How to Start an Online Store

How to Start an Online Store

Staring an online store is vital these days as people are buying more and more online. Since people are buying more online businesses are seeing the opportunity to opening an online store, and that opportunity is a "gold mine"

But just how do you open an online store? how do you make a website for your online store? just how do you do it specifically?

This article aims to help you open up your first online store as well as teach you specific terms, and technical aspects of starting up your online store.

How to Start an Online Store: Product Research

choosing a product or niche is essential as it impacts how your business will be run, who your target market will be, advertising methods and how many sales you will make.

You will need to make a decision between two options. Sell a large number of cheap items or a smaller number of expensive items with a larger profit margin. The general consensus is that it can be easier to sell a few expensive items than a large sum of cheap items. But you will need to make your own evaluation. Your decision should take into account how much time and effort will be going into trying to make a sale for a few expensive items VS the time and effort needed to sell a large quantity of cheaper items. Once you have decided on that you will need to think of your competition.

When it comes to competition in owning an online store there are a few things to think about. If your competitors are established brands who already have loyal consumers its best not to waste time in that area of the market. For example say you want to start selling cool drink brand. What makes people stop buying coco cola and buy your product instead? if you are not offering something revolutionary this is a loosing battle and its best to stay clear competing with huge brands.

But lets say the product you are selling is clothing with specific and unique style. The focus is different, because you are offering something unique. and even though you have many competitors in the fashion business people may still buy your clothing brand because of the unique style.

Next you will need to think of how often people will need your product or service. If you are selling a beverage people need that sort of thing every day all the time. But if your selling something like light-bulbs. People don't need that everyday so you wont be seeing the same customer very often.

Before you open up your online store you will need to do some research, By research I mean you need to see what products are trending but not full blown trending if you understand what I am saying. You need to find a product where the market is not saturated yet but, is growing in popularity. The reason for this is simple, you want to be ahead of the hype. When the demand is at its highest your online store should be ready with products to sell and by the supply to the demand.

But this is difficult of course because how do you predict which products are trending or growing in popularity.You will need to research. Type google trends into google and see what is trending. What product keeps popping up as ads on your social feed. Use these as hints to figure out your product or service.

How to Start an Online Store: Type of Business

There are many Online Business types. In this article I will speak of Two The standard Business Model and Dropshipping.

These days Dropshipping is very popular because in some ways its safer and you have a very low operating cost. With the standard online store you will need to buy your products at wholesale, then you will need space to keep your products, Boxing and packaging, product presentation and shipping and delivery. With the Dropshipping model your website is connected directly to the supplier. When an order is made through your website, it is automatically tracked by the supplier, the supplier handles the packaging, shipping and delivery.Your job is simply to monitor as the supplier does everything and drive traffic to your website. But just how do you do this technically? How do you link your website to the supplier?

Firstly you need the correct tool. Shopify is one of the main dropshipping tools that people use. You sign up for an account on shopify and build your website on the Shopify website creator. Your website will be hosted by shopify. Then you will need to find a supplier that is compatible with the dropshipping business plan. The most popular suppliers is Ali Express and CJ Dropshipping. You can directly import product details, Images, Reviews to your shopify website and you are connected. So whenever an order is made on your shopify store the supplier will be notified automatically.

An alternative to Shopify which is more affordable and has plenty more features is Builderall and Kartra with these platforms you can connect directly to suppliers same as shopify, But you can also have a regular online store, email marketing, app building website builder and many other tools that I will speak about later

How to Start an Online Store: A Business Website

After you comfortable with your product you will need a website. Now this is a very important step. If you are not using shopify, kartra or Builderall you will need higher a person to develop a website for you if you don't have the required skill or time. You will need someone with coding experience to put together the necessary elements for your online store.

A business website is different from a general website. A regular website like this one is just for content I can easily just write an article place pictures, add YouTube videos easily and design easily without knowing a single line of code. But with a business website you need a home page that introduces your visitor to the product images, design etc. Then you need a system where you can click a button such as "buy" then you need a system which places the chosen item into a shopping cart, so you need shopping cart software. Next when the visitor is viewing their shopping cart do you want a bump up order. Then you will need that feature too. Next payment options. You need different payment options to be integrated into your website. Then delivery options you will need your website to capture delivery details and you will need to decide if you want to use third part delivery services or not, If so you will need an integration for that. You might want to consider adding comments as the more engagement there is on your website the more traffic you will generate if it is positive engagement. After that you need a company to host your website.

How to Start an Online Store: (SEO) Search engine Optimization

I'm not done yet. Say we have all of those things and your website is done. How do people find you? That's called SEO or search engine optimization. You need to rank on google for a particular keyword depending on what product you are selling. The aim is to get on the first page on google so people can find you and you can save on operating and advertising cost. You will need to apply SEO techniques in order to get more traffic to your website. Here's an example of applying SEO to this particular article. I am trying to rank for the keywords "How to Start an Online Store'' to do this I need to use the long-tail keyword through out my article. I am letting google know that this article is about how to start an online business. So throughout this article I will use that specific keywords. This Page also has less images because webpage speed is a huge factor in getting your website ranked high.

