Checklist for Starting an Ecommerce Business: Follow These 12 Rules!
Ecommerce is the future of shopping, and starting an online business is a great way to get in on the action. Millions of businesses have already started, and there is room for millions more. But starting an online business is not as easy as just setting up a website. There are a lot of things to consider, a lot of steps, and a lot of potential pitfalls.
If you are thinking about starting an online business, here is a checklist for starting an ecommerce business:
1. Choosing the Right Product
“What should I sell online?” is one of the first questions you need to answer when starting an ecommerce business. You need to choose a product that is in demand and has the potential to be profitable. There are a few things to consider when choosing a product:
- Is there a market for the product?
- Is the product in high demand?
- Is the product easy to ship?
- Is the product profitable?
When selecting a product, it is important to research and ensure a market for the product because your entire business will be based on selling this product.
You can use software like Minea to help with your product research to find the best product with e right angle to approach the market.
Minea spies on social media ads, analyzes millions of products and provides the data you need to decide what to sell online. It has a filter system where you can find the product in your desired niche from your desired platform, like Shopify, Facebook, etc., and also provides useful insights about the demand, competition, and margin for each product.
So, instead of relying on guesswork, tons of metrics, and your own intuition, use Minea to get real data-driven insights about what products are in demand and will be profitable for your ecommerce business.
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2. Build Your Store:
The second on our checklist for starting an ecommerce business is to build your store. A profitable product is nothing without a great store to sell it in. You need to create a store that is easy to navigate, has strong branding, and provides a great user experience.
There are a few things to consider when building your store:
- The design of your store should be clean and professional
- Your store should be easy to navigate
- Your branding should be strong and consistent
- Your store should provide a great user experience
You can use Pagefly to help you build a great store without needing to hire a designer or developer. Pagefly is a powerful yet easy-to-use page builder that lets you create custom pages and themes for your Shopify store with easy drag-and-drop.
They have 100+ templates to choose from across multiple niches, reliable analytics tools, and a wide range of customization options to help you create a store that reflects your brand and provides a great user experience.
What’s special about Pagefly is your pages are already optimized for mobile devices, so you don’t need to worry about that. Plus, with the built-in A/B testing tool, you can test different versions of your pages to find the best-performing one.
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3. Choose the Right Platform
Ecommerce is all about platforms. You need to choose the right platform for your business in order to scale and grow your business. When choosing a platform, there are a few things to consider:
- The cost of the platform
- The features of the platform
- The ease of use of the platform
- The scalability of the platform
Shopify is one of the most popular ecommerce platforms on the market. It is a complete platform that offers everything you need to start, run, and grow your business. Shopify is easy to use, has a wide range of features, and is scalable, so you can grow your business as big as you want.
Shopify also has a wide range of apps and plugins to choose from to help you run your business, such as Oberlo for sourcing products, QuickBooks for accounting, and Klaviyo for email marketing.
4. Connect with the Right Community
Do you know that there are over 1.92 billion online shoppers globally? The ecommerce industry is growing at a rapid pace, and it is important to connect with the right community to stay ahead of the curve.
Ecommerce is ever-changing, and there are always new trends, technologies, and strategies to learn about. Connecting with the right community will help you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and learn from other successful entrepreneurs.
It is a necessary step on our checklist for starting an ecommerce business because it will help to stay ahead of the competition and make your business more successful.
What are the benefits of joining an ecommerce community?
- You get to learn from other successful entrepreneurs
- You get to network with other ecommerce businesses
- You stay up-to-date with the latest trends
- It saves you from guesswork as you get access to tried and tested strategies.
Adleaks is one of the best ecommerce communities out there. It is a community of successful digital marketers and ecommerce entrepreneurs who share their knowledge and experience with the members.
Adleaks also has a wide range of resources, such as ebooks, courses, and templates, to help you grow your business. Plus, with the exclusive Adleaks deals, you can get access to discounts on hundreds of ecommerce tools, software, and services.
The best thing about Adleaks is their Facebook group, where you can network with other members, ask questions, and get help from the moderators.
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5. SEO Optimized Copywriting
Let’s say you are getting visitors to your store, but they are not buying anything. This could be because of the copy on your website.
Your website copy is important because it is what sells your products. The copy on your website needs to be better written to convert visitors into customers.
It is important to have SEO-optimized copy on your website so that your products can be found by potential customers who are searching for them online.
Here are a few tips for writing SEO-optimized copy:
- Optimize title and meta description tags
- Use keyword-rich product descriptions
- Use rich snippets
- Optimize images with ALT tags
- Use blog posts to target long-tail keywords
The idea is to make your website copy as customer-friendly and search engine friendly as possible. This way, you will be able to attract more visitors to your website and convert them into customers.
If you are not sure how to write SEO-optimized copy, you can hire a copywriter or use ai writing tools like CloserCopy to help you.
Ai copywriting tools like CloserCopy are powered by artificial intelligence and can help you write copy optimized for SEO and conversion. Their AIDA and FAB copywriting methods have been proven to increase conversion rates by up to 30%.
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6. Implement Conversion Design
Here comes the most important checklist item for starting an ecommerce business – conversion design.
Conversion design is the practice of designing your website to encourage visitors to take the desired action, such as making a purchase. It includes implementing psychological triggers, conversion design principles and best practices, and effective CTAs.
Conversion design starts with above-the-fold optimization. This is the part of your website that visitors see first when they land on your website.
You want to make sure that the above-the-fold area of your website is optimized to convert visitors into customers.
