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Ecommerce business plan
What’s the real anatomy of a winning ecommerce business plan?
Gone are the days of cookie-cutter strategies and one-size-fits-all blueprints. The modern road to ecommerce success? It’s paved with innovative tactics, data-driven decisions, and personalized customer journeys. Looking to elevate your ecommerce game? Discover how to boost online sales in 2024 with cutting-edge strategies, from engaging your ideal customers to turning browsers into devoted buyers.
Sounds complex, right?
Well, buckle up. Today, we’re demystifying what a successful ecommerce business plan truly looks like, giving you exclusive insights that could potentially skyrocket your online sales.
No buzzwords, no fluff – just hard facts and actionable strategies. Game on.
Executive summary: the first impression.
Consider the executive summary as your ecommerce business plan’s ‘elevator pitch’. Crafted right, it sets the tone and captivates the reader’s attention. The significance of a compelling executive summary cannot be overstated as it encapsulates the essence of your ecommerce business plan.
In a nutshell, an executive summary should include your business concept, financial information, marketing strategy, and an overview of your business goals. It’s like a teaser; if it sparks interest, they’ll delve into the more detailed areas.
Planning Versus Winging It: According to research conducted by Harvard Business Review, entrepreneurs who craft a structured business plan have a 16% higher chance to achieve viability than those who don’t.
The company description section is where your business comes to life. This part solidifies your vision, mission, and purpose. A well-curated company description will clarify your company’s identity and set it apart from the rest.
It should cover essential elements like what you sell, your target market, and what differentiates your business from others. Furthermore, your ecommerce goals and how your company aims to achieve these goals should be detailed. What unique selling points (USPs) set your ecommerce business apart? Include it – it’s these details that could make or break potential partnerships, collaborations, or even client investment.
Planning Trends Among Startup Founders: Entrepreneurs aiming for high-growth startups are 7% more inclined to engage in planning, while those with innovative, disruptive concepts also show a slight preference (4%) for planning compared to their counterparts.
1. Your company vision, mission, and goals
2. Details of the products or services your ecommerce store or business sells.
3. Your USPs and how they set you apart in the market.
4. Your target market and why your brand is a good fit for them.
5. How do you aim to achieve your business goals and targets?
Indeed, curating a winning ecommerce business plan is no cakewalk. Yet, cutting corners in the executive summary or company description could prove costly in the long run. So, spend considerable time refining these key sections. They not only represent your business but they also communicate your dedication, meticulousness, and professionalism.
Timeframes: A Key Element of Effective Business Planning: Short-term goals can span from just a few hours to a year, while long-term goals typically require 1-5 years for accomplishment.
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Step 1: market analysis: the foundation of your business model.
Market analysis paints an accurate picture of your industry, competitors, and customers. It’s the source of informed decision-making.
Across the ecommerce world, market analysis maintains a top spot for its vital role in driving profitable conversations and securing a sustainable competitive edge.
Before drafting your ecommerce business plan, conduct thorough market research to build a comprehensive business plan that outlines your business idea and growth potential. This requires analyzing potential customers, sales channels, direct and indirect competitors, and raw materials.
1. The industry’s outlook and potential
2. Target customer segment definition
3. Evaluation of your competition and your company’s competitive advantage
4. Pricing and sales distribution strategies
This step is crucial in the early stages of your ecommerce business plan templates , so allow plenty of time for thorough research. Make sure these elements align well with your business model. Outlining this section well will pave the way for the rest of your ecommerce business plan.
An effective organization and management structure provides a clear image of your business’s operational framework. It’s the basis for effective internal communication.
– A thorough explanation is worth its weight in gold, positioning your e-commerce enterprise to attract potential investors and talented team members.
1. Ownership: Who owns the business?
2. Organizational structure: What are the roles and responsibilities of each team member?
3. Recruitment strategy: How do you plan to draw in and retain top talent?
Remember, transparency is key. A cogent organization and management scheme offers clarity and inspires confidence in your team members and potential investors.
The Services or Products Line section is all about showcasing what your e-commerce business has to offer. It’s the moment to nab your customer’s attention.
– A detailed explanation of your products and services, or products lets customers and investors alike understand what sets you apart from the crowd.
1. Detailed descriptions of each product or service
2. Details on product lifecycle and intellectual property rights
3. Research and development activities (if relevant)
This section is your chance to boast, so make sure your descriptions are captivating, informative, and catered to your target audience.
Remember, a winning e-commerce business plan strikes a balance between ambition and realism. Equip your sample ecommerce business plan with strong market analysis, a clear organizational structure, and an enticing product or service line description, and you’re already ahead of the game.
Online Retail Market: By 2027, 23% of retail purchases are expected to take place online.
What’s this elusive object known as an ecommerce business plan template? It’s your road map, your compass, your GPS – a comprehensive guide that structures your e-commerce business plan into precise, logical sections. This meticulously crafted tool assists you in organizing and presenting your business aims, tactics, and projected performance. Your strategic initiatives are unlikely to veer off course when you adhere to this structured format.
Benefiting From Tech Advancements: Enhancing Business Impact: By 2023, most businesses leveraging AI for digital commerce will experience a minimum 25% enhancement in either customer satisfaction, revenue, or cost savings.
Importance of using a template? It goes beyond mere formatting and structure. A well-built template leaves no room for overlooking crucial components, ensuring a well-rounded, systematic plan. Your need for writing a business plan could vary – attracting investors, obtaining bank loans, or even just a self-reflective exercise. Regardless, all can benefit from a clear, precise layout that a standard e-commerce business plan template offers.
You might wonder, what goes into a standard e-commerce business plan template. Common elements include an executive summary, a company overview and description, products and/or services, a market analysis, a strategy and implementation section, a web plan summary, and an organization and management team overview. Together, these key sections form a robust narrative about the life of your online business.
After understanding the skeleton of a plan template, let’s add meat – it’s customization time. Customizing your template isn’t a daunting task requiring expert coding skills. It’s the art of adapting an existing template to marry rightfully with your business’s unique identity.
Why should you bother about personalizing? No two ecommerce companies are identical. Consider your business – it’s distinct in its products or services, market, operations, and potentially, the very business structure and model itself. By customizing your business plan, you can express these unique aspects lucidly.
How does one go about customization? Here are a few tips. Begin by cataloging the specifics of your online business – the unique selling points, customer base, competition, etc. Then, modify your template to emphasize these aspects. Remember, the template is flexible. Feel free to re-order, add, or eliminate sections to make the plan a better fit for your ecommerce business’s e-commerce venture.
The Power of Visual Appeal in Consumer Decisions: Visual appeal is the primary determinant for 93% of consumers when making purchasing choices.
Now that you have an understanding of a practical approach to an e-commerce business plan template and its effective customization, you’re well on your way to crafting a winning business plan.
The financial plan is the backbone of your ecommerce business plan. It outlines the financial projections, balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement. This section will help you determine the viability of your ecommerce business plans and secure a business loan from potential investors.
Growth Anticipation of the Market: The global e-commerce market is expected to total $6.3 trillion in 2024.
1. Financial projections and how you aim to achieve them
2. Balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement
3. Potential sources of funding and how you plan to use the funds
4. Key performance indicators (KPIs) and how you will measure success
5. Business objectives and how they relate to your financial plan
Remember, a solid ecommerce business plan is essential for establishing an online store and attracting potential investors and business partners. You can write a solid business plan from scratch or use free business plan templates available online. Whatever you choose, a formal business plan is key for the long-term success of your ecommerce company.
Let’s move from our initial practical approach of crafting an ecommerce business plan into playing the numbers game.
Assembling the financials should be next on your checklist. These form the backbone of your prospective business, offering a snapshot of your business’s health and creditworthiness. Considering embarking on an ecommerce venture? Discover the essentials of starting your online business , from financial preparations to launching your digital shop.
They map out the trajectory of your e-commerce business, offering key stakeholders – from investors to partners – a clear, quantifiable outlook. Here, optimism blends with cold, hard mathematics resulting in an actionable plan and a verifiable measure of success or failure.
Entrepreneurs who are actively seeking external finance are 19% more inclined to craft a business plan compared to those who are not seeking finance.
Understanding which elements to incorporate within your projections forms the bedrock of your plan. These encompass your sales forecast, projected income statement, cash flow statement, and anticipated balance sheet. These four deliverables paint a comprehensive financial model for your ecommerce venture.
Steering clear of mere speculation, and focusing on tangible data, is the secret to crafting projections that resonate with investors without pushing away potential ones.
Start with understanding your market size and anticipated market share, before moving on to mapping out your sales forecast, monthly expenses, and operational costs. Use historical data from similar businesses to better model your expectations. Keep in mind that assumptions should be defensible, reasonable, and, above all, believable.
While you aim to reflect an ideal scenario, it’s essential to balance your optimism with a healthy dose of realism. Financial projections are not solely about selling your pitch; they also serve as a barometer for your own operational decisions and business strategies.
The numbers game cannot be won overnight but is an evolution in tandem with your business’s development. With this robust financial framework, you stand more confidently on the precipice of shaping your e-commerce venture.
From the numerical landscape of financial forecasting, let’s now shift gears into an equally crucial arena – your marketing strategy. Here, artistry and data intertwine to form the blueprint of your digital footprint. Your e-commerce venture’s success depends on it, much like how a sculptor needs a plan before carving a masterpiece.
A robust marketing strategy is not a delightful addition to your business plan but a mission-critical must-have. It’s the roadmap guiding your business to its intended destination – customer satisfaction and business profitability. It helps you understand and connect with your customers, positioning your business in a way that attracts and retains them.
Social Media Influence: 36% of purchasers discover new products through engagement on social media platforms.
Key elements to include in the marketing strategy section are your target market analysis, brand positioning statement, and your key marketing channels. Each of these elements contributes to the overall picture of how you intend to attract and engage with customers.
1. Your target audience and why they are important to your business
2. Your unique selling proposition (USP)
3. Email marketing and its role in your marketing strategy
4. Content marketing and how it will benefit your ecommerce business
5. Search engine optimization (SEO) and its impact on your online visibility
Remember, your marketing plan should be tailored to your target market and should reflect your ecommerce business’s goals and objectives.
Understanding your audience is the first step in crafting an efficient marketing strategy. Your marketing plan outlines how you’ll reach your target audience and potential customers. It details your unique selling proposition, email marketing, content marketing, search engine optimization, and other marketing tools.
Demographics, psychographics, and behavior metrics can provide you with actionable insights into your customers’ needs and expectations.
Who Buys Online? The online shopping demographic divides into four segments, with Generation X comprising 34%, Boomers at 31%, and Millennials at 30%. Online Shopping Trends in the US: In the USA, over three-quarters of Americans shop online, with an expected 11% growth in online retail sales globally from 2023 to 2027.
Your brand’s position in the market sets the stage for how customers perceive your e-commerce platform. Crafting a clear, concise positioning statement can differentiate your brand and make it stick in the minds of your customers.
The Power of Successful Brands: As reported by Reuters, 82% of investors see increasing significance in brand strength and name recognition when making investment choices. Plus, 71% of consumers more likely to buy a product or service from a name they recognise.
Selecting the right marketing channels is more art than science, combining customer insights, competitor analysis, and channel-specific expertise. An effective channel mix can help attract and engage customers across the user journey.
Social Media Influence: Brand social media posts influence and affect 78% of customers.
As an e-commerce business owner, your primary objective is to connect with customers wherever they are and however they wish to shop. Achieving this goal begins by crafting a winning marketing strategy that’s tailored to your customers’ wants and your business goals.
Social Media Integration: 40% of retailers incorporate social media into their marketing strategies to boost sales.
An impressive marketing strategy finds the balance between creative storytelling and data-driven decision-making. Ensuring your strategies align with actual business goals and KPIs will allow you to chart a winning trajectory.
Alignment is essential – your marketing strategy should serve as a reflection of your business goals and cater to the needs of your target market. This harmony ensures consistency in brand messaging and touches on the right points that resonate with your target audience.
Remember, a marketing strategy isn’t a static document. It should evolve with your business, always keeping pace with the changing dynamics of your market and customers. Much like an artist refining their masterpiece, your ecommerce company’s in-commerce marketing strategy would need periodic touch-ups and changes to adapt to the evolving market trends and customer preferences. So, put on your marketer’s cap, let the customer data guide you, and use your creative genius to craft a strategy that wins the market.
A successful e-commerce business hinges on a robust plan. It involves understanding and identifying your target audience, setting clear business objectives, developing marketing strategies, and committing to exceptional customer service.
Remember, these insights aren’t mere tips — they’re solid strategies and steps designed to give your e-commerce business a competitive edge.
Don’t hang about. Start today by doing a deep dive into your demographics. Who are they? What do they want? Then, set your objectives. What does success look like for your business? Strategize your marketing. How will you reach your audience? Finally, highlight your roadmap to customer satisfaction.
But before you dive in, consider this: How will these strategies make a tangible difference in your business? Could they be the much-needed catalyst for your e-commerce success? Your journey to a winning business is right there in front of you, all it takes is to make the first step. Will you seize it?
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An ecommerce business plan is designed to help you focus on your goals before launching your online store. A cohesive plan can help guide your decision-making process, convince potential investors, and prove the viability of your products or services.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 20% of small businesses fail within the first year. Poor planning is often to blame. Without a good roadmap, it’s hard to make good decisions about your products, brand, and customers.
Ready to craft a winning ecommerce business plan? This article will go over each element you’ll need, and how to create it. Plus, we’ve included links to several ecommerce business plan templates at the bottom of the article .
Key takeaways
An ecommerce business plan is a single document containing both your current business strategy for selling online and a roadmap for the future of your business. If you have a management team, they should have a hand in crafting this document, and you’ll likely share it with a wide variety of people, including potential investors.
Harvard Business Review advises that entrepreneurs who write business plans are more likely to succeed than those who do not. That said, a business plan should be a living document. As your business grows and changes, your plan should change, too.