How to Start an Online Store: Marketing and Social Media

Now lets say that's done, now you need to market your business. Organic traffic from SEO is one thing but lets maximize your potential for your online business. Paid traffic or advertising is a great investment into you online business. Now lets think... where are all your potential buyers. Well they are all on the internet. Good where on the internet are they? Well they are on social media Facebook, Instagram, TikTok (You can download the free TikTok Guide here which is very helpful), Google, Gab, Pinterest. You need to get your business on social media. Create an Instagram Page, Facebook account, TikTok account and so one start showing how good your product is and start gaining a following and trust from users on social media. Trust is one of the biggest factors that contribute to a sale. Another aspect is social proof, when other people are seeing that you have large following, that your product is gaining popularity and people are buying your product, it turns into a snowball effect. You will start getting more and more sales. Slowly but surely your business will get bigger and bigger. You can add new products, services, Branding, and marketing. This is how Amazon got so big.

Marketing is really important as it sets the reputation for your business and your product. Reputation is one of the most important factors that increase the chance of a sale and building your business.

How To Start an Online Store: Web Hosting and other Tools

There are a few things that's probably stressing you out from reading this article. The first is how do you make your website next what platform do you use, SEO hosting payment options and so on.

Before I mention all the easy tools you can use to kick start your online business I will first mention the basic programs that are used.

Wordpress is one of the most popular web builder but it can be difficult to make a website with wordpress because you will need someone with technical skills or you will need to learn yourself from YouTube. Once your website is done with wordpress, you can easily add plugins through the wordpress dashboard such as your shopping cart, payment options, capture emails, email marketing, delivery information, marketing, website themes and so on. But you will need to pay for each and every service which can be costly. Next you will need a hosting service to host your website which is an extra cost.

How to Start an Online Store: Ready Made Online Store Software

Now if you want to start your online business easily and more cheaply there are options.

Let's do the math, shall we?

First, let’s tally the costs of all those separate software platforms you used to have to buy. Each one can easily cost over $100 a month. Let’s say you’re able to get by with just 6 different platforms for your emailing, landing pages, shopping carts, funnel building, help-desk ticket system, and membership site hosting.

That's $100 per month x 6 platform x 12 months = $7,200 per year... ouch! Luckily, Kartra and Builderall is Less than a fifth of the cost!

There are many companies that have all in one business platforms that have everything in them including hosting, web design, checkout system, shopping carts, on page SEO, Build apps for your business and upload it to the app store. The best part is that you do not need to know a single line of code as all the features in these business tools are beginner friendly with drag and drop features. they also have templates that are tested to give you the best conversion rate per customer. You also have in depth analytics so see how people navigate your site and which products/ pages are the most popular and you can change your website based on this feedback. These software are applicable to all types of businesses including dentist. You can create an online platform where patients can view available appointments and book for themselves. The dentistry can view this in real time and view their schedule. above that there are dozens of tools that are all there ready for you to use because the main aim of these software is to make running an online store or business easy, organized, efficient and cost effective.

This means you can start your online business quickly and easily which was not the case in the past.

Before I get into the ready made software for your business on how to start your online business. Its important to stay focused with your online business. You will need to take risks. you will need to make difficult decisions but it will all be worth it. Next you need to remember everyone has their own experiences with starting an online business some would describe it as slow and difficult while some teenager with a laptop will call it easier than math class. in other words don't be discouraged because its very much possible and fruitful.

Now in terms of starting your online business the easy and cheaper way is to use all in one business tools the first I will mention is Builderall. For $29 this is what you get with Builderall

1. A really fast drag and drop website builder with hundreds of features

2. A complete Graphic Funnel Builder

3. Video hosting tool

4. Membership websites and e-learning system

5. Unlimited email marketing

6. CRM and automation system

7. Chatbot and SiteBot

8. Booking calander

9. Super Checkout system with dozens of payment gateway integrations

10. Run your own affiliate program

11. E-commerce checkout

12. Auction Checkout

13. Magazine builder

14. App Builder

15. Mockup and Image editor

16. Video Wrapper

17. Browser Notifications

18. Blog Builder

19. Chat Builder

20. Google and ad-sense friendly builder

21. Chat and Ticket Support

22. Hundreds of Templates to choose from

23. Much more...

With Both Kartra and Buillderall you can have you entire online business up and running in a day and both of these software are cloud based, which means you don't need to download any software, Simply log into your account and you will be directed to your neat dashboard where you can control your entire online business. A great advantage of Builderall is that you can build apps for your business without knowing code and upload your app directly to the app store (Google play store Or Apple app store) and monetize your apps with ads.

However some people prefer the look and feel of Kartra. That's why its important to try both their trails and see which one you prefer.

The Builderall trial is a whole month which is very generous and the Kartra trail is 14 days.

On a closing note. Having an online businesses is one of the best decisions you can make. soon everything will be fully dependent on the online system and its a good idea to be ahead.

Kartra Features List

• Kartra Checkouts
  

• Kartra Pages & Page Building (Website Builder)
  

• Kartra Leads
  

• Kartra Funnels & Campaigns
  

• Kartra Mail
  

• Kartra Memberships
  

• Kartra Videos
  

• Kartra Help Desks
  

• Kartra Calendars
  

• Kartra Forms
  

• Kartra Affiliates
  

• Kartra Agency
  

• Kartra Marketplace
  

• Integrations & API