Creating an online store requires time and investment. It may be easier for those who already have an offline store than for those who have never had sales experience in their lives. In any case, ecommerce is available to everyone and is easily accessible.
However, venturing into the virtual world requires a bit of care. And that dose of care is called ‘Market Analysis’. Without it, there is a good chance of creating an online store and never making the first sale.
It is for this reason that we decided to create this article. The intention is to offer advice for those who are thinking of creating an ecommerce site and explain how to pre-launch planning for it. Check out the tips below.
1. Research the market and keywords related to your business
Suppose you have a physical flower shop and you are interested in investing in the online world. For know if there is demand for the product you want to sell, you can enter , a Google tool that allows you to search for specific terms related to your business. In this case, we will use the terms ‘flowers online’, ‘buy flowers’, ‘online flower shop’, and ‘buy roses’ as examples.
Here you will see that three of the terms have a relevant number of searches, with ‘online flowers’ being the most popular category. This tool will come in handy later when you want to create sponsored ad campaigns.
We have already taken the first step towards success because now you know that your business generates a lot of interest on the internet. Before moving on to the next tip, it should be noted that Google Trends is a very flexible tool and allows you to filter search terms by country, time period, product category, and know in which cities/states they are most popular.
Another tool that can be useful for this period of your business is the (for this you will have to open, which is free and easy to do). In general terms, it is very similar to Google Trends but even more specific than the latter. The Keyword Planner will allow you to discover the search volume of pre-established keywords.
We used the same terms used previously (‘online flowers’, ‘buy flowers’, ‘online florist’, and ‘buy roses’) and the tool gave us the following results:
Note that ‘flowers online’ is the most searched term, and it presents an excellent indicator to take into account. Another feature of Google Keyword Planner is that it also provides the search volume for other terms related to the keywords you entered in the first place. For example:
Another interesting way to analyze the market is observe the data disclosed by large companies in a certain sector on billing and market share.
Suppose that the three main electronic flower shops share 40% of the market among themselves; that means that smaller companies have the remaining 60%, which is a significant portion. This percentage will vary from segment to segment, but that is certainly a good way to know if there are possibilities to grow in the area of your business.
2. Analyze your competitors thoroughly and differentiate yourself
Now that I know that there are many people looking for flowers on the internet, am I ready to create my online store? Patience, you are on the right track but there are still some important steps to ensure the success of your business, such as carefully analyze your main competitors.
First of all, we have to think about the following: if there is a lot of demand for a product, there will also be a lot of supply. With so many ecommerce sites selling items similar to yours, there are probably a lot of cool things you can incorporate into your business and a few flaws you need to avoid. For this reason, it is important to investigate the competition before launching your own business in order to absorb in advance all the good things that exist and dodge the bad practices.
Even more important than absorbing good ideas is finding something that sets you apart from the rest. Always keep in mind that there is a lot of competition and that the dispute over clients is great, therefore small details can be decisive when the consumer chooses where to buy.
The ecommerce “theflowerscompany.com”, for example, emphasizes that they offer 24-hour customer service from Monday to Monday. In the beginning it can be difficult to have the staff to offer such a service, but you should definitely consider it in the future.
3. Calculate the minimum investment
This is one of the most difficult parts of planning an ecommerce since it is impossible to define exactly what the minimum investment will be for a virtual venture.
However, we can give an example with specific figures per month:
This means that If you wanted to sell 1,000 products in a month, you would need approximately 100,000 unique visitors.. Starting from this, you already have an idea, albeit a vague one, of how much you should and how much you could invoice.
In addition to calculating the minimum investment to operate online, you have to have a determined and structured growth plan. How much do you intend your online business to expand each year? 15%, 30%? How long do you want to recover the money invested? All this is strategic for your business and you must take it into account when launching your virtual store.
4. Create a winning name and domain
Having already studied the market, the competitors and calculated how much you have to invest, now you have to move on to the next step: choose a name for your business and a domain for your online store. The domain, it is worth clarifying, is the term that identifies an internet site. If your online business is going to sell flowers, it is essential that its name and domain contain that word.
This will help you, above all, to obtain a higher relevance in search engines. It is important that you avoid placing your own name in your store. When someone is searching for flowers on Google, the most searched terms will be those that are related to what the user is looking for.
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5. Prepare to store products and make deliveries
When the demands start to arrive, where are you going to store the products? Everything is simpler for those who already have a physical store, but if you are a first-time merchant you have to know that you need a minimum of space to store the merchandise.
Our advice is start with a small stock and a smaller range of products, until measuring the receptivity of the public. If the receptivity is good, little by little you can increase the variety of products in your virtual store and also the amount of stock. Learn how with this article from the University of Ecommerce.
If space is a problem, you can look for a supplier that, in addition to delivering the merchandise, stores it. At this first moment, you can even pay him a small percentage per sale; But when your online store starts to grow, there will come a time when it will be more convenient to have your own storage site.
Apart from storage, another critical point for your ecommerce is delivery logistics. After a sale, the next step is to prepare the product and ship it to the customer. For this, you will need some service to distribute the merchandise. The most popular service of this type are the Post Offices that have an exclusive modality for the virtual world, as in Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia.
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Giving life to an online venture requires prior study and planning. If you follow the tips mentioned above, you will surely gain an advantage over your competitors.
If you already wanted to open your online store, we invite you to try the Tiendanube platform for free for 30 days. start to .
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