Do this when you want to go eCommerce with your business

So, you have finally decided to go eCommerce with your business. Congratulations, for this brilliant decision of yours. The journey to build a successful eCommerce business starts with this step.

Before you finalize the budget for your Website, please note that Digital Dukaan is equal to Website + Digital Marketing. Often businesses have a tendency to forget or ignore the budget to be spent in Digital Marketing while considering the budgets for their website.

It is like constructing a physical showroom and then not doing any kind of marketing to invite people to come, visit and shop.

You may read a lot of content here and there online on how to build a website. It will surely result in a lot of confusion. If you have already faced the above confusion, send me up a “Hello” on my LinkedIn account.

If you have just begun going digital, then kindly please start small and then grow eventually.

“You can get a fully functional website with eCommerce + an online payment gateway at a budget of ₹1,00,000 to ₹1,50,000*”

*The above amount does not include the cost for: Photos/Videos, Special Graphics and Text

Generally, a website developer focuses only on the technical part. Read their quotation properly before finalizing the order. It will mention that photos/videos/text will be in the client’s scope. It is obvious, a website developer is your Civil Contractor. He will work in ensuring the best structure for your website. You will need a creative agency for the Text & Graphics part and a photographer or a studio for the photos & videos part.

If you want a recommendation for a website developer then ping me up on my LinkedIn account.

There are agencies who have all the above services under one roof. They are also known as Brand Consultants or a Digital Marketing Consultant. They may have some or major of the above services in-house with some of the services being sub-contracted. It is on you to choose the right consultant who will be the Architect of your Digital Dukaan. It will make your life easy and help you to avoid “analysis paralysis”.

In order to analyse the budget for the investment into digital marketing, you can refer our pricing and plans. To know the cost of photography per product, please have a word with your preferred studio partner or a freelance photographer.

We will like to share the example of one of our clients – Utkarsh Agro for the same. The links to the pages are for a reference purpose only. You will have to do the customization as per your business needs.

Generally, any eCommerce website should at least have the below mentioned pages:

1. Home – https://utkarshagro.com/

2. About Us – https://utkarshagro.com/about-us/

3. Shop – https://utkarshagro.com/shop/

4. Blog – https://utkarshagro.com/blogs/

5. Contact Us – https://utkarshagro.com/contact/

6. My Account (Sign In / Sign Up) – https://utkarshagro.com/my-account/

7. Privacy Policy – https://utkarshagro.com/privacy-policy/

8. Terms & Conditions – https://utkarshagro.com/terms-conditions/

9. Refund & Cancellation Policy – https://utkarshagro.com/cancellation-refund-policy/

10. Gallery/Testimonials/Success Stories – https://utkarshagro.com/testimonials/

Apart from the above pages, there needs to be a clear cut mention of Contact Details on all the pages of the website. You can add the Social Icons as well along with the same.

The entire exercise of the things which will appear on the website involves working around the below mentioned pointers:

• Keywords

• Photos & Videos

• Graphics

• Text & Blogs

• Testimonials

• Sales Automation – CRM

• Contact Details/Social Icons

• Call to Action

The above pointers will need a completely separate space for discussion. You can read this blog of ours called, “DO IT YOURSELF” Digital Marketing to get an idea about the same.

You need to work on the below pointers in order to get your website fully functional:

• Payment Gateway: There are various options to choose from. Remember on an average 2% + 18% GST of each of your transactions is the charge you will have to pay to the Payment Gateway provider. Kindly plan your pricing accordingly. Some of the recommended payment gateways for national (within India) transactions are PayTM, PayU or RazorPay.

• Inventory Management: Imagine a day, when you are getting orders from various platforms and you realize that you are out of stock to fulfill the orders. This will create a very bad impression in front of the customers as well as the marketplace. You may even get unlisted for poor inventory management.

At the same time, you may be over stocked in order to be cautious by having unused inventory for a longer period. There are various other losses in this case if you are into a business of products which has lower shelf life. You will need a tool which can centrally manage the inventory listed across various platforms. This is very important when you have multiple sales points. Eg.: your own website, Amazon, Flipkart, eBay etc.

• Logistics & Delivery: Once you receive an order, you will have to ship it to the customer’s address. A right logistics partner is very crucial for the success of your eCommerce business. This is very important when you are planning your own eCommerce store. The online marketplaces like that of Flipkart or Amazon will have the shipping part taken care off. There are various models of associating with a marketplace for a seller. For an example “Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA)” We will discuss about this in detail in a separate blog. Some of the recommended shipping partners are: Delhivery, FedEx, BlueDart, and so on. There are various aggregators as well in this line of business like Shiprocket, iThink Logistics and so on. It is recommended that you should negotiate with them and create an account while your eCommerce store is getting ready to avoid any kind of delays. This will help you in your pricing strategy.

Once you are ready with a fully functional online store which can showcase your products with photos, videos, text for description, a payment gateway to receive online payments, a delivery partner and an inventory management tool you will have to plan the promotion of your website.

Following are the ways of marketing online for your website:

• Search Engine Marketing (Google Ads)

• Social Media Marketing (Facebook Advertising, Instagram Ads, and so on)

• Social Media Optimization (SMO)

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You may have an objective of Lead Generation or Website Clicks for your campaigns. This depends on the kind of business you are in.

Read this blog on “All about What, How, Who, Why of Digital Dukaan!” to know more about this part of the game.

Let me know in the comments, if you have any suggestion or feedback on any of the above pointers.

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