How to build, launch, and grow a profitable online store

Moving towards an online store will not only expand your business but also doubles the profit of your store.

Building a successful online store isn’t easy. One of the biggest tasks for any new ecommerce entrepreneurs is to identify the product and how to sell it online. To make your store successful, you need to do your homework and learn about your niche and industry. Let’s see how to build, launch and grow a profitable online store.

1. Choosing a product 

This is the 1st step yet the most challenging step to build an ecommerce business. Knowing what products you want to sell online, wholesale, or direct-to-consumer is important. You can use to find product opportunities, explore the best places to look for product ideas, and finally, look at trending products to consider.

When you are sourcing for items to stock in your online store, one of the best ways to determine what will sell and what won’t is to look at the bestselling items within your niche. You should start by looking at the most popular and taking note. This gives you an overall idea of what sells well on online stores and the general type of content you should be going for.

You should work on carving your own unique sub-niche within your own field. One way to do this is to look at the less popular items. These items should have fewer people stocking them and so when a search is made for the item, your store is more likely to stand out and not get buried. Your goal should be to establish your own self within a niche while giving buyers something unique.

2. Research and prepare

Before you take the first step to build your online store, you need to create a bulletproof strategy that will guarantee your success. Most people who start online stores jump ahead and skip this step. They throw time and money into the exciting part of building the store but ignore the strategy behind it.

As a result, they find themselves months later with zero customers, a garage full of dead inventory, and a website ghost town. But you’re not going to be like most people. Because we’re going to start off the right way: by developing a strategy for success.

Study your competition

You’ll need to thoroughly research your competition so you know what you’re up against and how you can differentiate your business from theirs. Identifying your competitors will help a tremendous deal when making your decision. See what they are doing and maybe do the opposite.

You’ll want to understand which competitors rank the maximum in Google for keywords specific to your industry. Make a list of the top keywords that bring you traffic, and enter them into Google and see where you stack up.

Do you see any difference between their store and yours? How is your pricing different from their pricing? What is the quality of their marketing photography? How are their products identified?

Take notice of their shipping options and pricing? What are they offering their customers? Is it simple or could you simplify a process for your customers Where is their call to actions? Is their call to action leading to a sales funnel and if so how? What social media platforms are they using? Are they interacting with customers and is it in a timely manner?

Use all the tactics you used on your competition and be as critical as possible. It’s also important to bring an unbiased set of eyes in to give their opinion.

Write a business plan

Before you can start selling, you need to have a deep understanding of how you’re planning on building and growing your store. A business plan is a roadmap that helps bring your ideas and thoughts together. It is vital in determining what to prioritize and how to effectively reach new customers.

3. Setting up your ecommerce store for success

Aside from figuring out what to sell, another challenging decision is determining your business or brand name and deciding on a domain name. Once you’ve selected a memorable name and registered a corresponding domain, it’s time to craft a simple logo.

You’re almost ready to begin building your ecommerce business. However, before you jump into it, you should understand the basics of search engine optimization so you can properly structure your site and pages for Google and other search engines.

A large part of the success of your store is actually behind the scenes. The code and design visible to search engines can make or break your store, and it’s best to get those details right from the beginning.

You also need to understand the processes that make your store work. The unexpected will always happen, and you need to be able to identify the problem quickly. With a better understanding of search engines, it’s time to build out your store. There are many crucial elements to consider. With a better understanding of search engines, it’s time to build out your store. There are many crucial elements to consider.

4. Preparing to launch

As you prepare for the launch of your new business, there are several shipping and fulfillment elements you need to prepare for. It’s also a good idea to define your key performance indicators up front so, once you launch, you know what measures of success to track.

5. Post launch

Now that you’ve launched, the hard work of marketing your products begins. While many new store owners should consider selling their physical products in person, the rest of digital marketing rests on doing one thing well: driving targeted traffic. 

You’re well on your way and now likely have a few sales. It’s time to get serious and focused. Although social media marketing is a powerful force and allows you to get in front of your target audience you are at their mercy. Facebook’s algorithms change all the time.

Moreover, Email marketing is a way for you to obtain and keep your audience. Your email marketing will not have rhythms and various other factors to interfere with your agenda. For best results, choose an email solution that integrates with your eCommerce platform.

Begin to build your email list by using social media to drive traffic to your website and make sure you have a call to action on your website about joining your list. Most social media allow for a call to action button as well. Now that your list is building you are going to want to ensure people open and read your emails. Therefore, use advanced personalization to stand out in the crowd.

Using advanced personalization requires you to know as much about your lead prospects as possible. If you are targeting individuals, you meet at an event then create a separate list for them. Your first email could talk about how nice it was to meet them.

Measure your business performance

Once you’ve built your store to this point, the final step is growth. It’s no secret that the most successful businesses only thrive because they continue to grow. In order to succeed with your eCommerce venture, you need to continue to build your customer base and increase sales. We’ll cover how to measure your success, and what areas to focus on as you look to expand your sales.

Finally, we’ll cover a ninja-level method for growing your business organically without spending money on advertising–building relationships with other influencers in your industry’s niche

How to measure your business performance

Now, your store is all up and running, and your marketing energies are bringing circulation and sales. Let’s view your eCommerce data to gauge outcomes and performance.

Google Analytics typically, will let you get the data you need by looking at your platform’s reports. Take notice of the following and record these so you have a starting point and can see over time how your business is growing or if you are losing profits and performance.

How is your site traffic? A number of visitors you are getting per day, week, or month? How do customers find your site through search, social media and which one, any third-party sites? Take notice of where they are located because you may be surprised.

How to start an online store that guarantees profits

If you’re looking to get into the ecommerce game, you need to understand how things work from the beginning. Even if you don’t have experience in working with an online store, you can get off to a great start by implementing the right techniques.

First and foremost, you need to build a model of your business that ensures your success from the beginning. Craft a plan that includes your interests and matches your products to a defined market. Next, you need to find the exact products you’d like to sell. Decide on a set of items that you can handle stress-free. Ensure the price of these products includes a comfortable profit margin, including shipping costs.

The technical side of your store is less important today than it was years ago, thanks to templates that plugins that can make building an eCommerce site a cinch. But to be truly successful, you need to understand the workings behind your site. You’ll stand above the competition once you learn the basics of eCommerce site management.

Next, you’ll need to start marketing your store. Create a way to acquire email addresses through your store, and use that medium to prevent abandoned carts and encourage sales. You can also use other methods to tell others about the store you’ve created. This is the best way to build traffic to your site and grow your customer base.

Finally, measure your progress. Continue to make improvements as you move toward building a successful store. Even small tweaks to your layout and format can pay huge dividends in products sold. With the roadmap to a successful online store laid out, you can get started immediately. Create a plan, and go build the eCommerce site you’ve been dreaming about.