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Electronic Commerce (eCommerce) has experienced an enormous boom in recent years and is expected to continue to increase even more in the coming years, broken the main barriers that limited its growth.

Although it has never been so easy to launch an online store, with a diversity of products, whether physical or digital, and services, there are many factors that should be evaluated and assessed before starting an eCommerce adventure so as not to condemn it to failure.

Precisely the increasing presence and use of e-commerce websites means that, before setting up an online store, it is necessary to be very clear about different concepts, approaches and solutions, as well as the difficulties that we may encounter.

Because, on the Internet, everything is just a click away and users have access to very detailed information about the products or services they need.

For this reason, for a online store succeedit must be able to stand out from the rest, not only in visibility but also in its offer.

In this article, we are going to introduce ourselves in the world of eCommerce, clarify these concepts, know the main difficulties that we can find to launch an online storehow to overcome them and, finally, how to set up a store with one of the E-Commerce solutions, WordPress and WooCommercemore affordable and powerful.

What is Electronic Commerce (eCommerce)?

At this point, we are all quite clear about what eCommerce is, if only because we have once browsed through an online store and made a purchase.

However, if we are going to create an online store, it is essential to know beyond the basic concept that we have had as buyers, to anticipate the problems that we will find and how to prevent them or, at least, how to react if they occur.

In general, electronic commerce refers to any form of commercial transaction carried out over the Internet as a means of interaction and communication.

The best known example of electronic commerce is online sales, which is defined as the buying and selling of products through a website.

However, electronic commerce can also involve other types of commercial activities, such as auctions, ticket sales, subscription services or exchange between individuals; namely, not only exchange of physical products.

Therefore, in electronic commerce there are, as in traditional commerce, two actors: (1) who offers a good, of whatever type (physical, digital or intangible), in exchange for a price; and (2) who is interested in that good and agrees to pay its price.

However, in Electronic Commerce there may be more business models and management methods, depending on two parameters:

• The type of entity or natural person that is involved in the transaction.
• The nature of good what is exchanged and how it is managed.

eCommerce business models

Depending on who is involved in a commercial exchange of Electronic Commerce, the following main business models are distinguished:

• Business to Business (B2B):

  when companies sell to companies; normally, large batches of one or several products within the same range.

  An example of this case would be office furniture supplier companies that supply all the material to furnish an office.

• Business to Customer (B2C):

  the model to which users are most accustomed, when a company sells directly to an individual (consumer), usually in small orders.

  Supermarket websites or computer sales websites would be examples of this type.

• Consumer to Consumer (C2C):

  when the website facilitates an individual to sell a property that he owns to another individual.

  The best known example of this type of model is private auction websites, such as eBay, second-hand buying and selling sites or resource sharing (cars).

• Consumer to Business (C2B):

  when an individual offers a good to a company, the most common being the provision of a service.

  Websites like Fotolia (selling photos) or Freelancer (selling services) fit into this model.

Knowing the possible business models can help us consider business ideas that we had not considered, different from the extended Business to Customer. The more options we evaluate and value, the more chances we have of enabling a successful website.

In this sense, currently the C2B and C2C model They are the ones that have been in place for the shortest time and are experiencing the greatest growth, so they present a better business opportunity than the rest.

Type and Management of eCommerce goods

We can also categorize e-commerce websites not only depending on how the goods that are marketed are, but also on how these goods are managed or issued:

• Physical products. The classic online store, with the same commercial and management characteristics as a physical store, except that transactions and payment are made via the web instead of in an establishment and that the product is sent by transport company.
• Digital products (infoproducts). In this case, the product is not physical, but a digital creation, in any of its formats: videos, photographs, ebooks, applications, PDF documents, etc., which are downloaded from the website once payment is completed.
• Provision of Online Services. The “seller” becomes the provider of a service through the Internet, such as coaching, advice, training or mentoring, where the price is paid by pre-established units of time.
• Affiliate Stores. Under this modality, the online store becomes the “virtual showcase” of a large e-commerce provider, specializing in a category of its products, to exploit a market niche in exchange for a sales commission. While users browse and view products on the affiliate website, they are redirected to the provider’s store to complete the purchase.

• Dropshipping.

  In affiliate stores, we are limited to the (sole) supplier’s catalog and have no control over the purchasing process.

  With Dropshipping we become “resellers” of one or more wholesale providers, and the entire purchase and payment process is done on our website. Once a purchase is completed, it is sent to the wholesaler, who from that moment manages the shipment and possible returns.

• Marketplace.

  The physical version of a Marketplace is a shopping center, which brings together many stores of different brands and products within the same building.

  Thus, a Marketplace provides an online e-commerce platform, where we can include and manage our products, with the platform’s tools and at the same level as other Marketplace stores. In other words, the Marketplace supplies us with all the technical and technological needs, and we only have to take care of managing the store and our products.

Plan to launch an eCommerce business

We must follow a logical order of tasks and considerations to build an e-commerce website.

With current technology, installing and configuring an online store will only take a few days; however, that is the least important part in this creation process.

Create and grow a business profitable e-commerce It is a stepwise process that involves a series of steps, in which we must investigate, analyze, evaluate and make decisions to develop an eCommerce strategy that bears positive results.

1. Choose several product ideas

The first step in starting an eCommerce business is deciding what products we will sell.

Finding a profitable product idea It can be hard work, you have to think very seriously and without haste.

You have to choose products with sufficient profit margins, which allow you to make a profit and scale the business in the future.

Once we decide what products we could sell, we must decide how and where we would obtain them, either by manufacturing ourselves or sourcing from one or several suppliers.

2. research and plan

When we already have several ideas for a product, we must investigate different aspects of the market, such as what the competition will be, the price strategy and the differentiating value proposition.

At this point, we must also draw up a business plan to help us visualize the growth strategy and identify possible threats or obstacles.

A SWOT analysis of our value proposition with respect to the competition can give us some guidelines.

3. Create a strong brand

Now that we have a promising product idea and a clear overview of the market, it’s time to start thinking about the products. key elements of the online storesuch as the brand name, domain name, corporate identity, differentiating value, etc.

Establishing our brand early on can help accelerate growth and reach potential customers more easily.

Before we focus on the construction of the store, we should know the basic concepts of SEO, to give the website visibility in search engines.

I leave you here a totally free course to have an SEO-friendly WordPress website (“SEO-friendly”): .

4. Choose the technology

Depending on the management model that we have chosen, we must choose what technology we will use to build and implement the online store, in one of the following two ways:

• Create it from scratch, contracting the construction service to a specialized company or professional.

  It will take more time and cost more, although with a completely personalized store to our liking and over which we will have total control.

• Use an e-commerce platform, which allows you to create an online store relatively easily and quickly, although within the technical and customization possibilities of that platform.

  Depending on your business model, there are specific platforms that will help you easily and quickly start your project.

  In the case of the Marketplace, they already provide it to us directly and in the event that you want to set up an online course platform, there are platforms like that that will speed up its creation from scratch.

Before launching the online store on the Internet, we must make sure that everything is ready to measure its performance, defining what indicators we will use to carry out a track your progress and fix any problems that arise.

Other important things to keep in mind include setting up social media profiles, preparing email marketing, web analytics tools, keyword research, preparing a launch plan…

Once the store is launched…