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What Are The Crucial Steps To Be Taken Before Starting An E-commerce Business?


Unfortunately, more than seventy percent of the businesses in developed and developing countries fail during their first year of operation itself. The primary reason behind their failure is the lack of a proper business plan. Here’re five necessary steps that every entrepreneur must take before launching an e-commerce portal.





Selecting products that you would offer on your portal

Several online sellers remain in a tough position since day one due to their selection of products that they trade. They fail to create a place for themselves in the market because others sell the same stuff. Why would customers visit your portal if there are other established players? Thus, the first step before setting up your e-commerce business should be creating a list of unique products that you would offer in the market.

After creating the list of products, other crucial steps like getting the idea validated, studying competition in the market, sourcing, inventory, setting up an e-commerce portal, and marketing plan would need attention.

Idea validation and studying competition

Researchers have already proved that the idea behind the startup remains as crucial as the product itself. So, validating the concept and researching on competition is necessary before moving forward. Several business consultants offer idea validation, mentoring, and even financing assistance to upcoming small and medium-sized firms. Remember, multiple startups fail each year just because they don’t get their idea validated before investing their money in the business. Firms end up becoming one amongst 100 websites that offer the same products and services.

You might require assistance from business consultants to get various reports about your competitors in the selected market and to know who exactly you are up against.

Everyone talks about success stories and failures are ignored even though they can guide businesses when it comes to avoiding wrong decisions. So, take the unusual route and focus on similar companies that operated in your target market and had shut their shop during the last two years. Try and understand the reasons behind their failure.

Selecting potential manufacturers for your products

After completing the idea validation, the next step for the entrepreneur would be selecting potential suppliers for the chosen product range. Select multiple local or overseas manufacturers with an excellent reputation to work with you for keeping up with the expected demand for products. Agreements need to be in place after determining rates, order and delivery mechanism, as well as bank guarantees, etc.

Selecting fulfilment and shipping partners

Logistics serves as a backbone for any e-commerce business. Some businesses often believe in developing their in-house crew when it comes to fulfilment and shipping orders from day one, but, end up outsourcing logistics to third-parties to cut losses and improve efficiency at a later stage.

Fortunately, several sector-agnostic logistics service providers offer to take care of storing, packaging, shipping orders, and even returns processing in multiple cities. It is advisable to seal the deal with such third party logistics companies before your e-commerce website and app goes live.

Getting your e-commerce portal and mobile apps in place

Of course, you cannot spend like Amazon when it comes to the implementation of the latest technology. However, ensuring the website remains voice and image search friendly is crucial. Plus, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), tools like Chatbots as well as recommendation engine are also the need of the hour. Thus, select a custom e-commerce development vendor who would not just help in designing the portal and native, hybrid mobile apps, but can also implement the latest AI, ML features in both.

If you are searching for an e-commerce web application development partner, you should discuss your requirements with Smart Sight Innovations.

Read more: What Are The Crucial Steps To Be Taken Before Starting An E-commerce Business?

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