If you have decided to enter into the field of eCommerce, you cannot just go ahead and start the business. Before you take any action, you need to have a good business plan. And above that, you need to make sure that your plan is really viable and profitable.
Now having an eCommerce business plan is different than any traditional business plan. And no matter how tempting it is to start the eCommerce business right away, always have a proper plan before diving in. Wondering why? Believe it or not, it would save you a lot of time and money. You would be fully aware of
- what all risks can arrive in the future,
- what will be the challenges you would face,
- what are the opportunities you need to take advantage of, and so on.
The plan need not be a proper organized approach. It is there to help you only, so don’t worry if it stretches over multiple pages in any haphazard manner. But if you are trying to get your eCommerce store funded, you definitely need to have a nice looking executive summary of your plan. I have seen websites like Vivakoffie which do very well because of they always prepare a good business plan.
But rest assured, the plan is there to help you out only.
So how can you prepare your eCommerce business plan?
- Write down a short and crisp value proposition. In this, you need to write down in a way that you are explaining your business to a customer. Once you feel this is perfect, use this as the description of your company.
- Develop your business model. For this, work on aspects like what are you selling, who is your target audience, how are you sourcing your products, and so on.
- Conduct a market analysis. In this, you need to understand your target market. Analyze the overall industry outlook, who are your competitors, what are they doing to attract people, what is the demographics of your target audience, and so on.
- Carry out the marketing. Till now, you would have narrowed down the key parameters. But unless you market your website, you won’t be able to make any sale. And in order to form a marketing strategy, analyze who is your target audience, where can you best reach them, what are their interests which you can target, and so on. Besides this, carry out paid and organic marketing as well.
When you are done with all of this, you are ready to go live. Start making a website using any of the popular eCommerce platforms. Keep in mind all the above points while you are building one.