with the advent of the latest technology you can build a great multi vendor marketplace platform with greater cost efficiency. Shopygen who are into ecommerce business provides multi vendor ecommerce software to set up your very own online retail store.

We are here to guide you through the processes of building your own online retail brand in the most robust and easy way. Just follow the steps below and you will be ready to go live with your store by the end of this article.

Excited?

Let’s get started!

Know your audience

This forms the basis of your entire operation. Without deciding how your target audience is going to be you will not be able to take your business development forward.

Given this is a consumer based industry, considering their preferences, convenience, demands etc are of utmost importance. Here is when experience comes to play. Since you have already dealt with customers first hand / face to face, it will be easier for you to understand them.

Else, if you find yourself in a pickle you can always gain knowledge from others’ experiences. There are so many great references that you can find online. Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, Itsy etc are just a few examples.

They are literally ruling this industry. You can observe them and study their methods and then try to implement the same or even better, you can add your midas touch to it and improvise on it to suit your business goals.

Formulate your business plan:

The ecommerce industry is an ocean. However, given your niche is already finalized you are a step closer to your goal. Else selecting a niche for your online business would have been a real taskmaster.

Given you are aiming to build an online retail store, before you dive right in to start developing your virtual application, you need to devise a plan for your business. This is nothing but the framework based on which your business principles and rules will follow.

Below are the main pointers your business plan should consist-

A summary of your plan
Market overview
Sales & Marketing plans
Operational strategies
Value proposition of your services
Organization & Management team framework
Financial and Legal aspects of your business

Finalise your revenue model:

This is the most tricky part of setting up a business. Given the competitive nature of this field, you need to tread with real care. Based on your business plan you will have to select a suitable revenue model. This will also depend on the customer base you are planning to attract.

Once your business picks up you can also plan on having other brands use your platform for their sales. This is also one way to earn some extra cash. The combination of the right business plan along with the correct revenue model is your golden ticket to success.

Below are the popular revenue models you can adopt-

Commission model
Subscription
Membership model
Listing fee model
Freemium
Lead fees model

and many others.

Go-Live:

The time has come to take your business virtual. Given you are just starting your business online for the very first time, it is ok not to invest in your own online website.

You can always opt to launch yourself using a store through an already established and thriving multi vendor marketplace platform.

Experience is the best teacher one can have. This will also help you gain the right experience which you can then implement to your own business website.

Moving on, the next step would be to develop your own online platform. As soon as one thinks about building a website they immediately think about the amount of knowledge they should have or the financial aspects of the website.

However, this ecommerce industry has come a long way since then. Now we have new methods that can be adopted in order to build your website. Take a look.

Developing from scratch (either on our own or by hiring an exclusive tech team)
By renting a SaaS platform (Software as a Service)
By purchasing a turnkey solutions

Based on your time limit, budget and the technical requirements you can choose any of the above. However, our recommendation, considering all the factors would be for you to opt for a turnkey solution.

Though they also offer a ready made solution, you will have a liberty to customize as per your needs. There are many other advantages added to it as well. Some of them are-

Open source code
Huge time saver
Economical with one time payment policy
Complete technical support
Support regarding domain and hosting etc

Promote yourself:

After all the sweat and blood you have sacrificed to build your online retail store, it will be gutting if you do not get the deserved ranking on the search engine result page.

Earning the ranking plays a crucial role in increasing your customer base. Only when you appear on the first page of the search engine will you be able to capture the attention of the right audience. Else all this hard work is for nothing. Marketing is one of the toughest parts of a business.

You need to have innovative ideas and good domain knowledge in order to capture the attention of the audience. Here are few tested methods that have proved to be fruitful in the past.

However, it is not a cardinal rule that what works for one has to work for others too. So you can be free in making your own marketing strategy or even mix up the below given traditional methods.

Social Media Marketing: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc
Influencer Marketing
Customer’s testimonies, reviews and ratings
Content marketing- newsletters, blogging, personalized emails etc
Digital marketing etc

So, are you all geared up to begin a new and exciting chapter of your life?

We always have your back, so don’t worry. We are here for you for any kind of assistance you might need regarding the technicalities of your virtual retail platform.

Best of luck!

Author Bio

I’m an eCommerce business expert, Influencer, and business advisor. I have also written several posts related to the eCommerce niche which has attracted readers.

Marketing Consultant at https://shopygen.com/