Digital lifestyle is the new era of living, everything in our routine life is being translated to a digital world where at the click of a button products/services are made available to our doorstep, eliminating the need for running errands.
The extent to which it has covered our needs has gone far beyond what one could have imagined decades ago. Specifically, highlighting the sale of 2-wheelers on e-commerce platforms has drastically changed the entire perspective of online stores.
If you are exploring the best way to start an ecommerce website, this trend offers significant opportunities.
This can be attributed to the significance it holds in terms of convenience. As of 2023, the data shows that ecommerce sales are expected to skyrocket to $6.3 trillion, which would account for 24% of the total retail sales worldwide.The growing demand, as a result of consumer preferences, has become the sole reason for the success.
63% of consumers would opt for online shopping rather than visiting the store. To complement and support this demand, continuous advancements in technologies are taking place such as AI-driven personalization in product recommendations based on search and browsing behaviour, secure payment systems, mobile and voice commerce to further enhance convenience.
Not only that, but it has also empowered entrepreneurs to operate their ecommerce platforms with fewer overhead costs. An ideal win-win deal is created that perfectly complements each other! So setting up an online store will be a step toward uncovering the potential of this booming market.
Why Should You Start Your Own Ecommerce Business?
1. Lower Startup and Operating Costs
The need for a physical infrastructure is completely eliminated, saving a lot of resource allocation in the establishment of the ecommerce platform.
Costs associated with rent, equipment, and other utilities are completely devoid of need. Additionally, the requirement of staff is minimal and so managing them doesn’t become a tedious task.
All of these significantly reduce a major portion of the overheads.To capitalize on these benefits, understanding the best way to start ecommerce business is crucial.
40% of U.S. ecommerce businesses operate with minimal staff, which helps reduce labor costs significantly.
2. Wider Audience Reach
Creating an ecommerce business eliminates all the geographical and physical barriers, connecting a diversified customer base to the platform.
The absence of all the geographical and physical barriers connects a diversified customer base to the ecommerce platform. This directly translates to an extensive range of potential to generate revenue.
Moreover, another component to consider is that the online store is not time-bound, Round-the-clock access and availability are provided as a result of the internet facility being within reach of everyone’s smart devices across the globe..
67% of eCommerce traffic comes from mobile devices, emphasizing the importance of a global reach through the internet.
3. Technological Advancements
The front-end and the back-end operations have been streamlined to a greater extent to deliver a seamless experience to the users.
AI’s presence has made its way into the ecommerce platform, such as personalized recommendations based on user behaviours, and immersive technologies, including AR and VR, have made the visual appeal of the product in a real-world environment possible.
On the other hand, headless ecommerce and APIs have made the back-end processes smoother enabling an ecommerce platform that is empowered to scale and be flexible to become future-proof.
73% of consumers say that technology enhances their shopping experience.
4. Consumer Preferences
The increasing number of consumers preferring online shopping is making running an ecommerce business a great opportunity to uncover a new market.
This change in trend is attributed to the ability to become aware of the quality of the products/services sold online, the convenience it offers from shopping anytime from anywhere and the attractive discounts that are put up.
These compelling factors contribute to such a heavy demand across the globe.
51% of global consumers prefer shopping online over in-store, with factors like convenience and price driving this shift.
5. Flexibility and Convenience
Expansion in terms of product diversification can be carried out without much needed resources and infrastructure unlike a brick-and-mortar store.
Product catalogues can be added without space limitations and the technological advancements in ecommerce store building have enabled easy scalability to accommodate the increasing demand.
Furthermore, the complexities involved in the day-to-day operations of a physical store are effectively mitigated in online stores. There are various tools to streamline and automate processes, saving time and resources once you start an online retail store.
Ecommerce stores offer the ability to add up to 2-3 times more products than a traditional retail store without needing additional space.
6. Scalability
Increasing platform traffic and the demand can be managed by easily scaling up when you start an online ecommerce store, with minimal investment and modifications.
Additionally, while scaling up to meet diverse needs across the globe, the infrastructure of the platform can be updated to cater to the widely spread target audience by adding multi-language, multi-currency, adaptive delivery methods and other features that significantly influence geographically sensitive factors to complete the order lifecycle.
