Building an online store from scratch may seem intimidating, but it’s actually not too difficult if you start working with a proper plan in mind. After all, you can analyze hundreds of success stories such as Shopify and quickly learn from their experiences.
There are already around two billion digital buyers all over the world, but the figure keeps growing rapidly in the last few years. If you could grab just a tiny portion of the market share, you would make a very decent living for the rest of your life.
But how can you launch a profitable online store?
We can recommend you so many tips here, but the best idea is to begin from a highly specific example. In this post, we will show you a Shopify-focused repeat-after-us guide on how to crack the code on succeeding in eCommerce. Let’s take a look!
How Shopify Made It Work?
Before we begin discussing how you can launch a productive eCommerce store, we want to explain to you the steps Shopify founders took to skyrocket their business. Jake Gardner, an eCommerce analyst at several paper writing services – including myassignmenthelp – helped us to compile a brief history of Shopify:
- Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake founded the first version of Shopify in 2004. Back then, it wasn’t even an eCommerce platform, but rather a full-time online store for selling snowboards called Snowdevil.
- The platform changed its name to Shopify in 2006.
- In 2009, Shopify launched an API that allowed users to build their own online stores and sell products through the platform.
- Next year, Shopify created a free mobile app that allowed store owners to control operations from their iOS devices. The new system gave a big boost to the company because the eCommerce administration got faster and easier.
- In 2013, they launched Shopify Payments, a new payment management solution that helped merchants to simplify the business and accept credit card payments directly.
- Shopify already attracted 120 thousand sellers by 2014.
- The next big step came in 2017 when Shopify made a cooperation agreement with Amazon and enables users to sell products on the largest eCommerce platform simultaneously.
- The year is 2019 and Shopify is now worth approximately $40 billion.
How to Launch an eCommerce Store in Several Steps
It took Shopify barely 15 years to turn into a multibillion company, but we admit it’s hard to repeat such a feat in 2019. However, no one can stop you from building your own eCommerce store and creating a profitable business in the long run. You can do it in many different ways, but we selected the most important tactics for you:
- Choose your niche and products
The first thing you have to do is to choose the niche and the products you want to sell. You can do it based on personal preferences and interests, but it’s always a good idea to opt for popular and profitable markets such as health, beauty, fashion, tech gadgets, etc.
- Choose a supplier
Now that you know what to sell, you should try to find a reliable supplier. Make sure to test multiple options and ask each supplier to send you some samples. That way, the selection process will be easier because you can determine the quality of their products.
- Set prices
By this point, you’ve chosen the products and supplier(s), so the only thing left is to set prices. Don’t forget to research competitors and find a price range that can make your brand interesting among so many rivals in the same niche.
- Create a brand
The fourth step is where you have to get creative and think about branding the eCommerce business. It is always a good idea to use keywords that reveal the nature of your online store, but you should also research the audience and use style, color, and other branding details that suit the preferences of a typical customer.
- Create product images and descriptions
This is a very important step because you have to impress the target audience with eye-pleasing visuals and the corresponding descriptions. The idea is to use keywords and give people the chance to find your products easily in niche-related searches. After that, you want to make a great impression with beautiful and highly professional product visuals.
- Launch a store
The time has come to officially launch your eCommerce store. Make sure not to miss out on any details relevant to the brand as it could slow you down in the early stages of the business.
- Start a blog
You should enrich the store with high-quality blog posts. Write amazing articles about various topics that your audience might seem relevant and interesting. Don’t focus on your brand, but rather try to discuss users’ everyday problems and help them learn something new with each new post. It will help you to grow website traffic and boost search engine ranking long-term.
- Activate on social networks
You probably know that social networks play a major role in today’s business, so don’t forget to activate and create accounts on platforms that can make the difference for your brand. Most eCommerce stores focus on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube because that’s where the majority of their prospects spend a lot of time.
- Test and experiment
The last tip is to keep experimenting with different prices, discount strategies, promo activities, and so on. Online retail is constantly changing and you need to stay alert and flexible. Besides that, make sure to test website performance and learn the pros and cons of your business – it is the only way to keep improving and growing your business in the years to come.
Conclusion
If you are thinking about launching your own eCommerce business, then you should start by analyzing success stories. It will help you to understand how the market functions and to identify the actions that need to be taken to kickstart the business.
In this post, we gave you a Shopify-focused repeat-after-us guide on how to crack the code on succeeding in eCommerce. Shopify is not the only bright example in online retail, but it is one of the most significant. Are you ready to follow the lead and invest in your eCommerce store?
