The internet has created a huge opportunity by allowing entrepreneurs and companies the ability to reach customers wherever they may be, and that connectivity has never been more important. There are a lot of ways to leverage the financial power of the internet from arbitrage to drop-shipping, coaching to crafting, it all begins with an e-commerce website. Here’s what you need to know about how eCommerce websites make money.
Let’s Discuss Your eCommerce Goals
What is E-Commerce
E-commerce websites are a great way for businesses to adapt to changing demographics and circumstances. Websites can reach a larger number of people than a physical store both because of the ease of access (no traffic jams or train stops!) as well as the fact that they are able to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week without additional cost. Some owners are able to automate all aspects of the sale and delivery process, allowing them to sit back and collect passive income.
E-commerce refers to businesses that conduct sales transactions online. Sometimes these businesses are entirely online, like Ebay, and have no physical stores. Others are the digital counterpart to a physical location, like Target or Wal-Mart. These sites can be complex or very simple with few pages based on the business scope and scale. Regardless of size, every e-commerce website has three things: a product or service offering for sale, a cart system to hold the selected for-sale item, and a system to process a payment.
Starting an eCommerce Website?
If you’re starting an e-commerce business from scratch, selecting a product or service offering is the first step. You can choose physical products like smartphone accessories or beard oils, offer a service like yoga classes or dog walking, or choose to offer a combination both. Established businesses can elect to offer all their products and services online or choose to sell a select few depending on what makes the most sense for them.
The next step is creating a website capable of selling your product or service. A well-designed site will make it easy for visitors to understand and buy items while also capturing the emails of users who did not purchase so you are able to follow up with them in the future. E-commerce website creators like Shopify or Squarespace are great choices for those just starting out in the business because they’ve got a wide variety of easy-to-use and beautiful templates at a very low cost.
However, it can be very difficult or impossible to make certain needed customizations on your site and your business grow and evolve.
WooCommerce is the WordPress answer to this issue. WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress sites that can easily turn any WordPress website into an e-commerce website. WordPress sites are not only simple for beginners to us, but offer the ability to easily customize all aspects of a website.
Start Website, Add Products, …, Profit
Once your site is built, it’s time to tell the world. Social media is a great way to direct customers to your new e-commerce site, but it’s also important to make sure your site is search engine optimized.
This will help your site to rank well on search engines like Google, helping you to attract more customers and take full advantage of the many benefits of having an e-commerce website.