79% of eCommerce businesses reported that the scalability of online platforms significantly contributes to growth potential.
7. Targeted Marketing
The best way to set up an online store is to do so while effectively using online marketing, which is more cost-effective and easily measurable than traditional advertising.
There are various tools available online to generate data and analyze reports accurately. These enable the eCommerce platform vendors to optimize their marketing strategies, tuning their approach to effectively impact their target audience for higher conversions.
Moreover, the data of consumers collected allows for a personalized marketing approach that further enhances the effectiveness of gaining visibility.
90% of consumers are more likely to engage with personalized content.
8. Reduced Risk
Financial risk is greatly minimized as you can test the market with your offerings and withdraw based on demand.
Also, the marketing strategies can be easily revoked to adapt to the one that is most suitable for your target audience.
Needless to say, before committing to a larger investment in terms of time, effort and money, you can test run your online store more easily than a physical store when you start an online store.
83% of entrepreneurs agree that low startup costs and the ability to pivot quickly makes ecommerce businesses less risky compared to traditional brick-and-mortar stores.
9. Customer Engagement
Unlike a brick-and-mortar store that collects feedback via an online/offline form which is a one-time event, the online store can maintain customer relationships with chat, emails, social media, and other digital touchpoints of the ecommerce platform where continuity of communication fosters loyalty, creates trust and closeness essential for repeat purchases and sharing word-of-mouth.
Consistently practicing this helps in building an ecommerce business that is credible.
74% of customers prefer to engage with brands through digital channels like email, social media, and chat.
10. Supply Chain Management
Right from inventory tracking using built-in tools to ensure the accurate maintenance of stocks to using third-party logistics providers to manage warehousing and shipping, flexibility is offered in managing inventory across multiple locations.
Start your ecommerce business by outsourcing secondary operations to focus on the core aspects where expertise can be used to increase conversion rates.
91% of ecommerce retailers report that supply chain optimization directly contributes to the ability to scale their businesses effectively.
Global Ecommerce Growth – Proven Statistics
With a total revenue of 2 trillion USD in 2024, Asia leads the biggest eCommerce market by region worldwide. This accounts for about approximately 500 million USD higher than the revenue reached by the Americas. In contrast, Australia, Oceania, and Africa have reached below 50 billion USD. The major contributor in the Asian continent can be ascribed to China with over 1.4 billion USD in 2024.
As a major share contributor, the Asian continent is likely to grow. Next to China, Turkey will rank first in the top 20 in the eCommerce market development between the periods 2024-2029 with a CAGR of 11.6%. Additionally, India is predicted to contribute with the highest CAGR, where the market value is predicted to grow over 11% annually. Additionally, from the South American continent, Brazil will share the same CAGR as India, while the rest of the world is estimated to grow at 9.5 percent during the same period.
Conversely, when the ecommerce retail industry is compared to the brick-and-mortar retail industry, ecommerce still wins the race with a higher sales value for the year 2024, which is $4.117 trillion, while the brick-and-mortar retail industry has attained a value of $31.1 trillion. The predicted CAGR too, for the forthcoming years, is higher for the ecommerce industry, where the value is two and a half times that of the brick-and-mortar retail industry.
This shift in trend signifies the importance of the convenience and accessibility that are offered by the online stores, which are driving consumer preferences towards online shopping. Unquestionably, the advancements in ecommerce technology further drive the growth, where the figures are skyrocketing. These make starting up an online store a lucrative option for deriving benefits in the form of profits by positioning it rightly in the market.
From idea to execution, journey with us to strategize and launch your e-commerce platform!
8 Key Factors To Consider While Starting Your Ecommerce Business
There are a couple of considerations to be made prior to the initiation and operation of the ecommerce platform. These are critical aspects that directly drive the success or failure of your ecommerce platform. The best ecommerce startups are the ones that perform a complete analysis of all the aspects before running a successful ecommerce business. Here’s an overview of the factors:
1. Business Model
It includes a choice that has to be made between B2B, B2C, or a C2C platform. This dictates your target audience, your revenue potential and other related decisions. Each model requires a unique approach that requires devising a flexible strategy to adapt to the changing trends in each model.
