Introduction

We know that online shopping is picking up the pace in a big way globally, it is changing the retail scenario totally. Even now there are so many new e-commerce ventures, who already have the huge customer base and they are not even 5 years old.

Things to consider before starting an ecommerce business

• Identify a perfect name for your business

The first thing that will populate the customers attention in any e commerce venture is its fascinating domain name. Now the norms say that the name should be short, recallable and easily spell-able without any mistake.

• Building your online ecommerce store

After finalizing a good name for your ecommerce business next thing is to find a developer for your ecommerce store. For better features and single point solution for everything you can use any good e-commerce platforms like Magento, Woocommerce, etc or you can hire a web design agency .

• Registering for an ecommerce company

Registering a e-commerce company is not very different from registering a regular companies. It does not require any unique registrations or licence. It is just like any trading or retailing firm, you just have to get your firm registered.For getting a payment gateway and invoicing, business registration is required. It’s not compulsory to have a firm registered for online business. There are other alternatives for payment gateways like pay u money, which does not require any firm’s registration for using its services.

• How to get Payment gateway

Payment gateway is the one of the major link for accepting payments online in your website. There are two types of payment gateways:

1. Payment gateways with no setup fees are very popular but they have higher Transaction rates per transaction(TDR’s) few examples are PayPal, Payumoney, Airpay etc.

2. Payment gateways with setup fees have lesser TDR’s per transaction and faster processing, few examples are Payu, ccavenue, etc.For applying for a payment gateway you will be required to submit few documents(ID proofs, phone bills etc)Address is also verified in process.

• E-commerce logistics

Next thing you will be needing is Courier service partner for logistics. For this either you can approach your local Courier service provider, who also have big network of logistic services throughout your country (and even abroad) like bluedart, aramex, fedex, UPS or you can talk to automatic logistics solution providers in country for e-commerce. You can compare their Currier rates, taxes and delivery time.They may request you for an agreement signing, in which you can request them for monthly billing.

• How to market your ecommerce

Marketing your online ecommerce store can be done by paid marketing like Facebook Ads, Google display ads and web based advertisements. You can also go for SEO and Social Media Marketing, this can also be outsourced to any professional companies.

• Inventory Management

Inventory management is the series of activities involved to ensure that items needed for the business to run are always available in optimal quantity. This means that there should neither be too much stock nor too little, but just the amount required with enough backup

Tips for managing inventory:

The Core and Non-Core Products should be kept separate:

Simply put, core products are those products that a business absolutely relies on and does not want to find a shortage of. Everything else are the non-core products.

Leverage JIT Inventory Management:

JIT or Just-In-Time inventory management strategy is used to increase efficiency and decrease waste. It is achieved by receiving the required goods only when they are needed in the production or the sale process.

Improve prediction:

As mentioned above, the key to successful inventory management is accurate prediction is When a retailer knows that the customer needs, where and what quantity, it is needed they will be in a better position to meet the customer’s expectation without generating stockpile beyond a certain point. To achieve better prediction, the business needs to be able to conduct market research, analyze demand patterns and understand required stock levels.

E Commerce accounting

You have to be informed and updated with all the laws and regulations surrounding business accounting under your control.This will require research online and perhaps speaking to a tax advisor.Keep records of all your financial transactions.If you do not do this!!!, you’ll end up wasting lots of your precious time trying to find out the missing documents later, which will cause stress.Preserve all your invoices, receipts and anything else that shows your income and outgoings.Ideally, it is better to have all these documents copied to digital device.

Choosing a Accounting solutions

To manage the accounting of your ecommerce venture use an online accounting solution.They enable you to take control of your accounting.They are easy to setup and use

Logistics

Logistics acts as a important coordinating mechanism among multiple partners of supply chain.As we have competition between supply chains, competitive success will depend on the ability to coordinate and integrate the production activities at the geographically dispersed and organizationally distinct locations.Here elogistics will play important role in future of businesses.Logistic software provides the necessary tools to support in the execution and management of product delivery business. There are two sides to this kind of software:

Supply chain management.

The features that manages the execution of the freight pick-ups, tracking and deliveries. SCM leads to managing all the inventory and shipping details to get the product to the customer.

Brokerage and bidding.

Freight brokerage software needs to manage the business aspect, too, Since most logistics operators serve third parties on a contract basis.These softwares can include bid, contract management, CRM, accounting and other business functions. Because some businesses focus only on this consignment fee aspect, there are also specific software solutions, often labeled freight forwarder software, which cater directly to these types of operations.

Competitive research

Why complete a website competitive research ?

We should perform competitive research to make and update our own marketing strategy and plans.Following are the key points of competitive research ie analyzing the competition for…

Traffic and ranking estimations

1. What keywords are they ranking for?

2. How much is their estimated traffic?

Search engine friendliness

1. What is their website speed of loading?

2. Is their site have a responsive design?

Site marketing performance

1. Do they have a blog also do they use videos?

2. What points of conversion do they have (contact, live chat, email, phone etc)?

Social media performance

1. They are on which social networks?

2. Their most shared pages?

The above mentioned are just some of the few things which have to be considered when opening an ecommerce store.If you have any feedback please provide them via feedback@bistasolutions.com