The deep recession is compelling small businesses to operate within tight budgets and cut overhead costs. E-commerce websites can significantly increase your revenues by expanding your business’ reach and saving on overhead costs such as retail real estate, inventory and sales staff.
Small businesses owners and entrepreneurs ready to launch an e-commerce website should ask themselves three important questions before emabarking on this business venture:
1. Will the business benefit from an e-commerce website?
This is a very important question. Studies reveal that e-commerce websites see greater number of sales transactions for products or services that cost less than $1000. Today, customers are very comfortable paying for these items online instead of standing in lines at the shopping mall. For higher priced ticket items it may be better to build your website to generate sales leads and hire an inside sales team that is comfortable cold calling these leads and closing them into sales.
2. How long will it take to set up the e-commerce website?
E-commerce websites are easy to setup and configure. Experienced e-commerce companies can launch an e-commerce website in five days or less, provided the backend is already setup and products are ready to be shipped. For a novice web designer, it will take longer as they will need to spend time in building the components from scratch.
Small businesses should be aware about what’s happening on the world wide web such as online consumer trends and shopping habbits that can make the e-commerce website more attractive and user friendly. Furthermore, internet marketing strategies such as search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising are going to be very important to drive potential customers to the e-commerce website.
3. How much will the e-commerce setup cost?
Advertisements that claim businesses can earn millions by setting up a free e-commerce website in one day or less, are talking through their hat. There is no shortcut to making millions – It involves hard work, innovation and investments. Do not delude yourself into believing that all you need is a computer and an internet connection to get you started on an e-commerce business venture. Though e-commerce websites are much cheaper than maintaining a brick-and-mortar retail store, there are some minimal investment associated with it such as costs of merchandise, standard storage, fulfillment, and marketing. Add to this the price of the e-commerce website design and the total initial investment can add up to between $5,000-$10,000.
After answering these questions to their satisfaction, small business owners and entrepreneurs should chalk out an online business plan. The first step is to outline all that will be needed for the e-commerce website to perform, such as:
- products and services to sell
- e-commerce website design
- a shopping cart feature and secure check out
- a merchant account for credit card processing
- a database
- an order fulfillment process
Small businesses can get started with e-commerce using the above checklist. E-commerce solutions serve as cost-effective sales channels and companies should consider using them if their business has the potential to benefit from an increasing number of potential customers that are researching and buying products and services online.
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[...] There are a large number of ecommerce solutions for small business, choosing which one is not one easy thing to do. Before you have chosen the company that provides your ecommerce solution for small business you need to ensure that they are able to support your full requirements. Other points of interest related to this article E-commerce Solutions | E-commerce Primer [...]
[...] There are a large number of ecommerce solutions for small business, choosing which one is not one easy thing to do. Before you have chosen the company that provides your ecommerce solution for small business you need to ensure that they are able to support your full requirements. Other points of interest related to this article E-commerce Solutions | E-commerce Primer [...]
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