Your business plan should include the following:
Let’s dig into each element so you can start assembling your plan.
An executive summary outlines your business model in succinct and compelling terms. Use it as a summary of the other items in your business plan and focus on the positives. Make sure to use enticing language to help keep your readers engaged.
Your executive summary should answer the following questions:
You can also structure your executive summary by using these general categories:
Most executive summaries fit on a single page. It’s okay to go a little longer if needed, but be sure to keep it lean, concise, and engaging.
This section should include a detailed company description. Think of this as a deep dive into who you are, what you do, and what’s motivating you to launch this online business.
Your business overview should include:
A recent survey by Crayon found that businesses have an average of 25 competitors . In the competitive market analysis section of your business plan, you’ll identify your top competitors and explain why you’re a better choice for your customers.
Consider starting with a SWOT analysis, which examines the following:
A SWOT analysis can help your market research, but don’t stop there. You must also dig deep into indirect competitors and similar products to show that you fully understand why your company is set up to succeed.
This section shows what products and services you offer your target customers.
Get as detailed as you can here. If you’re providing a physical product, explain what it’s made of, how big it is, what makes it useful or unique, how long it takes to make just one, and so on. Make sure to include visuals as well as written information.
If you offer a virtual product, you can use this section to share technical specifications, including the operating system your product needs, how fast it works, what it does, and so on.
If you’re developing new products, include details on this, too. The more informative this section is, the better.
This section shows how you intend to attract customers to your online store once it’s up and running.
There are a range of marketing tactics to consider, including:
Companies tend to spend marketing dollars in predictable ways.
Don’t be afraid to mix up your marketing plan, but make sure to detail why you’ve made each strategic decision, and outline the key performance indicators (KPIs) you plan to use to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
In this section, you’ll explain your financial projections and liabilities. If you hope to get investors, this is perhaps the most important part of your ecommerce business plan.
In this section, include data about the following:
Include a current income statement and balance sheet, but also create a six-month and 12-month projection.
If you’re using credit cards or business loans to fund your startup, include that data here. And if you’re using the business plan to secure financing, describe how you will use that money.
These are a few key reasons you should put in the time and effort to create a good ecommerce business plan.
To launch and manage a successful business, you’ll make countless decisions quickly. An effective business plan can help you make better-informed decisions, replacing gut feelings with facts and carefully vetted strategies.
For example, you’ll know exactly who your potential customers are. And you’ll know just what marketing tools you plan to use to reach that target audience. When it’s time to launch your marketing campaign, this information can help you save time and avoid costly mistakes.
You think you have a great idea for an ecommerce business. But do you have data that suggests this concept is a winner?
Creating an ecommerce business plan will force you to dive deep into the metrics behind this question. If you emerge confident in your idea, your business plan stands a better chance of convincing others. What’s more, this process can help work out issues that could block your success down the road.
For example: You may believe you’ve hit on a new product your target customers will love. But as you start writing your business plan, you might uncover supply chain issues that could undercut the viability of your business. You can then look for a solution to these issues, or move on in search of another idea. Either way, you’ve avoided a pitfall.
Whether you need investors or a loan to get started, your business plan can serve as a funding application. It will lay out how much money you need, how you’ll spend it, and how you plan to get profitable.
Detailed data can help these others understand why they should help fund your new business.
Below, you’ll find links to several business plan templates. Think of these as examples for inspiration, not as rigid structures to follow.
Keep in mind that your business plan is about your business, not anyone else’s. While these samples can get you started, you’ll need to write your own unique version.
Bplans, a provider of free business plan templates, has a sample business plan for a fictional company called NoHassleReturn.com. It provides an expansive view of how a traditional enterprise organization could shift to an online business model.
Upmetrics.co, a provider of business plan software, created a business plan for a fictional provider of eco-friendly baby supplies. The entire plan comes in at 22 pages, and is packed with data.
Note the financial plan included in this example. The fictional company needs funding, and that ask is detailed in a clear and compelling way. This example also demonstrates how anyone can highlight crucial aspects of an online store, such as funding or staffing.
The Small Business Administration created two business plan models, including the so-called “lean startup format,” which is a good fit for ecommerce companies.
Consider this an ecommerce business plan for entrepreneurs who want to present a high-level summary without digging too deep.
Ecommerce Business Plan Writers designs all sorts of business plan templates. The sample ecommerce business plan for a fictional grocery store caught our eye, as it highlights all of the unique offerings and services this new company might provide.
Dig deep into this business plan, and you’ll see a section connecting buyers to distributors for fast and convenient deliveries. This is a business-to-consumer plan investors might love.
It’s easier and more effective to develop a marketing strategy, cohesive hiring program, and production schedule with an ecommerce business plan. Writing one takes time, but doing it can increase your chances of finding success in the ecommerce world.
Why should i start an ecommerce business.
An ecommerce business often deals with less overhead than a brick-and-mortar store. These businesses also don’t require customers to visit in-person to make a purchase. You can save money on rent, employees, and signage, while your customers benefit from speed and convenience.
The most common ecommerce business models include:
These labels aren’t necessarily exclusive—some companies sell products to businesses as well as consumers.
It depends on the ecommerce model you choose. Creating a business plan is a great place to start. From there, you’ll need to register your business, get the proper permits and licenses, develop your products, launch your online store, and market it.
[1] The True Failure Rate of Small Businesses (Entrepreneur)
[2] 118 Ecommerce Statistics You Need to Know (Similarweb)
[3] When Should Entrepreneurs Write Their Business Plans? (Harvard Business Review)
[4] How to Write an Executive Summary (Inc)
[5] Business Is Becoming More Competitive (DMN)
[6] You Are Doing Your Marketing Wrong (and I Have the Data to Prove It) (Neil Patel)
[7] Top 6 Reasons New Businesses Fail (Investopedia)
Ecommerce Unpacked Team February 24, 2023
Ecommerce Unpacked Team February 23, 2023
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Do you need to launch an ultra practical online business? It all starts with a pre-meditated ecommerce business plan. At first glance, this feels like a superficial blueprint for most starters.
But here's the deal.
You need an executive summary of everything you're about to do in order to convert your objectives into actual results. From the onset, you must put your thoughts on paper. It doesn't matter how smart you are. I'm pretty sure that Jeff Bezos of the retail giant, Amazon, sat down to sketch his master plan at some point during the initial stages.
What does this imply?
If you sort all the salient pointers for your online business accordingly, this will undoubtedly, funnel your future goals towards the right direction.
Goes without saying that any ecommerce business ought to have an online store that matches its precise niche . As long as you have a product to sell, drafting a roadmap to your ecommerce store's success isn't that much of a hassle.
So let's cut the chase.
Is an ecommerce business plan worthwhile, do a product market research, choose the right sales channel, streamline your order fulfillment process, shape up your marketing campaigns, create a sound financial plan, identify your business model.
Absolutely Yes!
Let me persuade you further. Any business startup, no matter small or big, needs some sort of manifesto, for lack of a better phrase. In actual sense, a sound ecommerce business plan helps you mitigate any future shortcomings. You should think of it as a pacesetter. It provides you with the most appropriate pointers on how to run a successful online enterprise.
A well-articulated ecommerce blueprint is a practical idea if you don't have adequate funding to start off your business. Still not convinced?
Let me explain how.
Provided that your business plan is distinctive and logical, you can pitch it to financiers or make arrangements for crowdfunding if the idea requires an immense capital input. If making your prospective ecommerce startup your full-time job is within the bounds of possibility, then a sensibly analyzed business plan is a must-have for any newbie.
More often than not, an online business operates in the same fashion as brick and mortar stores. The only disparity is it may not need a physical location. Bear in mind, the fact that the merchant needs to do some extra logistics planning and marketing as well. So there's absolutely no excuse for not having a manageable business plan in check.
This guide is fine-tuned to illustrate all the qualities of a money minting ecommerce business masterplan .
👉 To give an executive summary, here's a painstaking breakdown of the rightful pointers we'll shortly look at:
Let's take a look.
To get things started on the right foot, you need to plan ahead before spending a penny on whatever demands that your online business has. With the prevalence of brilliant research tools, a merchant can now do an intensive market analysis without any constraints. How else would you know your suitable target audience?
Let's face it.
Whether you're a small business or an enterprise-level setup, the need to identify the most accurate demographics is pretty inevitable. Above all, the acute competition in the ecommerce industry is never easy. As stiff as it tends to be, there are techniques to help you cut all corners. In fact, in a competent, or rather, proficient manner.
No matter the kind of niche you want to hang on, there are salients tools you ought to upskill yourself with. As a matter of fact, that's a rule of thumb while structuring your business plan. So here are some of the elementary hacks to use for your market analysis;
To put it into context, Google Trends is, unquestionably, a feature-rich tool that hooks you up with the winning keywords. It calculates the popularity which a particular key phrase has garnered over time. Google Trends generates this graphical data in real-time and filters the same information as per the preset demographics.
So that begs the pertinent question.
How exactly do I make best out of this exceptional tool? As a merchant looking forward to starting a new ecommerce business, this is a means to fetch potential customers.
Please allow me to illustrate.
Suppose you want to sell some type of ‘ sportswear ‘on your online store, this tool allows you to view its interset by a value between 0-100. It has options that help you filter data according to the region and duration of time, respectively.
The logic here is that Google Trends uses search queries to sort the trending products and services. That aside, there's a comparison feature that contrasts several search phrases. With such data-driven information at hand, a merchant gets to make well-informed decisions while creating SEO focused content to market their products or services.
Google Trends feeds you with industry-focused reports that abundantly, help you out with marketing campaigns. So long as you catch sight of most applicable keywords, boosting your ads engagement is absolutely a no-brainer.
There are lots of bricks and clicks stores selling a wide range of products in the market. By Bricks and Clicks, I mean those that do have both physical and online stores. There's so much to learn from such retail setups.
In a resourceful way, this strategy gives you a smooth learning curve while inventing your ecommerce business plan . That way, you get to bank on sharp insights that help you make realistic prospects for your future online business. Doing a survey is as easy as walking in a storefront that owns an online store and asking the requisite questions.
👉 Practically speaking, here's what should be on your checklist:
Yet another instrumental tool that you need to incorporate while figuring out what your ecommerce business plan ought to entail.
So what's the deal with Google Analytics ?
Well, there's so much to bargain on. This tool keeps you conscious of where exactly to keep more focus on. Once you set up your online marketing campaigns, this tool feeds you with exclusive data as regards to how each ad performs. Otherwise stated, Google Analitycs allows you to find out which audience reacts to your campaigns. It integrates with your sales channel ( Shopify , Volusion , WooCommerce , and others) via a Google ID.
This tool shows you the stats in reference to where exactly your online store gets its traffic from. Along the same line, you get to discern between those ads which convert as well as those that don't. The Keyword planner, on the other side, gives you a projection report of high ranking keyphrases.
The Keyword planner helps you make good strides for your B2C website. In particular, you get to boost your sites SEO via your blog.
👉 In other words, Google Analytics is, without fault, the most idealistic tool that helps you with:
Needless to say that this part is quite inevitable in any kind of online business. You're not alone in the market. That being the case, you need to what your rivals do best.
And not only that.
👉 Your quest to come up with the most accurate results need to be inclined to the following:
Thereby, your business model operates on a great volume of descriptive information. That gives you the roadmap to fill the market gap. Making such a fundamental exercise sort of oversimplifies your strategy to beat the already existing competition.
At the moment, there are so many avenues to count on. The list is actually endless. Indeed, this is the most fascinating part of running your online business.
Forget about the retail giants such as Amazon, eBay or even Alibaba. There are other suitable 3rd party salse channels on taking center stage.
But don't get it twisted.
Not that there's anything wrong with Amazon and the likes. Which we'll look into shortly, as a matter of fact. But just in case Amazon sounds thrilling to you, you'll have to part with $39.95 each month to get hold of an Amazon seller account . The deal is, you need to consider what your specific needs are.
👉 Choose a sales channel that allows you to:
Surprisingly, there are a couple of shopping cart channels that are built to streamline such needs.
So let's briefly touch on some of these notable sales options:
As things currently stand, Shopify seems like the quintessential ecommerce platform for starters. The reason being that Shopify's pricing model works out for merchants looking to open up small online stores. It has plans starting from $9 to $299 per month. It's still a competent cart solution for retailers who deal with massive volumes of sales. The enterprise plan allows you to reach your maximum potential in a far-reaching way (have a look at our Shopify reviews ).
While sketching your online store's plan, you don't want to crack your head over any sort of web development tasks. I'd recommend Shopify to a newbie who's not alive to any coding skills. Unlike other tangled solutions such as Magneto or WordPress, Shopify's user interface, is sort of plug and play.
What strikes me most is its integration prowess. Shopify's marketplace makes you want to sit back and wait for your financial projections to mature up in an automated manner.
If you have vested interests in dropshipping , for instance, this is the way to go. In fact, there are lots of Shopify dropshipping apps that will let you make a decent ROI. The DSers app (full DSers review ), for example, allows you to sync products together with their descriptions and variants to your Shopify store. DSers allows you to import products from the popular AliExpress .
💡 Other significant apps include Spocket (full Spocket review ), Printful (full Printiful review ), Spreadr App , and much more.
If you've used or at least, heard of WordPress , then probably WooCommerce shouldn't sound strange to you. Technically, it's a WordPress plugin that is e-commerce oriented. Since it syncs with the WordPress CMS system, this gives you full autonomy over your online store.
That's the bright side part of it.
However, WooCommerce requires some extra skills while dealing with hosting, domain, theme adjustments, and the likes. (read our full WooCommerce Review )
Aside from the basics, this sales channel allows you to;
I'd recommend this channel if you really want to boot up your SEO. The reason is pretty simple. WordPress is a champ at it. For B2C setups, you can never go wrong with it's blogging functionality.
