Given that worldwide e-commerce sales are projected to reach a staggering $7.4 trillion by the year 2025 and there being more digital buyers around than ever before, now is an excellent time to ride the wave and set up an e-commerce business. You’ll certainly have no shortage of potential customers to tap into!
The digital nature of e-commerce businesses means you can easily set one up remotely from home. However, where there’s great opportunity in business always comes with fierce market competition, and this is old adage very much rings true with e-commerce sales. Here, we take a peek into some ideas that can help you ensure you manage to set up a successful e-commerce retail business from home.
Create a Feasible Business Model
Behind all successful businesses is a well thought out business model. What are you going to focus on selling? Who will be your main audience? What places do they tend to visit online? Are you going to operate a business-to-business- or a business-to-consumer model? Maybe, you’ll decide to set up a consumer-to-consumer model and act as a intermediary platform that vendors pay to make use of.
A good business model will allow you to plan out how you are going to achieve your goals.
Come up With a Catchy Appropriate Business Name
All retail vendors, whether digital or non-digital, need a catchy (perhaps corny) name that customers can easily recognise and identify. What company name from the offset will help your e-commerce retail business stand out from the crowd? Think carefully about the sorts of products you will mainly be selling.
Will you be selling computers or technology for example? Then come up with an engaging name that plays on the tech related nature of the products your online store will be offering customers.
Coming up with a catchy name for your e-commerce business of course doesn’t require you to have a massive expensive business space or physical offices, you can do it all from the comfort of your own home!
Carry Out Your Research
Research, research, and more research is key when setting up an e-commerce business from home, particularly given that the industry has become so saturated nowadays. You need to know what your rivals and market competitors are doing.
How have the current successful market leaders in your space got to where they are? How have they built their customer base over time? What inspiration can you take from their e-commerce business ideas?
Thanks to the internet, there is more data and information about successful businesses out there than ever for you to look at and research without needing to leave your home office. Failing to prepare is preparing your new e-commerce business for failure. So, don’t underestimate the value of carrying out lots of market research.
Pay Attention to all the Little Practical Details
When starting up a new e-commerce retail business from home, you need to think thoroughly about all the little practical details. After all, there’s plenty that goes into establishing a brand new e-commerce business and making it successful.
For instance, if you are setting up an online clothes store from home, where are you going to put all your stock? There may not quite be adequate room in your garden shed at home. A great solution for business storage is hire a self-storage space. Now Storage is a reliable storage provider offering business and personal self-storage units with 13 locations across England and Wales. Looking to set up an online retail store from home in the UK? Use their services for all your storage needs.
Make Sure Your Online Store is Easy for Customers to Navigate
To help you get a higher number of sales, you must ensure the user journey is as simple and smooth as possible for your online customers. If you have all the IT know-how about setting up a first rate website and an easy to use e-commerce store, do it yourself. But if not, then it could be a wise idea to invest in hiring the services of a professional web developer.
Ultimately, it should be a seamless experience for customers to make purchases on your online store with a few simple clicks of a button. No hassle needed.
There are many advantages to working from home, such as being able to spend more precious time with family or whomever you live with, and being surrounded by your home comforts day in, day out. These are 5 useful ideas that can help you a great deal in setting up a successful e-commerce retail business from your own home!