73% of businesses operating in the eCommerce space are B2C (business-to-consumer) models, which remain the dominant structure for most startups.
2. Market Research
It includes studying your target audience as well as your competitors when starting an online ecommerce business. Factors like demographics, preferences, and past trends need to be analyzed to identify demand and its intensity. Competitor analysis helps in identifying gaps in the market offerings and position your eCommerce platform to fill those gaps to serve the needs of the target audience.
63% of eCommerce businesses identify market research as a critical element for understanding customer needs and determining product offerings.
3. E-commerce Platform
Choosing the right platform when starting an ecommerce company should align with your current and future needs where the tech stack, platform architecture, API support, and its related components are given importance in choosing them to deliver a smooth shopping experience to the customers, as these directly have an effect on the scalability and future-proofing capacity of the platform.
52% of businesses choose white-label platforms for cost-effective scaling, as these platforms offer ready-to-launch solutions that reduce development time and upfront investment.
4. Payment Gateway Integration
A secured gateway is essential for smooth transactions and for building trust with the customers. The considerations include payment methods, transaction fees, security features, multi-currency support and easy integrability with your ecommerce platform. Additionally, faster transaction processing and prompt troubleshooting support must be offered. Launch your online store with the right set of features and deliver a seamless user experience.
68% of mobile shoppers abandon their carts due to transaction speed and payment process complexity.
5. Supply Chain and Fulfillment
Order fulfillment can be executed via in-house, third-party logistics providers (3PLs), or dropshippers. While each offers its own benefits, in the initial phase, it would be ideal to start an ecommerce store with dropshippers as it is the most low-risk option and is cost-effective. Once the platform gains traction in the market, a more professional option can be chosen, such as 3PLs.
79% of eCommerce businesses now rely on third-party logistics (3PL) providers for fulfillment to scale operations and manage inventory efficiently.
6. Design Interface
Getting started in ecommerce requires an intuitive website to increase dwell time, encourage lengthier browsing, and assist in navigating the customer to the right landing page. Additionally, the website should also be optimized for mobile as the percentage of mobile shoppers is increasing year-on-year. Doing so will enhance the overall shopping experience.
75% of consumers judge the credibility of a business based on its website design, highlighting the importance of a professional and user-friendly interface.
7. Product Selection
Launching ecommerce websites require prior decisions on the product portfolio the ecommerce platform will offer. Conducting market research will clarify questions on what to offer and who to offer. One that aligns with your broader target audience must be chosen to fulfill their needs and preferences. Ultimately, only a relevant shopping experience will drive success.
60% of eCommerce businesses report that selecting the right product to offer is the most crucial aspect of their platform’s success.
8. Pricing Strategy
Start your own ecommerce business by adopting a reasonable pricing strategy while also staying competitive in the market. Since it is an online store, consider offering discounts, bundled pricing or subscriptions to attract different groups of customers. An optimal pricing strategy must balance to reflect the market changes and customer feedback.
62% of eCommerce businesses utilize dynamic pricing strategies to adjust prices based on demand, market changes, and competitor pricing.
10 Steps To Start An Ecommerce Website In 2025
1. Start With An Ecommerce Business Plan That Works
A blueprint or business plan is the first and foremost step to start an eCommerce business website for your online business. As the business plan is a primary thing, it is not advisable to go with an inappropriate or loose plan that is practically hard to convert per your wish.
Instead, we’d advise you to go with a full-fledged business plan with an adaptable business model for your eCommerce, with all short and long-term objectives to be achieved. During the business plan development, keep an eye and spend sufficient time to research the target audience, whether products you’re selling are in demand or consumers are interested in it or not.
Keep in mind, always think in the way of your audience, so develop a product page that they love, then move on to choose the right eCommerce platform to launch your website and be ready to pick a domain name that is decent and attractive. Though these are the steps that help to create a business, selling the products to the consumers is the ultimate aim, so be specific about the goals and strategies to boost revenues.