Weebly is a pretty solid alternative to work with more precisely if you want to run a simple online store. Well, it's not as versatile as Shopify or Magneto , but it's a good starter pack if you're working on a low budget.
This website builder has drag and drop tools that are quite easy to learn for a beginner. Weebly's pricing is notably budget-friendly and has plans that meet various types of demands. The price for the plans starts from $5 – $38 per month if paid annually.
Other well-built 3rd party sales channels include;
This is what builds or breaks your ecommerce business. If you don't deliver ordered items to your customers on time, the aftermath could be sickening. You don't want to deal with chargebacks and derailing reviews from frustrated clients.
The ingredient to always have to customers return to your checkout button is having a sensible order fulfillment criteria in place. The good part about it is that there are well-founded companies to help you deal with that. While picking the most reliable sales channel, it's thrifty and forehanded to pick one which integrates with remarkable carrier companies.
Let's presume that you're dropshipping products from AliExpress , which is, as you may know, based in China. In this case, you may want to work with reliable carrier services. Moreover, the shipping speed is of great essence here. You need to bank on big carriers such as;
Alternatively, you can try out predominant 3rd party order fulfillment services such as ShipBob (read our ShipBob review ), ShipWire, or ShipMonk, just to name a few verified solutions. Besides that, here's another tried and tested approach to a successful order fulfillment process;
This is a robust channel that a merchant can use to potentially make revenue that is up to the mark. With over 6 million 3rd party sellers , there's definitely more to decipher about these numbers. This guide will actually teach you everything from scratch. Needless to say that it's one of the most pressed on fulfillment services in the world.
The Amazon FBA which stands for ‘Fulfillment By Amazon' is an option you can put to test. Basically, this model is designed to process all customers' orders on the retailer's behalf. For this to happen promptly, you need to send your products to Amazon's warehouses, or if you like, fulfillment centers. Thereafter, Amazon picks, packs, and sends the ordered items to your customers.
What makes Amazon FBA a choice for most serious merchants, is the convenience it sets forth whenever one needs to scale their business. Amazon has multiple warehouses which makes it feasible to ship ordered items globally. That's a huge plus for your business and future revenue prospects.
In order to beat your competitors, you need to boost your store's visibility. But that just doesn't happen by doing the bare minimum. A merchant needs to do a conclusive analysis and figure out which marketing options draw more attention to the target audience.
A marketing campaign is one of the most purposeful and resolute technique to drive immense traffic towards your online business. And not just ordinary traffic. The end goal is to have insightful traffic that translates to fulfilling conversions.
For that to happen, you need to ask yourself the right questions. This should be on your checklist;
Such kind of information allows you to tweak your marketing techniques. As you may know, a merchant can custom-make their target customer base. Hence, you end up with potential visitors who are most likely going to make a purchase.
Without further ado, let's have a look at some of the conventional marketing techniques;
I wouldn't term it at the most reinforced marketing option per se, but email marketing still scores fairly well in the world of advertisement. Email marketing is now an automated method you can try out to keep customers in your pockets.
Choosing the best service for your email campaigns can turn out to be a bit daunting. Before jumping into any emailing tool, you need to have these specifications in your mind;
For this to happen, I'd recommend that you choose any of these tools;
Please read this guide to get an overview of the newfangled email marketing services.
The gladdening part about Google Ads is that it allows you to set your own budget. This tool creates visibility for your business. Customers who search for related keywords get to see what your online store has to offer.
For as low as $150 per month, this solution allows you to reach out to relevant customers. You get to choose a specific period which you want your targeted ads to run. Just like other marketing campaign tools, Google Ads allows you to customize how you want the ads to appear.
I must say that there's so much potential from these two ends. However, be careful not to spend up to the last coin only to end up with sluggish results.
These two social channels are good with marketing no matter how small your brand is. Thankfully, you can create shoppable posts at the convenience of your sales channel.
There are two avenues that you can explore here. You can either opt to go with paid ads or work with influencers. Choose an influencer who's crafty enough to tap into your audiences' emotions. Potential shoppers need to get the impression of how your product solves their problems.
These two channels allow you to run an array of ads ranging from photos, videos, stories, and much more. If you don't know how to go about these options, then your bait will certainly miss the fish. If you can spare some time to make some eye-catching videos and post them on your store's accounts.
As another option, a merchant can choose to run organic posts on the site's official page. This alternative is absolutely free. You only need active internet for that.
This is one of the most common ways to maintain repeated customers. You can decide to create promo codes, do retargeting ads, offer discounts if customers refer their friends to make a purchase, and so on. A stable customer loyalty program can help your business be operational for decades.
This is an easy strategy to start off with if you feel like paid ads are somewhat expensive. It's as simple as branding merchandise with your brand's logo and using creative promotional inserts.
This method doesn't need you to invest so much to achieve any projected outcome. You can run a blog and produce SEO focused content to reach your target audience. Although this might take so much of your time, it equally boosts your conversions in a far-reaching way.
To run a successful blog, you don't just need an ordinary CMS (Content Management System) . It must be one with essential tools to help you strikingly rank high on the search engine. An all-inclusive software like WordPress is a perfect example in such a scenario.
What does a blog have to do with my online store?
You might ask yourself.
Well, running a blog is one of the most promising channels a merchant can use to introduce a ‘call to action'. It's an easy peasy way to persuade readers to buy your products.
Practically, you can put ‘buy buttons' in your articles to direct customers to your online store. You need to create good content to convince your readers. That comes to fruition only if you know how to engage your audience with what they can actually relate to.
I'm pretty sure that you must be alive to the fact that WordPress is free to use and also an open-source platform. This means that you can actually joyride a couple of its functionalities. To improve your site's SEO, you can set noticeable meta descriptions, insert backlinks, and set appropriate keyphrases.
If you intend to target a population from the younger demographics, you ought to run a marketing strategy which they're more affiliated with. In this case, Instagram tends to be more associated with Millenials.
I don't necessarily need to emphasize the fact that you need to work with a budget. If this is left unattended to, your business is more likely going to crumble in the near future. A merchant ought to be sharp about the start-up costs and any extras that they might have to incur in the long run.
Assuming that you're going to run your online business alone, setting a budget that fits your wallet shouldn't be a demanding exercise. You need to maintain a streamlined cash flow in your business dealings. To keep off from discrepancies, it's doubtless that you need a high-standard accounting tool. Most of this software charge a few bucks for its services. Not much, that I can give you some sort of guarantee.
As a matter of fact, the likes of Intuit Quickbooks and Xero are ideal for bookkeeping and any other accounting needs. By use of such tools, you get to stay ahead of your priorities by maintaining a sound financial plan.
So let's see what you should put into deep consideration;
This gives you a sneak peek of the amount of revenue you should anticipate. But you just can't take a wild guess to know exactly how much you'll generate over time. Since you're the CEO of your e-commerce business, you need to be a wise bookkeeper. Act like you have 10 years experience as a professional accountant, even though you're not close to being one. But if you are, that's a huge plus.
Figuring out what your gross revenue amounts to isn't enough. There's more work to be done in order to narrow down to accurate projections. Once you do the math and come up with the total sales, it's pretty obvious that you need to deduct all expenses. Finally, you get to know the actual profit yield.
And that's how a viable financial projection works.
To make a more intelligible projection, you can use business planning software to remove all forms of complexities. Small businesses can use apps like LivePlan , Bizplan or Enloop to account for their business forecasts.
If you're going to depend on 3rd party SaaS services to run your business, then it's patent that you need to pay for the monthly plans. An online business owner must factor in what the sales channel charges on a periodic basis. Shopify, for instance, charges $29 each month for its Basic plan.
But that's not all.
There are extra plugins which integrate with your store to boost its overall perfomance. Some of these extensions have premium plans. That aside, you'll have to set a budget for your marketing campaigns as discussed earlier on. Besides, a merchant whose business is at an enterprise level requires elite-level services from the marketing tools.
Paid advertising, in particular, is often a recurring expense that needs to appear in your financial books of accounts.
You don't expect to thrive over your rivals by clinging on a free trial plan. With the acute competition in the ecommerce setups, there's more to making huge revenue than merely putting basic efforts to your online store.
If you want to run a winning online business, you better use a theme that's sort of intertwined to your niche. Furthermore, you need to brace yourself with some extra bucks so as to access a fully functional theme. Realistically, a professional WordPress theme would roughly cost you about $200 or even more.
Magneto, on the other hand, is a sales channel that needs some tender care. It has a knotty learning curve since it's designed to run ecommerce businesses that have scaled to an industrial level. In order to make adjustments on Magneto's functionality, you might have to spend on web development experts.
Since you'll be running an online business, thus handling payments from customers, you need to work with a cloud-based POS system. One which integrates with processors such as Stripe , PayPal , Square, just to mention a few notable ones. A merchant service provider like Shopify has its own POS app which works perfectly well for all their retail needs.
This solution uses a tiered technique on each of its plans to calculate the processing fees. The pricier the plan, the lesser the processing fees.
To further illustrate, Shopify's Basic plan charges 2.9% + 30 cents per sale transaction. Its counterpart WooCommerce charges the same amount for all the credit card transactions.
No matter how old this phrase is, here's the moral of the story.
To get your business into good financial shape, you need to be mindful of the processing fees. Be keen to choose an ecommerce platform which has multichannel functionality yet with low processing fees. This allows you to greatly maximize your profit on each sale transaction.
As noted earlier, there are a couple of ways to go about this process. If you want to offer free shipping to your customers, pick a solution that rewards you the most. Most drop shippers tend to include the shipping costs in the selling price. If that's the case, choose reliable carrier services to avoid future chargeback claims.
Also, go with one that has an efficient management team. Amazon's FBA can serve as a pretty solid order fulfillment service. The same goes for services such as ShipWire or ShipMonk.
If you decide to do premium shipping, then you'll have to elevate your pricing index formula. Contrastingly, if your products are somewhat expensive, customers might shy off from making a purchase.
Just like a brick and mortar store, you'll definitely incur some extra expenses while running your online business in a bid to boost productivity. If you're running a large online store, it's prudent to have some technical assistance. That costs money. Depending on the size of your ecommerce business, you might incur some accounting expenses and business taxes too.
Not to mention hosting services if you go with a sales channel that isn't self-hosted. Besides that, there are premium integrations which come with monthly recurring costs.
The earlier you realize which category your ecommerce business plan falls into, the better for your future projections. The trendsetting business models are not the same as those that used to reign a couple of years ago. Many thanks to the cumulative progression in technology and shopping trends.
For an online merchant, this brings on board, diverse ways of doing business across borders.
The end result?
Your online business setup generates more revenue like never before. With such kind of innovation in the realm of running an ecommerce business, numerous opportunities are created. It's no wonder that there is an uncountable number of niches which potential online store owners can venture into.
Before we even delve further into these ecommerce oriented business models, let's have a recap of the long-established, or put differently, the traditional ones;
B2C setups are those which sell products and services, or both, to the end buyer. That simple. It's one of the most prevalent methods in the sphere of ecommerce. Most merchants use this method to sell products to consumers since it requires fewer efforts than B2B(Business-to-Business).
The Business-to-Consumer approach is highly preferable for products that have a lower market value. Under ordinary circumstances, it's easier for buyers to make up their minds on a pair of shoes over an accounting software. At least, owing to the fact that the latter is a recurring expense, which they have to incur periodically.
The B2C model is mobile-friendly and helps you optimize your online store's perfomance.
Unlike B2C, B2B transactions occur between two businesses entities. In other instances, the buyer is usually the end-user. But most-predominantly, the buyer makes the purchase and later on resells the products to the consumer at a retail price.
This framework is now more focused on B2B ecommerce businesses which are well versant with niche markets.
This structure allows individuals to sell products and services to companies. In ecommerce, a business buys such a product or service so as to aggressively compete in the market.
Let's use a typical illustration. Consumers who let's say own blogs can allow companies to advertise products in their sites. Of course, this comes with a price.
Moreover, there are Business models that focus on ecommerce setups.
They include;
If you want to cut the middleman, this is the right model to use for your ecommerce business. It's a tried and tested technique that connects businesses to customers in an unconventional manner.
In e-commerce, this is the kind of business that offers a type of service to consumers. Examples include; online magazines, streaming services, online classes, gym and club memberships, the list is endless. In return, the merchant collects recurring payments on a periodic basis and at a preset date from the consumer.
As the name suggests, the wholesaler sells products to a retailer in bulk. A perfect marketplace to source wholesalers is Alibaba. The same goes for AliExpress, which is its subsidiary retail site. The latter is compatible with both the B2B and B2C model since consumers can make a direct purchase from AliExpress. A merchant can also opt to open a seller account here.
This model is on the mainstream in the e-commerce industry. A merchant, otherwise known as a drop shipper, markets a product that is later fulfilled to the customer by a 3rd party supplier. The drop shipper, who is more of a middleman, virtually displays the products via a sales channel and adjusts the pricing to make a small profit on each sale.
Everything considered it's rightful to say that coming up with a detailed e-commerce plan isn't baffling whatsoever. The catch is, a merchant needs to make some sort of fusion between their business needs and the above-discussed blueprint. So long as you have an idea of what products to sell online, the initial stages of launching your business should be a no brainer.
Also, you don't want to go a little overboard with your startup costs. As you may know, that might slow down the launching process. To kick off with bargain-priced e-commerce sales channels, you can try out plans from solutions such as Shopify , WooCommerce , or even BigCommerce.
In a nutshell, having a full-proof e-commerce business plan sort of guarantees you systematic progress towards your future goals. This guide gives you a comprehensive analysis of what you need to have in your bucket list. If you feel unbalanced while sketching your plan, don't feel shy to drop a query in the comment box below.
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Bogdan is a founding member of Inspired Mag, having accumulated almost 6 years of experience over this period. In his spare time he likes to study classical music and explore visual arts. He’s quite obsessed with fixies as well. He owns 5 already.
