Planning for e-commerce in 5 steps
I’ve helped build many online stores. A while back, it occurred to me that maybe I should have one of my own. Since websites or brand advice are not things you can really “add to cart,” I had to start thinking about what to sell, why, and how.
Ok, the ‘why’ is to make money. Ahem.
When a client approaches me with an interest in e-commerce, I don’t exactly roll my eyes, but I do have the unfortunate knowledge that they are underestimating absolutely everything about e-commerce.
The first thing they have to realize is the internet is irrelevant. The e doesn’t matter. Raw, valid capitalism is what counts in the end. Have a product that people actually want and will actually pay for. CREATE VALUE! That’s harder than anything. Usually, though, people are already selling something successfully and they just want to expand their reach and customer base digitally. However, the first step is:
1. Critically evaluate the product itself for its merits and market position.
You can spend a lot of time in college thinking about this step. This is probably why I haven’t opened an online store for myself before. After quite a few times of doing it for others, I began to learn from them. I have had the great fortune of working with people who not only have unique, excellent products to sell, they really get their customers.
2. Set goals and make plans.
One of the most terrifying things that can happen with e-commerce is called critical success. That means your idea actually worked and now you are not only out of stock, but you have way too many orders to deal with in time. This is not “a good problem to have,” trust me. How you stock, manage your supply chain, and track inventory are important business decisions, as is…
3. Decide exactly how you are going to ship this stuff (and how to not charge for it).
Depending on your situation, shipping can be a real issue. Some online stores have built-in UPS (or other) pricing, which can be sweet. Free shipping will increase sales, but of course at a cost to you. Don’t underestimate how many orders will never complete checkout because the shipping cost just made it seem too expensive to commit to the buy.
4. Choose a platform.
Our online store software of choice these days is Magento, one of the most popular out there. It helps tremendously that I have a PHP magician in the house. It’s fairly hardcore code, but the license is free. There are things wrong with all platforms, but the main thing going for Magento is the scale of the community. As it turns out, every online store is unique with individual quirks and demands. Fortunatley, as these things are tackled as “mods” by the Magento community, you can buy and install them affordably as you run into your own oddball situations.
If you are starting from scratch, you can consider a few options to test the waters or the validity of your e-commerce dreams: Ebay, Etsy, Big Cartel, and Squarespace come to mind as affordable and quick options to get your feet wet before you graduate to a full blown hosted system.
5. Understand search (and other forms of marketing)
“Market your online store” is me being Captain Obvious. You can compete with organic search, but you have to do your homework and understand what’s already out there. One of the sites we launched 8 years ago is a great example I use to explain how to succeed at this.
Although it’s an oldie, it sure is a goodie. Go search Google for “olive trees” and the top result just might be Olive Tree Growers. The reason they are so highly ranked is a) there is some amazing content b) it’s a properly constructed and optimized website c) they took our advice and encouraged other (legit) folks to link to them. <pauses to take a break and do his actual job by emailing them and suggesting a redesign is way overdue>
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Now that I’m my own client and reading back at my own steps, I see I have some work to do. I’ve completed about 3/5 of these and I’m pretty excited. Seeing clients succeed online over the years has been a real thrill (especially PointerBrand.com </shameless plug>) and now I get to take a shot myself. Stay tuned!
