The passion-driven industry all over the world has picked up the pace and witnessed significant growth in the past few years, especially after COVID hit the market. With people choosing to be their own boss and working on something they are passionate about, it makes complete sense to market an eCommerce store as one of the highly profitable careers, just like freelancing.
What You Need to Know Before Launching an Ecommerce Store in India
Before getting intrigued and fascinated by the idea of running a successful eCommerce store, make yourself familiar with the possible cons of stepping into the eCommerce business.
It goes without saying that setting up an eCommerce store is comparatively more difficult than working as a freelancer. Considering the technicalities of designing, creating, launching, and marketing the store, and the legal formalities that need to be taken care of as well. It is time-consuming as it requires extensive research and familiarity with the market, products, target audience, and legal requirements of running a business.
Despite all the difficulties, eCommerce is one of the most exciting, profitable, and growing business ideas. If you find the entrepreneurial sector intriguing, you should definitely consider starting it.
We don’t want to scare you. Neither do we intend to make you drop the plan of starting an eCommerce store. We want to prepare you for the market because it is going to be tricky and technical.
That being said, let’s dive into the step-by-step guide to launching your own eCommerce store in India.
Launch Your Own Ecommerce Store: Step by Step Guide
Decide the Niche
First things first, you need to decide what exactly you would like to sell. Do you wish to be in the fashion industry, jewellery making, selling digital illustrations and paintings, handmade home decor products, or everything embroidery?
We believe if you are considering opening an eCommerce store, you must already have something in mind that you want to sell but if not, go ahead and research the products that you can sell.
Conduct Market Research
Once you have selected products, it’s time to conduct extensive market research. See how your competitors are working and marketing themselves. You need to understand the market. Shortlist your target audience, analyse their previous experience, know their expectations, and see where the existing sellers and producers are lacking. All this information will help you meet the expectations of your target market even when you are just starting out.
Get Your Business Registered
Running an online business is not a lot different from an offline business. You will need to meet different legal requirements, get licences and permits curated for an online business, and get your business registered. For this, again, you will need to conduct research and see what documents you need to run an online business successfully in your region.
Produce the Products You Intend to Sell
Now that you have a registered business it’s time to fill your stock and get ready with the products so that you can start selling immediately. It makes even more sense if you are working with something handmade. Make a few samples so that you can post pictures and have a few products in hand and don’t delay shipping once the order has been made.
If your business does not allow you to produce products beforehand, you can stock the raw materials that you will require and calculate the production time to make sure the products are delivered on time.
Get Your Website Designed
Okay, this is important. Even more important than you anticipated. Get your website professionally designed and do not set up your website for free even when you are starting out. Why are we suggesting that? Because once your business picks up you will have to shift to a better website and the whole process will get complicated. Get it professionally designed and make sure everything is exactly how you want in the long run.
Don’t think negatively especially when you are just starting out. The possibility is you are going to ace it. If you are still not sure and need any sort of guidance in making your business a huge success even at the very beginning level, consider taking Hustlepost Academy’s course on building your eCommerce store.
Launch Your Ecommerce Store
Yes, everything is done and dusted and it’s time to launch your ecommerce store. Give everything a quick check, make sure the website is SEO optimised, content posted on the website is fine, and the links you have given work properly. Place a dummy order to make sure that everything will work perfectly on the customer’s end and you are all set. Launch your store.
Don’t Forget to Market
There is no way we are going to miss this step, right? We all know how important marketing is, especially for small-scale businesses. Market your eCommerce store right from the start. Create social media accounts, use keywords, and hire marketing professionals. If you don’t wish to invest in marketing right away, at least try to do the basics that you can do on your own.
Read more: Different Types Of Online Marketing And How It Works
Parting Words
The eCommerce Kickstarter Program at Hustlepost Academy covers everything that you need to know to make any business successful. It basically sets your mindset and helps you optimise your business in a manner that it is definitely going to make six figures. This is probably the only course you need to learn about the business, marketing, and mindset of successful entrepreneurs. This will make launching and investing in the eCommerce store way easier for you.
That’s it. There you have it, your eCommerce store and your target audience, start selling already.