Thanks for in depth guide. Really wonderful article.
You’re welcome Sanjay!
Thanks Meaghan Brophy for your very detailed guide. I also would like to add a quick point as my takeaway. It all starts with a pre-meditated ecommerce business plan. At first glance, this feels like a superficial blueprint for most starters. But here’s the deal. You need an executive summary of everything you’re about to do in order to convert your objectives into actual results. From the onset, you must put your thoughts on paper. The key is to start it. Planning is very important. But be aware to not overdo it.
Thanks for sharing you thoughts, we’re really glad you liked the article!
Comments are closed.
Creating an eCommerce business plan can seem daunting if you are an aspiring entrepreneur who wants to start an online business.
But it doesn't have to be! In fact, an eCommerce business plan is a great tool to help you grow your e-commerce business.
So, why should you create an eCommerce business plan? After all, just writing down your business idea and hoping for the best won't work in today's fast-changing world.
Creating a comprehensive business plan is the most crucial step in starting an e-commerce business. Without writing a solid business plan first, you'll have no idea where to start or what steps to take next.
In this article, we will explain how to create an eCommerce business plan and its importance.
You can't just start an e-commerce business and hope it will succeed. You need a plan, which is why e-commerce companies need an eCommerce business plan.
Here are the reasons why your e-commerce company needs an eCommerce business plan:
A well-crafted eCommerce business plan will help save both time and money for your company as it takes away some of the guesswork involved with making critical decisions during the early stages of your business's life cycle.
This will allow time for staff members to focus on other tasks so that they can continue growing their businesses without having to worry about day-to-day operations at all times.
The business plan lays out your goals and strategies for achieving them.
It also lists your financial projections, including the costs of starting up and running the company, as well as any capital investments you'll make in the near future.
The business plan will also help you determine how much money you'll need to get started and where that money should come from.
E-commerce businesses need an eCommerce business plan because it helps them ensure they're on track with their goals and strategies while starting up or growing their business.
The more detailed your plan is, the better equipped you'll be when you start making decisions about how your company's digital storefront will operate once it's up and running.
E-commerce has become one of the fastest-growing industries in the world, and it's about to become even more popular.
E-commerce companies have been able to use technology to streamline their processes and make them more efficient than ever.
Regarding eCommerce business plans, there are some critical differences between a traditional business plan and digital business plans. Here are some of the most important ones:
An eCommerce business plan is an essential document to have in your e-commerce business. It helps you to know the direction of your business and how it can be improved.
An eCommerce business plan template can help you write the contents of your plan correctly. Here is how you can go about it-
Your Executive Summary is a brief overview of the business plan that summarizes your entire business plan.
It should be written in a way that allows investors to quickly understand what you are trying to accomplish and how you will achieve it.
What does your business do?
In this part of the business plan, you will have to introduce yourself, your company, and your story.
You can also include information about your industry and why you choose that niche.
For example, if you are a fashion designer, you can tell about yourself and why you decided to start a new line of clothes online instead of going into a traditional retail store or brick-and-mortar stores.
What goals does your business want to achieve?
The first section of this section should include a description of your company, its mission, and its goals.
All e-commerce businesses start with huge goals, but you must set realistic goals and ensure you achieve them.
What products do you sell?
The third section should explain how you plan to achieve your company's goals in the next five years.
You can break this into two parts: (1) what products or services will be sold, and (2) where the company plans on selling those products or services.
Who is your audience?
Identify your target market and mention your audience. Choose your product wisely so it sells quickly in the target demographic.
For example, if you want to sell trendy clothes, better to target GenZs, who are always looking to be fashionable.
Write the brand name of your company in your business plan.
This will help you create a memorable brand, one of the most important factors for gaining customers' trust.
Having a strong brand name is also vital because it will help you get your products on shelves and attract new clients and investors.
Business structure
Include all the details about your company's structure or business model, including its legal status and whether it is a private or a public company.
You should also mention what kind of business entity has been chosen for your company and how many employees currently work for it.
Domain name
Include the domain name for your website in this section of your business plan and any other vital details about it, like who registered it and where it can be found on the Internet (URL).
You should also include any other relevant information in this section, such as its geographical location.
Your company's mission statement is an integral part of your business plan. It should describe the company's purpose, what it does, and how it will benefit society.
It should also include a description of how the company can help customers and clients, as well as its goals for the future.
This is a concise statement of what you want to achieve shortly, such as becoming profitable, expanding into new markets, or creating more products and services that are unique to your company.
Background information and Your team
This section should include information about your management team members, their educational background and experience within their fields, skillsets, past work experience, and any other relevant information that will help readers see them as real people rather than just names on a page.
Conducting market analysis and research can help you understand your competition and what it will take to get competitive advantage and succeed in your industry.
Market opportunities
For a business plan to be successful, it must be based on sound assumptions about what will happen when it's launched. Market research allows you to identify potential customers, determine their needs, and determine how to meet them. For example:
Competitive analysis
Competition is one of the most critical factors that impact your success as an e-commerce retailer.
Before launching any new product or service, understanding how other companies compete with yours will help guide pricing and marketing strategy decisions.
All in all, competitive analysis and market analysis helps identify potential. With this information in hand, you can plan how to better compete against them.
Products and services
Once you've determined all the things people want and need, it's time to figure out how you will provide those things for them through e-commerce sales.
For anyone to buy anything from an e-commerce store, they have to have information about what they're buying so they know whether or not they should buy something!
Write about your product, how it solves the problem, benefits buyers, and why they should buy it.
Marketing channels
It would be best to have a marketing plan when making an eCommerce business plan to build brand awareness, reach your target audience, and boost sales and revenue.
It should contain your marketing strategies, and acquisition channels, tools, and technology to market your various products and services.
In marketing channels, you can mention all the platforms and ways you are willing to use in your marketing efforts, like:
The website should contain all relevant information about your company, including sales & services information, testimonials from happy customers, contact information for essential people in the organization such as managers & executives, etc.
Your website should also be search engine optimized (SEO) to rank high in search engine results pages (SERPs) when people enter keywords like "company name" into the Google search bar or Bing.
Acquisition channels
Next, let's talk about customer acquisition channels. These are ways of finding new customers without investing money in advertising or promotions.
The most common ones are search engine optimization (SEO), paid social media ads like Facebook Ads or Google AdWords, guest posting on blogs relevant to your niche, and other organic search engine optimization (SEO).
Tools and Technology
Finally, let's talk about tools and technologies you can use to develop your marketing strategy.
Many free tools are available online, but if you're serious about growing your business, it's worth investing in some paid ones, such as Offeo, Hubstaff, Semrush, etc.
Your company must set up a financial plan detailing all its revenue streams and expenses.
Income statement
The income statement is a summary of the company's sources of revenue and expenses.
The income statement shows how much money the company made in a given period, usually one year.
You can also use it to calculate the company's EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) and its Net Profit.
Balance sheet
The balance sheet gives you an overview of the company's assets and liabilities, plus any accumulated earnings or losses since the last time an accountant audited it.
You can use it to calculate a company's cash flow and net worth.
Sales Forecast
The sales forecast is also included in this plan. It shows how many customers are expected to buy from your store each month or over the next year/quarter and how many of those customers will be repeat buyers.
This information helps ensure that your business has enough money coming in to continue growing and expanding.
Cash-flow statement
Finally, a cash-flow statement helps you understand how much money comes in and goes out each month.
Any unexpected expenses or costs that come up during the year (like taxes) should also be included in this statement!
The sales plan is a crucial part of the e-commerce business, as it will determine the company's success.
The goal of this plan is to show the sales channels you will use, as well as how you define your customers and what they will need to make a purchase.
You should also include metrics that indicate how well you are doing in terms of making sales.
Here are some things to consider when creating your sales plan:
In this section, we'll include any legal notes or financial considerations important to your business. This can include things like trademark concerns, privacy policies, and more.
1. Outline Legal Notes
2. Financial Considerations
For example, if you're hiring someone new, do you need to pay them more than usual during their first few weeks at work because they've been transferred from another department temporarily while this project gets off the ground?
What other costs might come into play during this phase of development? For example: what would happen if one investor backed out after signing on
Who needs an ecommerce business plan.
An eCommerce business plan is a great way to understand the costs of starting an online store. You may not need a formalized business plan if you already have a website or blog.
But if you don't have any existing clients or customers or have no idea what to expect when launching your e-commerce store, this will help you create a structure that can help guide your decisions along the way.
The benefits include:
E-commerce businesses are built using the internet, which has two parts: content and commerce.
You need to create content, be it a blog or a website, and then figure out how to get people to buy your product or service. Content can be videos, images, music, etc.
It is an excellent business to start, but only if you have the right experience and skills.
The six major e-commerce business models are
Many e-commerce businesses are in the market since the internet has brought the world to one place.
While some are doing great, most need help with the right eCommerce business plan for success.
Developing an eCommerce business plan is a tricky task and must be done carefully. This blog is based on creating an eCommerce business plan template.
You can find an eCommerce business plan template in this thread. It has many necessary sections, like the executive summary, marketing strategy, and sales forecasts.
The blog has details about various sections to get a good idea of how to start your research, what to include, and important clauses on managing finances and budgets.
Offeo video templates.
Starting an ecommerce business can be an exciting time, but it can also be a bit overwhelming. You have a great idea, but how will you turn it into a successful business? This is where a business plan comes into play. It will guide you through each step of growing your business. It helps you understand who your customers are, how you'll reach them and how you'll manage your money. Plus, when you have a formal business plan, you're 260% more likely to get your business off the ground and see it grow .
One of the first steps when building a business plan for your ecommerce start-up is understanding your market. You'll start by looking at market trends. This can look like researching the overall growth of ecommerce sales to see where the market is heading. For example, global ecommerce sales are projected to hit a whopping $6.33 trillion in 2024 . There's a big opportunity out there, but it also means you need to watch out for competition.
Look at what others in your space are doing well and if there are any gaps for improvement that you can fill. This can help you find a unique angle and offer something different to stand out in the market. About 89% of consumers check online reviews before making a purchase . Take this time to understand how your competitors are being perceived -- this can help you pinpoint what your future customers value.
This is where you’ll highlight what makes your business unique. What are the products or services you offer? What sets them apart from your competition? Standing out from your competitors can help you attract your ideal customers and build strong brand loyalty. Customers will stick around longer to support your business when you offer something no one else is providing. By this point, you'll also know what matters most to your customers so you can show them how your business solves their problems.
Next, you’ll be figuring out the main channels that will help you reach your target audience. These channels can include social media , email campaigns , SEO , or paid ads. About half of shoppers say they find new products while scrolling through social media , so if your audience spends a lot of time there, it’s a great place to start. The key is to choose the channels that your customers already use and trust so your message resonates with them in the places they’re most likely to engage.
This section is a quick snapshot of your business. Here, you will state your legal structure. Are you a limited liability company (LLC), corporation, sole proprietorship or partnership? Each comes with pros and cons; therefore, it's important to know exactly what each one involves to help you choose the one that sets your business up for success.
LLCs are often the best choice for ecommerce businesses since they offer a great balance between simplicity and protection. If you ever face legal issues, your personal savings and property are generally safe. In the company overview, you will also mention who owns the business and what your mission is.
Next, outline the key parts of your daily operations, like order fulfillment , customer service, and inventory management. These systems keep everything running smoothly, which helps keep your customers coming back .
Your financial plan should cover startup costs, expected revenue, and any funding needed for growth . Include how much money you'll need, where it will come from, and how you’ll use it. You could start an ecommerce business with as little as $500 to $1000 ; however, utilizing proper marketing and advertising will likely cost more. Planning for these expenses will give you a better chance at creating a successful and sustainable business.
Lastly is the executive summary. This will be the first part of your business plan , but it's typically written last. This section is a quick overview of your business’s main goals, mission, and strategy. You'll highlight what your business aims to achieve, who your target market is, and the opportunity you're seizing.
This is also the area to include a snapshot of your financial projections , like your expected revenue and funding needs , to give a clear picture of your business’s potential. Keep it short and focused! This is your chance to grab attention and show why your business is worth investing in.
When you build a business plan for your ecommerce startup, you know exactly what you’re offering and who you’re offering it to. You’ll have a better idea of who your competitors are and how you can stand out from the crowd. Take the time to get it right, and you’ll be ready to turn your great idea into a thriving ecommerce business.
As an experienced content and creative writer with over 3 years in the business, Paig Stafford has a knack for understanding and creating digestible content for technical and finance fields across early-stage technology start-up incubators to software companies to personal development applications. In her free time, she enjoys baking desserts and playing computer games
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Learning how to start an eCommerce business can be a complex endeavor. To put your business on the path to success, you need more than an idea; you need a plan. This post provides a step-by-step guide to the process of starting a business , from initial inspiration to the first online sale and beyond.
Ready to start selling? Build your eCommerce website with Wix.
As with any entrepreneurial venture, careful planning and preparation are essential to your success. Here are the steps to follow to get started with your own eCommerce business:
Identify your online business niche
Do market research
Select the right product mix
Secure product sources
Write a strong business plan
Set your business name and legal structure
Choose an eCommerce platform
Create your online store
Manage your eCommerce business finances
Market your eCommerce business
While it may seem counterintuitive, your chances of making it big in eCommerce are better when you start by thinking small—that is, when you start by defining a niche for your online business.
While it’s helpful to study the general trends, broad categories can be crowded with competitors. As one example, health and personal care is slated for growth to over 13% of the eCommerce market through 2027 but trying to compete with major drug chains or beauty retailers can prove difficult (if not impossible) for new players.
Instead of targeting a large, general market, target a niche market. For instance, you could start an eCommerce business that focuses on organic skin care for teens, with a selection of cleansers, moisturizers and sunscreen for acne-prone skin. Finding a product to sell is perhaps the most crucial part of starting an ecommerce business, so make sure to do your research.
