When beginning any type of business there are foundations that are necessary for the longevity of any company. While building an e-commerce business involves much less than any traditional retail store, the foundations upon which you build your brand and ultimately your entire company begin with who you are as a person. Defining what you value as a person will allow you to lead your business in a natural direction, and also provide the motivation for doing so. When there is passion involved, then the drive and desire to succeed becomes much greater- if you don’t have a passion for what you’re doing, then you’ll never see long-term success.
Once a true passion is defined then all there is to do is build a stellar e-commerce business. The key foundations are pretty simple- a consumer driven product/service, an easily navigated website, high quality photos and illustrations, and thoughtful details describing whatever product and service you are selling. With some social media and now accessible platforms like Shopify your business could be up and running in literally a weekend.
The most important part to tackling any of these tasks is to fully define your product as well as customer profile. There are infinite products and services in which you can delve into, but ultimately what do you see your consumers wanting or needing? This could be a self-created product, or simply a product that is purchased wholesale and flipped for profit. However, with a lack of passion for your product comes a lack of success in the long-run. Customers can see right through someone who doesn’t believe in what their selling, so ultimately your product needs to be something you believe in and have a passion for.
Once your product is defined and there is a clear system for obtaining this product, the next step is photos. The quality and positioning of your photos is extremely important because this is the true representation of your product when any customer views your website. There are many ways to capture your product, and looking to do so in a way that fits your brand and personal company vibe is a must.
The last major step is to consider SEO, and how you can implement this into your website. SEO is crucially important because this is the main way in which a customer will find your product, and without your company being included in search results, this could completely ruin your chances for success. Some major things to keep in mind when making SEO considerations:
- Use relevant keywords or phrases that you think will be used by anyone searching for a company like the one your starting
- With key words, make descriptions for your website and each page
- With Shopify users can actually add SEO info to each product or page
- Use tags for all images on your page
- Use as many incoming links as possible to your page
Although this is a very brief and detail lacking synopsis of starting an online business, everything presented represents the key components to starting and maintaining and online company- that simple. There will always be a ton of problem solving, organization, and a business model that needs to be well defined, but with a passionate vision comes great success.
Being passionate about your business is always excellent, but not always possible. However, even if you’ve lost your drive for a project, it’s always possible to hire someone with that passion and vision to manage it for you. Management by proxy is generally avoided, but if you don’t care anyway, why concern yourself with tiny differences in management style?
Great post, Alex. Having the passion and drive to carry out your dream is so important in entrepreneurship. There will be days where it won’t seem worth your time, but its important to remember why you started the business and remember what motivated you, having that foundation is key.