Building an online store from scratch is undoubtedly a challenge, yet more and more people are taking the plunge into the world of e-commerce. In the second half of 2021, the National Commission on Market Competition (NCMC) recorded an increase of 20.3 percent in online transactions compared to the same period of the previous year.
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If we translate this increase into euros, it appears that almost 6 billion were spent online. This trend does not show any weakening in the near future, at the same time more and more people want to master the creation of an online store step by step.
As a direct delivery operator, our company works with hundreds of customers who own online stores. We have studied their needs and the problems they face every day. In order to support them with their e-commerce needs, we've put together this guide to clarify the key issues that arise every day in the process of creating an online store. Let's get started!
Define your business model
Many of those who decide to start an online store skip this step, but we've included it to tell you what to do after all. If your goal is truly to generate revenue and you take e-commerce seriously, the first thing you should do is determine the business model you will operate under. Confused? Don't worry. Defining a business model for professional website maintenance can be as simple as putting together Canvas. Canvas is a separate page with basic information about how your e-commerce will work, it will guide you and tell you the first steps to take. The question is, which business model is right for e-commerce? While there are more and more varieties of models lately, we'll identify the top 3 among them.
Business To Consumer (B2C)
This is the most common model in which the business owner sells goods to the end consumer. Eldorado, MediaMarkt or Euroset are prime examples of e-commerce with a B2C model. In virtually all of the literature on e-commerce and online marketing, you can trace the focus to this type of model.
Business To Business (B2B)
An online store of the B2B model sells to other companies. For example, BigBuy operates on a B2B model. We sell in bulk and help our customers sell in turn to their buyers.
C2C (Consumer to Consumer)
The C2C model was virtually non-existent before the advent of the Internet. This model, also called P2P (Peer To Peer), was started by companies like Airbnb or BlaBlaCar, which mediate contact between individuals and earn their commission on every transaction between them.
What model do you want to build your ecommerce around? You can sell goods or services, work on B2C or B2B models (and even both at once) or just bring customers together and choose the C2C model.
At this point, you will have to determine a few things, but the most important among them will be the source of your income. You should forecast the costs of your business, how much you can sell when you reach the «break-even point» (the point at which the business stops making losses and starts working «in the black»).
Selling online without inventory
When you decide to open an online store and analyze the possible costs and revenues, the question arises: what to do with inventory? The answer is not necessary if you provide services, but if your store will be selling goods of any kind, you should plan for their purchase, storage and, of course, delivery. If this side of the issue is already giving you more headaches than others, we encourage you to learn more about direct delivery. This distribution model essentially means that the customer buys the product from your store, you don't do the shipping, the wholesaler does it for you. In other words, you save on inventory management and devote yourself entirely to sales. We'll tell you more about that next.
Creating an online store
Let's assume you've already done some work before opening a store: you've done market research (it may consist of several Google searches), become self-employed, and found a wholesaler to purchase goods. If all of the above (and a couple of other things) are in place, you can start creating an online store.
This step is addressed to people who will create an online store from scratch with their own hands and will not involve third parties. However, if you do not know the technical side of the case, but want to start trading as soon as possible, you can turn to web studios that specialize in developing websites for e-commerce. Plus, if you decide to opt for direct delivery, vendors like BigBuy can offer you a direct delivery store already fully set up and in sync with the wholesaler's assortment.
If you are new to CMS, you can always develop a custom site, but it will be a much more time consuming task and will require advanced programming knowledge. It is recommended to open a custom site only if you are aiming for a store of a certain kind that requires custom processes that CMS cannot offer. From our experience, such situations are rare, and a pre-installed builder will cost you much less and faster. There are many useful CMSs for e-commerce, but each one is best suited for a particular type of store. Let's take a brief look at the most important ones:
- WooCommerce. It's not really a CMS, more of a plugin for WordPress. It's fairly easy to use and allows you to set up simple but effective online stores.
- Shopify. This software is also easy to use, it does not require any special knowledge of computers or programming. In addition, it provides many templates that can be adapted to all kinds of stores.
- PrestaShop. Without a doubt, this is the best known system for e-commerce. It is the most complete and allows you to create a medium-sized online store. Developers around the world create additional plugins and templates for PrestaShop.
- Magento. This is the most used CMS for e-commerce with a lot of recommendations and traffic. Its use is not the best, we recommend it if you plan to attract an impressive amount of traffic and achieve outstanding sales.
- And other CMS.
After choosing a CMS and a template you like, you still have to tweak the design a bit, payment methods, feedback forms.