It helps to have expertise in your chosen niche. You’ll spend a lot of time researching the right products or services to provide. You’ll dive into every detail of the business. And, at least at first, you’ll likely manage day-to-day operations, so you should be passionate about what your ecommerce business idea .
Related reading: $300K in 7 days: building a million-dollar beauty subscription business
Once you’ve pinpointed an ecommerce business niche or idea, it’s time to research and evaluate your potential market. Not only will you learn more about your audience but you’ll also gather the quantifiable data you need to make revenue projections and calculate costs. To understand the market, consider these strategies:
Identify your audience type : Are you catering to corporate professionals or individual consumers? The audience you have in mind will help determine th e type of business you intend to operate. While many eCommerce businesses serve exclusively B2B or B2C customers, some sellers serve both. For example, a gourmet food seller that typically sells to individual consumers may offer corporate gifting services for the holidays. Or, an apparel retailer may provide customization options for bulk orders, enabling companies to print custom uniforms that include their logos. Get familiar with the main ecommerce KPIs before getting started.
Size your market : Build a profile of your ideal customer based on their demographics, geographic location, interests, spending habits and any other salient details. Then use that profile to guide your research into census and market data to arrive at realistic numbers. Your goal is to understand your potential customers better as you gauge the ultimate potential for growth for your eCommerce business. These benchmarks will also help you forecast revenue and demand as accurately as possible until you begin generating sales and have an earnings history to use as a guide.
Immerse yourself in the trade : Follow trade media and individual thought leaders in your chosen category and read up on overall eCommerce trends via publications. The Wix eCommerce Blog is a great place to get started.
Study the competition : Dive deep into competitor websites, sign up for their email updates and track news coverage on your competitors. Pay attention to how they market themselves, both online and offline. If you can dig up financial reports or earnings, that information can guide your own forecasts and projections.
Ask your audience directly : Use surveys and polls to gather information from your potential customers. Hang out in relevant social media groups and forums and attend in-person events where potential customers congregate.
Your niche and your target market will guide decisions about which products to sell or services to offer. Consider, for example, whether your audience would be receptive to curated kits or gift sets, and whether seasonality is a factor.
Price and profit margin are essential to consider, as they determine the potential for your business to scale. A break-even analysis will help you figure out how much of each product you need to sell to recoup your initial costs and begin making a profit.
When selecting products to sell, you’ll want to consider factors like:
Product life : Know your expected product life cycle . This will help you create a multi-year plan for your eCommerce business. Some big-ticket items are built to last decades; buyers who ordered a sofa may not return to your site immediately, unless you offer complementary items. On the other end of the spectrum, replenishable goods like pet food or beauty supplies may inherently attract repeat purchases. For these, you may want to offer bulk discounts or start a subscription box business to further encourage repeat business.
Price expectations : While offering a variety of price points can broaden your appeal with buyers, if your audience is used to purchasing luxury goods, then you may want to limit your selection to top-of-the-line offerings. If you’re a B2B seller, consider whether your corporate clients expect you to offer items in bulk at wholesale prices.
Cost of goods sold (COGS) : As you select products, consider overhead costs and logistics , such as whether items require fancy packaging or “white-glove” delivery and installation. Digital products, by contrast, have no shipping or physical procurement requirements. You can calculate COGS with the following formula: beginning inventory + purchased inventory − ending inventory.
Once you have guidelines in place, dive into the specifics. If you need inspiration and want to see what’s trending, turn to competitor websites or search best-selling items on marketplaces like Amazon. Ecommerce tools like Google Trends and Algopix can also help identify hot products. Or, use your favorite SEO or keyword research tool, like Semrush, to find frequently searched products, validate a product concept and/or discover which brands are most frequently searched in your market.
Once you have specific items in mind, you’ll need to determine the right product sourcing method. Perhaps you create all of your products by hand and want to keep it that way. Or, maybe you’re interested in dropshipping with a platform like Modalyst , Wix’s native dropshipping solution.
Depending on your budget, resources and preferences, you have a few options to choose from when it comes to sourcing products:
Make goods by hand yourself : Quality is fully within your control, but it can be tricky to scale your business or keep up with high order volumes.
Hire a manufacturer : You source products from a third-party manufacturer but sell them under your brand name. Items are made to your specifications, and you retain control over production, pricing and branding. You can make goods efficiently in large quantities, but good communication with your production partner is essential to ensure quality is up to snuff.
Partner with name-brand manufacturers : If you seek products from specific manufacturers or designers, you can contract as an official reseller or dealer and offer those products through your eCommerce site. While your brand will get a boost from the affiliation, you’ll need to price items low enough to compete with other sellers, and some brands may have policies around a product’s minimum advertised price (MAP). Both can cut into margins. Retailers can also create their own branded merchandise via private label lines in partnership with manufacturers, straddling the manufacturer/retailer divide. Costco’s Kirkland line or Amazon’s AmazonBasics are just two examples of this strategy.
Source from wholesalers : Wholesale suppliers offer catalogs of goods, often from multiple manufacturers. You can find inexpensive products to buy wholesale, which gives you leeway in pricing. On the flip side, products sourced overseas may bring additional delivery costs and tariffs as well as the expense of inventory and warehousing.
Work with dropship suppliers : Dropshipping shifts traditional retailer responsibilities to suppliers, enabling you to launch an eCommerce business with minimal upfront investment. You handle the marketing and choose your products, but incoming orders are routed directly to your suppliers, who are responsible for shipping items directly to your customers. You never have to buy and hold inventory, run a warehouse or ship items yourself. On the flip side, you have less control over product quality and delivery, putting your brand in a vulnerable position if suppliers slip up. Ghost commerce takes it a step further, where the supplier ships items, yet you maintain your brand’s image and handle customer relations.
It’s important to weigh your options when choosing a product sourcing method, and truly evaluate all of them carefully. Before you make a definitive decision, ask yourself the following questions:
Do you want to customize or brand your products? Because wholesale suppliers produce in bulk, it may be hard to tweak selections to match your criteria. As an intermediate option, some suppliers offer white labeling, which allows you to sell ready-made products with your logo and branding. And if you want to personalize products further, explore print on demand . This is a subset of dropshipping that allows you to offer custom designs on a selection of products created to your specifications as orders come in.
How much capital do you have to invest in inventory ? If you’re working with limited startup funds, dropshipping can be a more economical route for launching your brand.
How complex are your warehousing and fulfillment needs? If you offer recurring subscription shipments, corporate gifting services or bulk order capabilities, you may need to manage logistics yourself to ensure deliveries are accurate and on time.
How do your competitors source their products? While you don’t want to outright copy your competitors, research as much as you can about their processes to identify any potential differentiating advantages they have. Do they have exclusive dealer rights to brand-name merchandise you want to stock? Do they offer products sourced exclusively from sustainable suppliers?
What is your backup plan if one of your suppliers has issues? Nearly four in 10 shoppers have abandoned online purchases due to items being out of stock, so take proactive steps to avoid disappointing buyers. Find backup sources of widely available wholesale products, and cover contingencies in your contracts with suppliers.
How will you scale your business? Manufacturing or making your own products gives you the greatest amount of control, but they also make it difficult to meet rising demand. You may need to contract with a new factory altogether, hire staff or find other expensive solutions. For a more flexible option, you may want to consider dropshipping or wholesaling.
What are your audience’s expectations? Buyers are prioritizing sustainability more and more. In fact, U.S. consumers are reportedly willing to pay an 11% premium for products with reduced environmental impact. If your customers expect ethically sourced products, include those factors in your sourcing criteria.
Document all the research and planning you’ve done up to this point with a formal eCommerce business plan . Not only does a business plan capture your work in a comprehensive and detailed format, but it also provides a touchstone for keeping your day-to-day operations focused on your mission. The strongest business plans keep teams aligned during launch and lay the foundation for attracting the right business partners and investors.
While the individual components of a business plan can be tailored to your unique priorities, you should include the following elements to be sure the document is relevant and useful:
Mission, description and unique selling proposition (USP) : Your business plan should outline the reason your company exists, summarize at a high level what it does and identify what sets your brand apart from others. This information helps you stake your claim in the marketplace and guides future decisions about priorities. In particular, it’s critical to flesh out your unique selling proposition . Your USP guides your product positioning , helps you to stand out from the competition and identifies partners and consumers who share your values. For example, “plastic-negative” water company and Wix merchant Mananalu differentiates its products by supporting a larger cause. Mananalu water is packaged in refillable aluminum bottles, which are easier to recycle than plastic. In addition, each time a consumer buys a Mananalu water, the company pledges to remove a plastic bottle from the ocean waste stream. Shoppers can even buy further “plastic offsets” to support the company’s cause. Climate Neutral certification and “1% for the Planet” membership provide third-party credentials attesting to the company’s commitment to sustainability.
Market and SWOT analysis : Summarize your market research and describe your company’s position relative to the competition. Provide an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) to pinpoint your areas of greatest potential growth. A realistic analysis will help maintain focus not only as you launch, but as you scale and add new offerings.
Your offering : Use your previous research and planning to create a detailed description of your products and/or services, product sourcing and pricing strategy. Describe how this offering aligns with your audience’s needs. In addition, describe your plans for customer service and order fulfillment as crucial components of the brand experience.
Marketing plans : Describe how you plan to introduce your eCommerce business to your target audience, including which digital channels you’ll prioritize and which technologies you’ll rely on to execute marketing tactics.
Financial forecasts : Using your previous research, build a model forecasting expenses, revenues and growth. To ground your projections in reality, use real-life results from competitors or other businesses in your field. Consult trade publications and category experts for growth benchmarks and formulas to incorporate.
Funding sources : Describe how you’ll secure the startup resources you need, whether through your own savings, private equity, crowdfunding or investors. If you’re presenting your plan to potential funding sources, customize the information to explain the rationale behind your request and describe the benefits of funding your business.
After you put your business plan together, you’ll need to set up the actual legal framework to support your business.
Start by picking a business name that reflects your brand identity and USP. If you need some inspiration, try researching popular search keywords, brainstorming names related to your niche or playing with different spelling variations. Wix’s free business name generator can provide more ideas. As you narrow the list, check that the names are:
Easy to read, say, spell and remember
Search-friendly
Available as a website domain
Not being used by another business (in the U.S., individual states maintain registries of businesses you can check)
Once you have your business name figured out, you’ll need a logo. You can create one yourself, work with a graphic designer or try out the Wix logo maker for free.
Next, you’ll want to choose the right legal structure for your eCommerce company—a key step in starting a business of any type. Your overarching business structure will define your liabilities, tax status and more.
Consult with legal professionals and accountants to determine whether a sole proprietorship , partnership , limited liability company (LLC) or corporation is right for you. In the U.S., you’ll also need to register your business and apply for a federal employer identification number (EIN) in order to pay taxes, open a business bank account or obtain financing. You can do this through the IRS’s website for free.
At this point, you’re ready to bring your brand to life through building your own ecommerce website .
The first step is to choose the best eCommerce platform for your needs. There are dozens of website builders on the market, so evaluate your options carefully. To ensure your eCommerce website development goes smoothly, look for a platform that provides:
Professional aesthetics : Wix offers hundreds of specialized online store templates you can customize to reflect your brand.
A domain name : You’ll need a domain name of your own to match your business name.
Enterprise-grade security : Wix offers a secure infrastructure with 24/7 security monitoring to protect against data breaches.
Top performance : It’s critical to have web hosting with the capacity to support a speedy, high-performance site on both mobile and desktop devices, even during peak sales periods.
Built-in analytics : Wix’s analytics dashboard helps you track key ecommerce metrics , such as website traffic and generate historical performance reports.
Customizable shopping cart pages : A customizable shopping cart page will ensure your branding and messaging are consistent throughout the purchase process.
Variety of checkout options : Flexible eCommerce checkout options should support whichever payment method your customers prefer. Wix Payments is an integrated payment gateway system that can connect to in-store point-of-sale (POS) registers, too and allows you to accept payments on a website.
A content management system : A content management system (CMS) should ideally support robust product information and brand-building features such as blogs, how-to articles and buying guides.
Back-office functionality : Look for integrated tools that help automate back-office functions, like bookkeeping and order fulfillment. Wix offers ecommerce tools for tasks like inventory management , invoice creation and more.
A reasonable pricing model : Your platform’s pricing model should make sense financially for your business, both now and in the future. As you research, pay close attention to recurring fees and special surcharges so you understand the total cost. With Wix, you can build a website with eCommerce functionality for as little as $27 per month.
Get ready for launch. Sign up for Wix today.
Regardless of which eCommerce platform you choose, it’s important to research the best practices for designing an online store . Knowing how to make a website includes the following best practices:
Be clear about what you sell : Make it easy for customers to understand your business and products by using consistent design elements and language throughout the site. Avoid jargon-heavy or overly cutesy names for product categories and individual items; use accurate language that matches the search terms your audience enters. Once shoppers are ready to buy, don’t beat around the bush; use clear calls-to-action like “Shop Now” or “Buy Now.”
Invest in high-quality imagery : A picture is worth a thousand words, and that’s especially true in eCommerce. Buyers can’t physically touch and try products, so photos and videos help convince them to have faith and click “Buy.” High-quality photos that clearly show details and features are essential, while videos demonstrate products in action and can be repurposed for social platforms like TikTok.
Showcase user-generated content (UGC) : Buyers trust others like them to communicate authentically about products and services, so find ways to spotlight customer reviews, user-submitted photos and social media comments. The same holds true in the B2B world; 86% of businesses consider verified reviews a critical factor in purchase decisions when deciding vendors.
Embrace mobile : Transactions on mobile devices already account for four in 10 online sales , and an even higher share of product research occurs on smartphones thanks to their “anywhere, anytime” availability. Your eCommerce site shouldn’t just be mobile-compatible. You should assume the majority of interactions with your brand will occur on the go. Make sure that pages load quickly even when wi-fi isn’t available, and that images render clearly on small screens.