Make sure you implement these 5 design principles for the above-the-fold area:
- Use a hero image or video: Hero image will help you communicate your value proposition and product benefits quickly. Use images with different angles and closeups to show your product in detail. It creates a lasting impression and drives visitors to take action.
- Use a clear and concise headline: Write a clear and concise headline that tells visitors what your product is and what it can do for them.
- Use a strong call-to-action: Use a strong and actionable call-to-action button that stands out and encourages visitors to click on it.
- Use social proof: This is essential to build trust and credibility. Use customer testimonials, reviews, and ratings to show visitors that others have purchased from you and are happy with your products.
- Trust icons: Use trust icons such as payment logos, security logos, and money-back guarantee to show visitors that you are a credible and trustworthy company. People often look for these before making a purchase.
You can use these design principles to optimize other areas of your website as well, such as the product page, the checkout page, and the thank you page.
Conversion design is an important part of starting an ecommerce business. If you want to be successful, you need to make sure you learn to design for conversions.
Conversion Rate Academy is a team of experts who have been designing and optimizing websites for conversions. They specialize in ecommerce conversion rate optimization and have helped companies increase their conversion rates by up to 300%.
Their academy is a comprehensive training program that will teach you everything you need to know about conversion rate optimization. This will help you get 300% more conversions from already existing traffic.
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7. Speed Up Your Advertising Game
The seventh on our checklist for starting an ecommerce business is to ensure you aren’t just relying on SEO to get traffic.
SEO is good, but it can take some time before you start seeing results. Organic traffic is hard as millions of other ecommerce businesses are vying for the same keywords.
Paid traffic is a great way to get instant results and should be part of your ecommerce marketing strategy.
When you have implemented design principles, the visitors coming to your website are more likely to take the desired action, such as making a purchase. So, it saves your advertising dollars, as you are more likely to get conversions from traffic to your website.
7. Social Proof is Important
The eighth on our checklist for starting an ecommerce business is to ensure you use social proof.
Social proof marketing is the use of notifications when others have taken action, such as purchasing a product from your store. This encourages potential customers to take action, too, and buy from you.
It is essential to have social proof on your website as it helps build trust and credibility with potential customers. When people see that others have taken action, they are more likely to do the same.
FOMO is one of the best tools to show social proof. Thousands of people use FOMO to display recent orders, just sold-out items, and more on their website.
FOM has many features, such as customizable messages, filters, template rules, and more. You can use FOMO to increase your conversion rate and boost sales.
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9. Make Sure You have FAQs
The ninth on our checklist for starting an ecommerce business is to ensure you have an FAQ page. An FAQ page is a great way to answer common questions about your products, shipping, returns, and more.
Sometimes visitors just need a little reassurance before they make a purchase. An FAQ page can provide that reassurance and help increase conversions. For instance, if a visitor wants to know what material your shirt is made of before they purchase, they can find that information on the FAQ page.
FAQs are conversion rate optimization gold and can help increase conversions by up to 30% if you have the right questions and answers on your page. How would you know which questions to put on your FAQ page?
Research your product niche, find out what people are asking about products like yours, what results in the most returns, and what shipping questions people have. You can also check out competitor FAQ pages for inspiration. It saves you time and money by addressing common questions upfront.
10. Optimize Your Checkout Page
Optimizing your checkout page is the tenth on our checklist for starting an ecommerce business.
Your checkout page is the most important page on your website as it is where people make a purchase. If you want to increase conversions, you need to optimize your checkout page.
- Minimize friction points and make the process as smooth as possible. The fewer steps there are, the better.
- Make sure your checkout page is mobile-friendly as more and more people are making purchases on their mobile devices.
- Include trust symbols such as security badges to show potential customers that their information is safe with you.
- Can customers edit their order on the checkout page? Allow them to do so, as it can help increase conversions.
- Email confirmation after purchase is also important as it shows customers that their order went through and that they will receive their purchase.
- The option to switch languages and currencies is important for international customers.
- Visible shipping rates and estimated delivery dates are also important as people want to know how much shipping will cost and when they can expect their purchase.
When you optimize your checkout page, you can increase conversions and boost sales.
11. Set Up Email Marketing
The eleventh on our checklist for starting an ecommerce business is to set up email marketing. Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your customers, build relationships, and increase sales.
You can use email marketing to send targeted campaigns to your list of subscribers. You can segment your list by purchase history, location, and more. This allows you to send relevant messages to the right people at the right time.
You can use platforms like Mail250 to automate your email marketing. This can save you a lot of time as you can set up automated emails for various customer actions, such as welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, shipping confirmation emails, and more.
Email marketing is a great way to boost sales and increase customer loyalty. It’s one of the essential things on our checklist for starting an ecommerce business.
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12. Test Every Step of the customer journey
Here comes the last one: testing every step of the customer journey.
Testing is important to ensure that your website is running smoothly and that your customers have a good experience. You can use tools like Google Analytics to track customer behavior on your website. This will help you identify any areas that need improvement.
You can also use A/B testing to test different versions of your website. This can be anything from the copy on your website to the design of your checkout page. You can see what works best for your business by testing different versions and making the necessary changes.
Testing is an important part of our checklist for starting an ecommerce business. It’s important to track customer behavior and test different versions of your website to ensure that you’re providing the best possible experience for your customers.
Conclusion
There you have it: our checklist for starting an ecommerce business. By following this checklist and implementing the right tools and strategies, you’ll be well on your way to starting a successful ecommerce business.
Remember, it’s important to start with a strong foundation. This helps you save time and money in the long run. So take your time, research, and ensure you have everything in place before you launch your store.