Learn more:
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Once you’ve launched your eCommerce business, you need the tools to track sales, profit and growth. These eCommerce money management tips offer best practices to ensure you have adequate cash flow from month to month and can keep your business humming along.
Three things in particular are worth monitoring closely:
Plan for seasonality : Holidays, annual weather patterns and other cyclical influences can cause your income to spike and dive. For example, in the U.S., the final quarter of the year can account for more than 30% of annual sales for some categories of retailers. Other cycles might be particular to your industry: if you offer bookkeeping or accounting services online, for example, your peak season might end on April 15, the filing deadline for personal income taxes. Accurate forecasting can help predict when sales will pour in so you can manage cash flow to cover leaner months.
Get a handle on fulfillment costs : If your eCommerce business involves delivering physical goods, be prepared to spend 15% to 20% of net sales on fulfillment costs . Of course, if you provide a virtual service or a downloadable app or software product, you can avoid these costs altogether. If you use dropshippers to fulfill orders instead, you won’t carry those overhead costs yourself, but the suppliers will likely pass them on to you as part of your fees.
Guard against costly chargebacks and returns : It’s estimated that 17.6% of all online sales are returned . Add in the cost of reverse logistics—where goods are returned to stock for resale or simply discarded—and you’ll want to prevent returns in the first place. Try to create detailed product pages that include fit and sizing guides, compatibility information and materials. In addition, bolster your customer service content to address common questions before purchase; communicate shipping timeframes so consumers don’t cancel orders in transit if they don’t arrive in time. Finally, set a return policy you can actually afford.
Read more: SMB online commerce for acquiring banks and merchant acquirers.
Launching your online store is an achievement, but by no means can you “set it and forget it.” With so many eCommerce websites available, you need to promote your brand to attract new buyers and create incentives that keep customers coming back.
As you allocate your marketing budget to sell more products online , focus on the digital channels you know your audience uses. Follow these strategies:
Personalize the shopping experience : Seven in 10 consumers now expect personalized interactions with companies, and businesses meeting that expectation can boost their marketing return on investment (ROI) anywhere from 10-30%. Seek out tools that enable you to automate eCommerce personalization in email campaigns, product recommendations and post-purchase promotions. For example, with Wix, you can add a “Best Sellers” or “Related Products” gallery to your product pages.
Boost word-of-mouth buzz : Encouraging customers to create and share reviews is just the start when it comes to building word-of-mouth advocacy for your brand. Create promotions that reward customers for referring friends and family, and post share-worthy takes and exclusive offers on the social media networks that your customers use most. To further boost visibility on social media, consider working with micro-influencers. These personalities may not have millions of followers, but they have devoted audiences whose interests can align closely with your brand offering.
Prioritize SEO : More than half of consumers rely on search engines as their top tool for shopping research, so stay up-to-date on best practices for search engine optimization to give your brand the best possible chance at visibility. Develop rich content, optimize for mobile devices, maximize site speed and earn inbound links to improve your rankings.
Build loyalty : While it’s natural to devote attention to finding new customers during launch, you also need a plan for keeping the customers you already have. It’s less expensive to build a loyal following than to continually churn through one-time purchasers, and repeat customers tend to outspend new buyers . Consider creating a loyalty program that rewards buyers with perks and exclusive offers based on how much they spend.
Drive more sales with Wix eCommerce marketing .
An eCommerce business is a company that sells products or services online. With an online store, you can serve customers around the world, and buyers can browse and make purchases at any time of the day.
Ecommerce sales have increased faster than other retail businesses in recent years. In the third quarter of 2023, for example, the U.S. Department of Commerce reports that retail eCommerce sales grew 7.6% year over year to $1.8 billion, compared with 2.3% growth in the overall retail sector. In the past 10 years, eCom merce has grown from 6% to more than 15% of all retail sales, according to the Department of Commerce.
Given this growth, it’s no wonder that merchants of all types now view eCommerce as an essential part of their business. The number of eCommerce websites worldwide nearly tripled between 2019 and 2023 to 26.5 million.
It’s worth noting that while some eCommerce sellers operate exclusively online, others use their websites to enhance and complement offerings at physical store locations, manufacturing plants or offices. Business-to-consumer (B2C) eCommerce serves individual retail shoppers, while business-to-business (B2B) sellers offer products or services to other companies.
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The cost of starting an eCommerce business depends on many factors, from the type of products you sell to the features you need to power your online store. But when all is said and done, you could spend anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000 .
That range may seem high—in fact, you may wonder if you could drop a zero from the lower end of the scale. Dropshipping can eliminate upfront inventory and fulfillment costs, and platforms such as Wix offer inexpensive eCommerce site hosting plans and design services. But even with this minimalist approach, you still may need to factor in costs for things like marketing, technology and software, legal and administrative fees, and more.
No matter how much startup capital you have at your disposal, it's important to do your research and plan carefully before starting an eCommerce business. This will help you avoid costly mistakes and increase your chances of success. The potential costs to consider include:
Business formation and licensure : Setting up your business structure and governance, securing any required licenses and filing registration and tax paperwork can add up to several billable hours from legal and accounting professionals.
Ecommerce platform : The technology behind your eCommerce website is all-important and should support integrated shipping, payments and marketing from one unified dashboard. Depending on the platform, each module may be priced separately, or you may be charged a single annual fee for all-in-one service.
Products : The upfront cost of your products will vary depending on what you're selling online and which sourcing method you choose. If you hold inventory, add the overhead expense of storage or warehousing space.
Design, eCommerce photography and copywriting : As you set up your online store, you may wish to enlist professional help with the website design, product photos and written content. If you’re launching in more than one country, you may need to find translation services to ensure product copy is localized accurately.
Customer service : Responsive service is a must for building your brand’s reputation. Make a plan to personally handle incoming questions and requests or hire staff to ensure adequate coverage.
Logistics : If you want to handle order and ecommerce management yourself versus outsourcing to a dropshipper, you need to invest in packaging, staff to pick and pack orders, and contracts with freight carriers or third-party logistics providers to handle deliveries.
Marketing : Even if you don’t allocate budget to paid advertising, you’ll still need to invest hours into setting up social media accounts and optimizing your website for search engines.
U.S. eCommerce sales are expected to grow 10.5% year over year in 2024 , so there’s no time like the present to get started. Here are just a few reasons to start an eCommerce business this year:
The barriers to entry are (relatively) low : While launching an eCommerce business successfully does take some initial investment, it’s far less expensive to build a brand online. In the past, shopping technology was prohibitively expensive and required a professional IT staff to manage.
You can earn a profit (relatively) quickly : While you won’t generate millions overnight, the relatively low startup costs and efficiencies of scale you can access via dropshipping means that you may be operating in the black within a year to 18 months. While the size of your profits depend in large part on your category and your wholesale product costs, relevant, high-quality products and superior service can help justify the higher prices that lead to bigger margins.
You can access rapidly-growing global markets : As much as the U.S. represents a huge eCommerce market, other parts of the world are seeing even more exponential growth—and you can sell to these nascent markets without needing a physical presence or local staff. While China is dominant in terms of eCommerce market size and penetration, countries that are potentially more accessible, such as Canada, Mexico and the U.K., are all top global targets to consider .
You can run your business your way : As the world discovered during the COVID-19 pandemic, digital businesses can be managed remotely. You can route orders to dropshippers and respond to customer service queries on your own time, anywhere—a stark contrast with traditional retail, which tethers you to a store location and requires staff to serve customers during set hours.
The profitability of an ecommerce business is dependent on many factors, including the type of industry and niche you choose. When trying to determine how profitable this business type might be, or how long it might take to reach profitability with an ecommerce business you'll need to consider the following:
Different industries and niches have varying profit margins. For example, businesses selling high-value products or unique items with low competition, such as luxury or handmade goods, may have higher profit margins than those selling low-priced commodity items such as stationary for example.
The business model you choose, such as dropshipping, wholesale or manufacturing, directly impacts profitability. Dropshipping, for example, means lower overhead costs especially at the start but may mean lower profit margins. Manufacturing products requires more upfront investment but can also mean higher profit margins especially long term.
Keeping your operating costs low, including website fees, marketing expenses and shipping costs, is crucial for maximizing profitability with an ecommerce business.
Effective marketing and sales strategies that drive traffic and conversions are essential for generating revenue from your online store. This also means controlling your Customer acquisition cost (CAC) - the cost of acquiring new customers should be lower than the lifetime value of a customer to ensure profitability. At the same time, increasing your average order value by offering product bundles, upselling or cross-selling can boost the profitability of your business. This also means focusing on customer retention and building strong customer relationships for repeat customers.
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Table of contents
The idea of starting a business has always been tempting to aspiring business owners, and Covid-19 has fueled the eCommerce trend to the next level.
However, starting a new business can be tough, and maintaining one is much more challenging. It’s not surprising that around 20.4 percent of new businesses had to close after their first year in operation, considering all the risks, challenges, and financial burdens involved in running a business.
So how to avoid business failure after only a short period, even when you believe your business idea is so great and one-of-a-kind in the online market? The secret lies in a solid eCommerce business plan with a clear description and strategy from the start.
In this article, we will guide you through everything you need to know about eCommerce business plan and how you can create a perfect one for your exceptional business idea today.
eCommerce business plan is a document that contains every detail contributing to the business’s success.
There is no standard format for an eCommerce business plan, but it normally covers a predefined set of goals and how businesses can achieve these goals by describing in detail business products or services, financial situation, operation model, and many other factors.
Traditionally, an eCommerce business plan helps investors evaluate your future business and its feasibility when you want to get a loan or raise funds. However, even if starting your online business doesn’t involve funding, creating a comprehensive eCommerce business plan is still essential to lay down the ground and draw a clear direction for your business to follow.
Every business idea sounds brilliant at first glance, but many turn out to be a huge mistake or a huge debt once you make it into a real business.
No matter how you came up with your eCommerce idea, it’s essential that you thoroughly understand every aspect of it before jumping into the competition.
Drafting an eCommerce business plan is a perfect occasion to help you do that. While fulfilling and completing some documents might sound like a daunting task at first, researching and brainstorming can help you dig deeper into your business idea, plan for the future, and note down a list of what should be done step by step.
Once you are sure that your unique idea can turn into a profitable business, it’s time to gather the resources you need to run your business.
eCommerce business plan helps you identify your business’s financial situation and how you will allocate your human resources if you don’t want to run your business solo.
When making an eCommerce business plan, you have a great chance to do comprehensive research on the market, as well as other competitors selling the same product or sharing the same business niche. You can learn from their mistakes, advance your product or come up with some idea to compete with them once you are done with your business plan.
1. executive summary.
If you are seeking investors, the executive summary is the most important part of the document as it summarizes your whole business idea and plan. It is also the last section you should write once you have thoroughly reviewed every element of your business plan.
This part is often one page long, and it contains a high-level summary of your business, but don’t go into details yet. In this section, you might want to give an overview of your business idea, your plan and vision, and how this business is projected to develop soon. The executive summary should be concise enough for a casual reader to understand your business, and attractive enough for investors to keep reading your complete plan.
In order to write a promising executive summary, here are some common statements you should include along with some examples we have taken from Liquid Culture’s business plan to help you get a better idea of how to write this section:
Liquid Culture will offer creative women’s outdoor clothing, online, that is both functional and beautiful.
Liquid Culture’s mission is to present consumers with designs, styling, and clothes that energize any outdoor activity. Whether it be snowboarding, running along the beach, or drifting down a river, Liquid Culture has comfortable, durable clothing that will look and feel wonderful.
Women’s outdoor wear has grown into a billion-dollar niche in the clothing industry. The popularity of the Internet has launched a number of online stores for women’s outdoor wear but no women’s outdoor company we know of is exclusively selling their products online yet.
The key is amplified word of mouth via social media, with emphasis on content and opinion leaders related to outdoor fashion and women’s health and fitness sites .
Our projections here indicate we are generating unrealistically high cash balances. We leave that here for now, but with the certainty that actual results will emerge using a lot more expenses than what we project here.
Larry Wilson and Maggie Granger, co-owners of Liquid Culture, have fifteen years of experience between them in the outdoor garment industry. Maggie has been a senior clothing designer for Manic Woman Clothing for the past seven years. Larry has been the website administrator for South Face for the past eight years.
In case you are writing this eCommerce business plan for personal use only, you can skip this part since it’s all about summarizing what you have written.
A business description provides an introduction of your business and dives into the details of everything about your company. In this section, you need to clarify why your business exists, what your plan is for the future, and what you hope to achieve with your business. Some components you should include to do so are:
– Business structure :
A business structure refers to the legal structure that affects the day-to-day operations of a business. There are four main business structures that are most common with businesses today. It’s noted that you can change your business structure later as your business grows and expands, though this might require some additional administrative steps.
– Business model:
This is the company’s core framework for making a profit and delivering value to customers. Common eCommerce business model types are Business to consumers (B2C), Business to business (B2B), Consumer to consumer (C2C), and Consumer to business (C2B).
– Mission:
A mission statement defines your company’s purpose or answers the question of why your company exists. It contains one to two sentences and clearly emphasizes your passion and your inner motivation to start this business.
– Vision:
A vision statement helps your reader understand how you want your business to grow, scale, and evolve and how customers can travel with you on the road to success. Your vision statement can be longer than the mission statement, but try to keep it short and to the point.
Honest Tea seeks to create and promote great-tasting, healthy, organic beverages. We strive to grow our business with the same honesty and integrity we use to craft our recipes, with sustainability and great taste for all. HonestTea ’s vision
– Background information:
How did you come up with that spectacular idea, and how has your business changed, and grown with you since day 1? A short yet realistic business biography is a practical weapon to gain trust and evoke readers’ emotions.
– Business goal:
You should include a clear business goal in both short and long term, as well as how your business is projected to develop in the future. This section should include as many numbers, figures, and charts as possible. Try to establish goals that are S.M.A.R.T .: s pecific, m easurable, a ttainable, r ealistic, and t ime-bound.
– Team and key people:
If you plan to run your business solo, probably this part can be left out. In case your business involves other people, you should list out their position in your company, such as company owner, CEO, manager, etc.
When you are done writing your business description, you have gained a deeper understanding of your own business, especially some intangible facets like your business principles and cultures.
At this stage, you should be focused on analyzing the potential market. This is a key section of your plan as it helps you identify how big is your potential market, the estimated position of your business, and the competitiveness of this business segment as well. Market research helps you validate your eCommerce business idea and help you pick the right marketplace that can help your e-business not only survive but thrive as well.
In order to create sales, choosing the proper market can surely be something you should think about first. Even when you have an excellent product idea, it’s possible that you might struggle to get sales if your market is not yet appropriate. Therefore, market analysis with solid data from reliable sources, such as government statistics, industry reports, and official business sector projection reveal roughly how big and potential your market is. By carefully analyzing these numbers, it’s possible that you can get a general overview of how the industry will grow or decline over the next few years, and make some guesses on the trend if possible.
For example, suppose your product or service is related to the tourism industry. In that case, there is a huge possibility that it will expand and grow in the next few years when Covid-19 has been contained, and the cross-border travel and tourism are more flexible.
A SWOT analysis identifies the most important factor of your eCommerce business – S trengths, W eaknesses, O pportunities, and T hreats. This kind of analysis helps you quickly look at factors that can affect your business positively and negatively, as well as the opportunities your business can seize when facing industry challenges.
A SWOT analysis is often broken down into 4 boxes, and each box contains bullet points with the most relevant information, so don’t bother to write full sentences or paragraphs. While strengths and weaknesses are internal factors that come from within your eCommerce business, opportunities and threats rely more on external factors, such as market competitiveness or your competitors.
When you start your eCommerce business with a unique idea, it’s too easy to think that there will be no competitors on the market since no one has sold this item before. However, even when you enter the market without any direct competitors, keep in mind that there are many indirect ones – those that sell products that can substitute for your items. Therefore, never start a business without doing a thorough competitive analysis. This is essential in identifying the market’s leaders, determining their strategies and success, and what resources your business can utilize to take advantage of them.
Once you have identified all your competitors, list down some baseline for a deep competitive analysis:
You can use this Free competitive analysis template from BigCommerce to keep an organized list of your direct and indirect competitors while making this analysis.
This section can be excluded if you believe your product information in the executive summary is enough to help readers visualize your product in detail. However, if you plan to present your eCommerce business plan to find investors, it’s essential that you provide a separate section to describe your products or services in greater detail.
Language in this section should show confidence in your products and services because, after all, this is still the core of your eCommerce business idea. You can show off your expertise and experience in this field if you have some.
Analyze your customer groups to craft an ideal customer profile – the foundation of your marketing plan. Your ideal customer profile should be as specific and descriptive as possible, as many strategic decisions in your business operations will be made based on this profile. Building a customer profile, or buyer persona requires you to think carefully about some of the traits and details of potential customers so that you can divide them into demographic groups. Customer segmentation often includes:
You should gain as much information about your ideal customer as possible. Though this information range can vary greatly depending on your target market and products you sell, keep the number of buyer persona you create to a minimum because it takes time to craft each persona, and building a customized marketing strategy for each one can cost a huge amount of money. Along with customer general information, you can note down some specific aspects that can hugely influence their decisions to purchase your product or service, or factors that help you build your eCommerce marketing plan better, such as:
HubSpot provides us with a free tool to create a buyer persona that is super easy to use and visualize. You can even download a comprehensive buyer persona’s guide and template here to utilize and access anytime.
As you have on your hands a great product idea and a detailed picture of your potential customers, an effective marketing plan will be the catalyst to kick off your online business. Your marketing plan is built in close association with your customer analysis and outlines your current strategy, as well as your future plans to expand the market. This is one of the most critical parts of your eCommerce business plan.
If you find it hard to start as you have never run any marketing campaigns before, start with the basics.
With any good or service, there are always 4Ps – or the Marketing Mix by Neil Borden that can help you identify key factors of your online business marketing campaign:
After having a general idea of how your marketing plan will look like, you should dig deeper into each factor involved.
– Marketing channels : Which channels are you going to utilize to acquire, convert and retain customers? You should explain in detail how these channels are a great match for your plan. All marketing channels fall into two major categories, paid and organic marketing channels.
– Marketing tactics: Which strategy are you going to apply? This is essential to explain how these marketing strategies can go well with your marketing channels to generate massive leads for your business.
=>> Read more: eCommerce Marketing: Best Practices to Drive Sales
– Marketing technology: Be sure to account for the investment into software and skills you may need to make. Marketing technology can go from eCommerce systems, to social media tools, to for instance CRM with email marketing . Luckily, you can start small and there are tools for each growth stage.
– Marketing goals and KPIs: KPIs are quantifiable measurements that help evaluate the overall progress of a business. Establishing specific eCommerce KPIs for your marketing plan is essential to gauge the successes and shortcomings of your business over a period of time. Some key KPIs you should pay attention to are:
This section focuses on the supply chain – how you deliver products from suppliers/manufacturers to your customers and plans on how you can prepare for some uncertainty related to logistics issues. If this eCommerce plan is for your own planning purposes, you don’t have to illustrate details in every section as if you are seeking investments. But you need to make solid decisions of many factors, from supplier, warehouse to shipping that impact your day-to-day business workflow. It might seem easy to manage when your business is just starting with a few orders per day, but once you receive massive leads and sales, your operation process should run smoothly and make sure you have everything under control.
Your logistics and operations plan should cover the following:
We will calculate the cost later, but this section should be able to give you a solid foundation on your business operations, and which key factors will ultimately affect your budgets.
Here comes the last part and also the backbone of your eCommerce business plan. Your business survival depends greatly on its financial health. Planning your finances is essential to anticipate expenses and profit margins, as well as have a clear view of how to manage your cash flow. If you are in search of investors, this part should contain the highest degree of detail as at the end of the day, everyone wants to work with a business having a foreseeable future. Normally, your financial plan has to include four main sections:
This part illustrates your revenues and expenses over a specific period of time – a month, a quarter, or a year, which helps readers see your company’s bottom line (your profit or loss) during that period. If your online business is not yet launched, you can place a forecast of the same information.
A balance sheet helps you calculate the equity you have in this business. Your business assets (cash, stock, inventory, etc.) should be noted down one column. The other column is your liabilities (debts, accounts, and wages payable, current borrowing, share capital, etc.). If you subtract your liabilities from your assets, you will get your business’s shareholder equity.
Equity = Assets – Liabilities
A cash-flow statement is like your income statement but happens in real-time. It indicates exactly when your revenue and expenses go out and come in. Keep a record of your company’s cash flow to adjust the way you do business when you have more money going out than coming in.
If your online business has operated for a while, it might be appropriate to include a financial projection. This one is the same as the cash-flow statement, but instead of focusing on your business finance during a specific past time, financial projections help you expect how much money comes into and out of your business during a specific time period in the future. This is a reliable indicator of whether your business can afford to pay off a loan.
Making a financial plan can be painful and time-consuming, but it is a vital part of any eCommerce business plan. It decides how your business will thrive or go down in the future, so you should spend the most time on this task. You can refer to this financial plan example and template from Shopify when doing this task.
Even when you have learned by heart every section of an eCommerce business plan, creating your plan from scratch can be a daunting task. Therefore, we have collected for you the most easy-to-use yet still comprehensive templates to utilize. These templates offer step-by-step guidance in plain language to help you fulfill the whole template even when you haven’t learned anything about business before. Each template might contain different parts, but the core content is the same. You can either edit them on Google Docs or download a copy on Microsoft Word to edit offline.
It’s possible to get lost when planning your eCommerce business, so you should stick with some plan examples and use them as references. Below are some of the best plan examples that we have collected for you from Bplans . Though all companies in these sample plans are made up, they still give you some ideas on how a real eCommerce business plan looks like:
Making an eCommerce business plan is the very first step before you start working on your business, so you should try to make it as good as you can. There are some mistakes you should avoid when making your plan:
Creating your own eCommerce business plan might require hours of brainstorming and research, but it gives you a comprehensive understanding of your own business and the market. Also, it helps identify clear steps on how to start your business and sets out a solid foundation for success. We hope that this article can help you and other aspiring business owners start working on the ideal plan for your dream eCommerce business today.
A business plan often ranges from 15 to 50 pages depending on your business situation and personal purposes. For instance, your plan can be around 15 pages if you write it for your own usage, while it can range up to 50 pages if you are trying to find an angel investor. Though there is no requirement for business plan length, it’s advisable that you keep it concise and focus on the most pivotal aspects.
A good business plan should be able to go through all sections that we have mentioned in this blog with an easy-to-understand language. It should be filled with as many numbers and charts as possible, rather than assumptions and hypotheses only.
A business plan is beneficial for everyone who is running or going to run a business. No matter if you are a start-up, or you have been running your business for a period of time, an eCommerce plan can give you an overview of your own business and discover aspects that need improvement.
An eCommerce business plan shares the same structure as a business plan for other company types. However, the online business strategy and plan might differ greatly from a brick-and-mortar store. For instance, a traditional retail store has to take care of a physical store, while an eCommerce business focuses on its digital storefront – the website.
Yes. As we have mentioned quite a lot during our article, you still need to write an eCommerce business plan even if it’s for personal purposes only.
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Need support creating your business plan? Check out these business plan examples for inspiration and guidance.
Any aspiring entrepreneur researching how to start a business will likely be advised to write a business plan. But few resources provide business plan examples to really guide you through writing one of your own.
Here are some real-world and illustrative business plan examples to help you craft your business plan .
The business plan examples in this article follow this template:
Your executive summary is a page that gives a high-level overview of the rest of your business plan. While it appears at the beginning, it’s easiest to write this section last, as there are details further in the report you’ll need to include here.
In this free business plan template , the executive summary is four paragraphs and takes a little over half a page. It clearly and efficiently communicates what the business does and what it plans to do, including its business model and target customers.
You might repurpose your company description elsewhere, like on your About page , social media profile pages, or other properties that require a boilerplate description of your small business.
Soap brand ORRIS has a blurb on its About page that could easily be repurposed for the company description section of its business plan.
You can also go more in-depth with your company overview and include the following sections, like in this business plan example for Paw Print Post:
This section outlines how you registered your business —as an LLC , sole proprietorship, corporation, or other business type : “Paw Print Post will operate as a sole proprietorship run by the owner, Jane Matthews.”
“Paw Print Post sells unique, one-of-a-kind digitally printed cards that are customized with a pet’s unique paw prints.”
“Paw Print Post operates primarily in the pet industry and sells goods that could also be categorized as part of the greeting card industry.”
“Jane Matthews, the founder of Paw Print Post, has a long history in the pet industry and working with animals, and was recently trained as a graphic designer. She’s combining those two loves to capture a niche in the market: unique greeting cards customized with a pet’s paw prints, without needing to resort to the traditional (and messy) options of casting your pet’s prints in plaster or using pet-safe ink to have them stamp their ’signature.’”
“Jane will have Paw Print Post ready to launch at the Big Important Pet Expo in Toronto to get the word out among industry players and consumers alike. After two years in business, Jane aims to drive $150,000 in annual revenue from the sale of Paw Print Post’s signature greeting cards and to have expanded into two new product categories.”
“Jane Matthews is the sole full-time employee of Paw Print Post but hires contractors as needed to support her workflow and fill gaps in her skill set. Notably, Paw Print Post has a standing contract for five hours a week of virtual assistant support with Virtual Assistants Pro.”
Your mission statement may also make an appearance here. Passionfruit shares its mission statement on its company website, and it would also work well in its example business plan.
The market analysis consists of research about supply and demand , your target demographics, industry trends, and the competitive landscape. You might run a SWOT analysis and include that in your business plan.
Here’s an example SWOT analysis for an online tailored-shirt business:
You’ll also want to do a competitive analysis as part of the market research component of your business plan. This will tell you which businesses you’re up against and give you ideas on how to differentiate your brand. A broad competitive analysis might include:
This section of your business plan describes your offerings—which products and services do you sell to your customers? Here’s an example for Paw Print Post that explains its line of custom greeting cards, along with details on what makes its products unique.
It’s always a good idea to develop a marketing plan before you launch your business. Your marketing plan shows how you’ll get the word out about your business, and it’s an essential component of your business plan as well.
The Paw Print Post focuses on four Ps: price, product, promotion, and place. However, you can take a different approach with your marketing plan. Maybe you can pull from your existing marketing strategy , or maybe you break it down by the different marketing channels. Whatever approach you take, your marketing plan should describe how you intend to promote your business and offerings to potential customers.
The Paw Print Post example considered suppliers, production, facilities, equipment, shipping and fulfillment, and inventory. This includes any raw materials needed to produce the products.
The financial plan provides a breakdown of sales, revenue, profit, expenses, and other relevant financial metrics related to funding and profiting from your business.
Ecommerce brand Nature’s Candy’s financial plan breaks down predicted revenue, expenses, and net profit in graphs.
It then dives deeper into the financials to include:
You can use a financial plan spreadsheet to build your own financial statements, including income statement, balance sheet, and cash-flow statement.
Customer segmentation means dividing your target market into groups based on specific characteristics. These characteristics can be demographics, psychographics, behavior, or geography. Your business plan will provide detailed information on each segment, like its size and growth potential, so you can show why they are valuable to your business.
Airsign , an eco-friendly vacuum cleaner company, faced the challenge of building a sustainable business model in the competitive home appliance market. They identified three key customer personas to target:
The company utilized Shopify’s customer segmentation tools to gain insights and take action to target them. Airsign created targeted segments for specific marketing initiatives.
Put your customer data to work with Shopify’s customer segmentation
Shopify’s built-in segmentation tools help you discover insights about your customers, build segments as targeted as your marketing plans with filters based on your customers’ demographic and behavioral data, and drive sales with timely and personalized emails.
The appendix provides in-depth data, research, or documentation that supports the claims and projections made in the main business plan. It includes things like market research, finance, résumés, product specs, and legal documents.
Readers can access detailed info in the appendix, but the main plan stays focused and easy to read. Here’s an example from a fictional clothing brand called Bloom:
Appendix: Bloom Business Plan
This lean business plan is meant to be high level and easy to understand at a glance. You’ll want to include all of the same sections in one-page business plan, but make sure they’re truncated and summarized:
A startup business plan is for a new business. Typically, these plans are developed and shared to secure funding . As such, there’s a bigger focus on the financials, as well as on other sections that determine viability of your business idea—market research, for example:
Your internal business plan is meant to keep your team on the same page and aligned toward the same goal:
A strategic, or growth, business plan is a big-picture, long-term look at your business. As such, the forecasts tend to look further into the future, and growth and revenue goals may be higher. Essentially, you want to use all the sections you would in a normal business plan and build upon each:
Your feasibility business plan is sort of a pre-business plan—many refer to it as simply a feasibility study. This plan essentially lays the groundwork and validates that it’s worth the effort to make a full business plan for your idea. As such, it’s mostly centered around research:
Nonprofit business plans are used to attract donors, grants, and partnerships. They focus on what their mission is, how they measure success, and how they get funded. You’ll want to include the following sections in addition to a traditional business plan:
Building a good business plan serves as a roadmap you can use for your ecommerce business at launch and as you reach each of your business goals. Business plans create accountability for entrepreneurs and synergy among teams, regardless of your business model .
Kickstart your ecommerce business and set yourself up for success with an intentional business planning process—and with the sample business plans above to guide your own path.
How do i write a simple business plan.
To write a simple business plan, begin with an executive summary that outlines your business and your plans. Follow this with sections detailing your company description, market analysis, organization and management structure, product or service, marketing and sales strategy, and financial projections. Each section should be concise and clearly illustrate your strategies and goals.
The best business plan format presents your plan in a clear, organized manner, making it easier for potential investors to understand your business model and goals. Always begin with the executive summary and end with financial information or appendices for any additional data.
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If you want to create an online presence, a website is essential. But hiring a professional web developer is out of reach for many small business budgets. That‘s where free website builders come to the rescue.
These DIY website creation platforms allow anyone to build a site with no coding required. Thanks to intuitive drag-and-drop editors and pre-made templates, you don‘t need design experience to craft a custom online space tailored to your needs.
I tested over a dozen top-rated free website builders hands-on, evaluating them across several key criteria:
Based on my extensive testing, I recommend the 10 best free website builders below for all skill levels and use cases.
1. Google Sites – Best for basic websites like blogs and portfolios
2. Weebly – Best for simple, straightforward sites
3. GetResponse – Best for email-focused businesses
4. Wix – Best all-purpose website builder
5. Dorik – Best for semi-experienced creators wanting design freedom
6. HubSpot CMS – Best for growing small businesses
7. Webflow – Best for experienced designers
8. Site123 – Best for ecommerce sites
9. Strikingly – Best for one-page sites
10. Jimdo – Best for portfolios and online stores
Now let‘s explore the top recommendations in more detail.
With Google Sites, the tech giant enters the free website builder ring. As you‘d expect from Google, the editor feels instantly familiar. The workflow resembles Google Docs: build your pages in the browser, then access and share your site right from Google Drive.
Key Features:
If you want an ultra-simple site and already live in Google‘s ecosystem, their official website builder is tough to beat—especially given the free price tag. But expect minimal customization capabilities.
Used by over 50 million people worldwide, Weebly is a popular choice for free website building. It shines when it comes to ease of use thanks to an intuitive drag-and-drop editor.
For straightforward sites like online portfolios, Weebly empowers beginners to build a polished online presence with minimal effort. While more advanced users may crave more customization capabilities, it nails the basics.
GetResponse may seem like an odd inclusion given it‘s primarily an email marketing platform. But its free website builder stands toe-to-toe with many dedicated site creation tools.
For solopreneurs and small teams who rely on email, GetResponse allows you to gather contacts and promote your newsletter straight from your site—all without paying a dime.
Boasting over 200 million users, Wix remains the standard-bearer for free website builders. It earns such popularity by packing an incredible amount of capability into its free tier.
Whether you‘re showcasing travel photography or launching a small business online, Wix empowers you to realize your web design ambitions without spending a dime. Novices may face a few hurdles scaling the learning curve, but the payoff is immense creative control.
Dorik differentiates itself from other DIY website builders through AI assistance. As you customize design aspects like color schemes, it suggests complementary changes to match your vision.
Dorik strikes an ideal balance between customization and ease of use. While not packing as many complex capabilities as some builders, its AI assistant empowers users of any skill level to craft beautiful, on-brand sites.
Well-known for its inbound marketing platform, HubSpot also offers a free CMS for building sites. And the quality flies in the face of “you get what you pay for.”
If you’ve maxed out the basics of website builders like Wix, HubSpot CMS empowers the next stage of growth with powerful marketing tools baked in.
While not the most beginner-friendly tool, Webflow offers pro-caliber site building capabilities—and brand-new users can join for free.
Webflow delivers almost unprecedented creative control, helping expert users craft complex, interactive sites for free. But expect to invest serious effort mastering its vast toolset.
Site123 differentiates itself by specializing in ecommerce sites for small businesses plus packing expansive customization into its free plan.
For fledgling online retail endeavors, Site123 helps you get the basics of ecommerce websites and marketing in place without spending a cent.
Strikingly adopts a boldly minimalist approach. As its name suggests, the Strikingly editor lets you publish stylish one-page sites in minutes.
Sometimes less truly is more. For compact, focused sites promoting your work, passion projects, or personal brand, Strikingly is my top recommendation thanks to its purpose-built simplicity.
Last up is Jimdo, which stands out for blending ease of use with powerful ecommerce capabilities…even for free members.
Jimdo strikes an admirable balance: offering beginners a streamlined editing experience while packing in advanced functionality like online selling—capabilities typically reserved for premium site building platforms.
All the user-friendly website creation platforms above allow you to make a custom, mobile-friendly site for free. Each takes a slightly different approach, but nails the basics of fuss-free DIY web design.
I aimed to showcase a diversity of options fit for complete beginners and expert users alike. The builders toward the top boast the greatest ease of use, while the bottom pack more complex but powerful features.
Review the list to decide which platform best aligns with your skill level and site needs. Fortunately, committing to a specific free website builder doesn‘t lock you in forever. If you outgrow your initial choice, you can easily export your content to transfer to another option later.
Here‘s wishing you the best of luck bringing your web presence vision to life. Let me know in the comments if you have any favorite free website builder discoveries of your own!
Meesho has distinguished itself from its peers by becoming a prominent choice among the younger generation, with one in every three users under the age of 25..
Meesho, Mohit Rajani (Image: Meesho)
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First Published: Sep 02 2024 | 1:36 PM IST
COMMENTS
How you establish loyalty beyond sales. After you figure out your technology methods, you have to come up with a technology budget. The business plan must also include the operations side of things. Determine who will be your manufacturer, secondary manufacturer, and shipping and fulfillment provider.
Strategize your marketing plan. Create a sales plan. Outline legal notes and financial considerations. 1. Give an executive summary. An executive summary is a one-to-two-page overview of your business. The purpose of an executive summary is to let stakeholders know what the business plan will contain.
Create brief descriptions of the fulfillment, shipping, and payment collections processes. Now for some nitty-gritty stuff. Your operational plan may feel like the "boring" part of your business plan, but it's important - and it'll give your creative brain a break for a little while. 4. Market Analysis.
Writing an eCommerce business plan is one of the first steps you should take if you're thinking about starting an online business. Whether you're opening an online-only shop or adding an eCommerce component to your brick and mortar store for an omnichannel retail experience, there's never been a better time to sell online.. The numbers don't lie: since 2014, the number of digital ...
Click and Cart Revolution: Ecommerce is massively expanding, now a $6.31 trillion market, expected to rise above $8 trillion by 2026. Online sales are booming, making now a ripe time for starting an ecommerce venture. Blueprint for Success: An ecommerce business plan is essential, serving as a detailed roadmap for starting, running, and growing an online store.
Executive Summary. Every business plan needs an executive summary. Usually, you write the summary last, after you've fleshed out all the details of your plan. The executive summary isn't a repeat of the full plan—it's really just a brief outline that should be 1-2 pages at the most. When you're getting introductions to investors, you ...
Add brief details of your ecommerce business, target market, problem, solution, service model, business goals, and financial figures in this section. Adapt a narrative tone to make it interesting and keep it highly informative. And, most importantly keep it within a limit of 1-2 pages. Say goodbye to boring templates.
Whether you're seeking investment or planning your e-commerce marketing strategy, it's vital you get all this information down in one place. Make sure to include your: Company name. Industry. Business structure (e.g. sole proprietor, partnership, LLC) Vision, mission statement, and value proposition.
Analyzing the market for an ecommerce product is a vital step in any business plan. It gives you a better understanding of your potential customers, competitors, and overall market dynamics. Here's a step-by-step guide to help you do this effectively: Identify Your Target Audience: Understanding who will buy your product is crucial.
This e-commerce business plan template is tailored specifically to e-commerce businesses, and all you need to do is add the details of your company. Business Overview. If the business has legally been in existence for a little while, add some context for what's been accomplished since the business was founded and where it's at now e.g ...
2. Target customer segment definition. 3. Evaluation of your competition and your company's competitive advantage. 4. Pricing and sales distribution strategies. This step is crucial in the early stages of your ecommerce business plan templates, so allow plenty of time for thorough research.
How to develop an ecommerce business plan. Your business plan should include the following: An executive summary describing your business model. A business overview describing your mission and purpose. A market analysis describing your competitors and industry. A deep description of your products and services.
The gladdening part about Google Ads is that it allows you to set your own budget. This tool creates visibility for your business. Customers who search for related keywords get to see what your online store has to offer. For as low as $150 per month, this solution allows you to reach out to relevant customers.
An eCommerce business plan is an essential document to have in your e-commerce business. It helps you to know the direction of your business and how it can be improved. An eCommerce business plan template can help you write the contents of your plan correctly. Here is how you can go about it-.
An e-commerce business plan is a strategy for how your business will work, how you'll fund it, who your audience will be, and how you plan to succeed. Understanding how to create a business plan is key. It requires research, understanding your audience, budgeting, and more. The overall key to writing a business plan is to create something ...
One of the first steps when building a business plan for your ecommerce start-up is understanding your market. You'll start by looking at market trends. This can look like researching the overall growth of ecommerce sales to see where the market is heading. For example, global ecommerce sales are projected to hit a whopping $6.33 trillion in ...
Start an ecommerce business in 5 steps. Find product opportunities and choose what to sell. Thoroughly research your competition and write a business plan. Choose a logo and name and set up your online store. Choose your shipping strategy and set sales and marketing goals. Launch your business.
Here are the steps to follow to get started with your own eCommerce business: Identify your online business niche. Do market research. Select the right product mix. Secure product sources. Write a strong business plan. Set your business name and legal structure. Choose an eCommerce platform. Create your online store.
5. Customer analysis. Analyze your customer groups to craft an ideal customer profile - the foundation of your marketing plan. Your ideal customer profile should be as specific and descriptive as possible, as many strategic decisions in your business operations will be made based on this profile.
A business plan is a strategic document that outlines a company's goals, strategies for achieving them, and the time frame for their achievement. It covers aspects like market analysis, financial projections, and organizational structure. Ultimately, a business plan serves as a roadmap for business growth and a tool to secure funding.
5. Marketing plan. It's always a good idea to develop a marketing plan before you launch your business. Your marketing plan shows how you'll get the word out about your business, and it's an essential component of your business plan as well. The Paw Print Post focuses on four Ps: price, product, promotion, and place.
2. Create your online store name and logo. If you're transitioning to an online store, this step is a fairly simple one. If, however, you're starting an ecommerce store from scratch, take the time to think of your business name, along with the logo that will accompany it.
The best plan for ecommerce websites (smaller online stores and sites with online booking etc.). Business: $36. Get professional ecommerce features and more storage (100GB). Business Elite: $159. Priority support for store owners and the full array of ecommerce features. Enterprise: starting at $500/month.
Online shopping has become a cornerstone of the 21st-century experience in multiple countries, and it's hard to think of life without it. Considering that eCommerce revenue is expected to surpass $6 billion by 2029, it's unsurprising that even more entrepreneurs and businesses are looking for opportunities in this space.. Besides the potential income, eCommerce stores are often much ...
Generous free plan; Cons. Interface has a learning curve for beginners; Whether you're showcasing travel photography or launching a small business online, Wix empowers you to realize your web design ambitions without spending a dime. Novices may face a few hurdles scaling the learning curve, but the payoff is immense creative control. 5. Dorik
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Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Monday announced the launch of the revolutionary online building plan approval process for construction of buildings in sites up to 4000 square feet in city civic body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits.
A Labour MP has suggested she could not vote with the Government on proposals to end universal winter fuel payments. Rachael Maskell, the York Central MP, appeared to signal she was willing to ...
It offers a consulting-led, cognitive powered, integrated portfolio of business, technology and engineering services and solutions. The IT major's consolidated net profit declined 3.17% to Rs 12,040 crore in Q1 FY25 as against Rs 12,434 crore reported in Q4 FY24.
The e-commerce player has distinguished itself from its peers by becoming a prominent choice among the younger generation. Last week, a report revealed that the Softbank-backed e-commerce company has 33 per cent of its user base under the age of 25. ... ICC T20 World Cup 2024 Business Standard at 50 Paralympics 2024 Jammu Kashmir Elections 2024 ...