2. Go And Start With Your Ecommerce Business Niche
Nothing will go in the way you think it should be in eCommerce without a great niche. It is still a great way to hit the market and straightforward to business success.
Even if you haven’t chosen a niche yet, still the ball is in your court, take your time and choose your niche. Please don’t ever try to skip this step if you’re looking for success.
Let us give you an idea here, try to consider the resources that you have in your hands rather than going on thinking about which industry or sector is best suited in your business case.
Going on track, resources means, your business contacts, product wholesaler contacts that you acquired over a long period of time. In most cases, you see yourself falling in the general category for finding a niche that works for you, with that you could even find and explore the sub-niche for your eCommerce business.
You’ll also find that the pattern you choose in your niche and sub-niche product will greatly affect other areas when starting an eCommerce website. This includes all parts of your eCommerce website right from the domain name, website host, products, social profiles, and most importantly the eCommerce platform.
If you want to create an eCommerce business website, go with headless ecommerce platform that offers a wholesome shopping experience to the consumers.
3. Find Products That Are To Be Sold On Your Platform
This is the next crucial step, after narrowing down from your niche industry, here you still need to decide on a specific product that you’re going to sell on the eCommerce platform. Go and do some market research on your target audiences’ product interest and choose the products that likely to attract them.
As an eCommerce business owner, you need to find a reliable provider as you need to deal with multiple product orders. Then, make sure to deliver products consistently while maintaining the same price and quality for a better relationship.
Being an eCommerce store owner, filtering, finding, and managing providers are considered a prime skill to have with you to operate seamlessly. Some right elements to consider while evaluating the right provider includes:
- Product quality
- Price tag
- Industrial reputation
- Shipping time and costs
- Manufacturer warranties, and
- Other essential services
Let’s start with five quick questions to ask yourself before getting start with an eCommerce business platform:
As you are about to start an eCommerce store, you’ll have many confusions in your head and many decisions would be before you take turns. So, we’d list some foremost questions to ask yourself, these would help you to make the perfect decisions and plan appropriately to succeed in all aspects of your online store.
- Are you familiar with the trending technologies to build your online store?
- What’s your overall budget for setting up your business?
- Are you aware of your current business competitors?
- What are your target geographical locations and audiences?
- What’s the niche product that you’re going to sell to your buyers?
4. Get All Your Business Paperwork Ready
The first thing as a buyer, everyone looks to purchase from a registered store, isn’t it? Yes, the same rule applies here for the online store owners, for that matter, as a client they used to ask us whether it is mandatory to register their business or not.
Though our answers might differ each, it is a must to register your eCommerce store with the appropriate entitles in order to stay legitimate as an individual venture or via a parent business. It is better to keep a note on how much does it take for the paperwork and type of business that you’re being setting up in a specific location and business you’re opening.
If you don’t have much time to set up an online company, then you can feel free to partner with a specialized consultant for establishing your company. This in turn greatly helps to pull all your energy to set up an eCommerce business from scratch or with a readymade solution.
5. Name Your Business
Already decided your business name now you’ll want to start moving to show the next step, if not please be keen on choosing your business name as going to act as a branding element at any stage of your business.
Let your business name and domain name be closely linked because it’s about your company’s identity, so choose the one set on both. But before choosing one, try to ask yourself the following questions first:
- What product am I selling?
- Do they appeal to the customers?
- Will it resonate with my audience?
So now brainstorm yourself and keep answering this question and be creative that can ultimately help you to choose a business name, in turn, a brand name. To be more precise for example for branding should actually contain your brand name and your domain name if possible, so both look close as possible.
6. Handpick Your Ecommerce Platform For Website
Like every eCommerce store owner, you too would like to choose an eCommerce platform that yields a huge volume of sales and revenue. Similarly, if you want to go in that way, pick the right platform available among different platforms to develop your online store.
Also, there are many ways to transform your site into a super performing store, but these can be varied with its solution types – tailored-made and ready-to-use solutions.
Remember, there may be so many options available to you, but it’s a choice to evaluate your budget, products, and eCommerce marketing plan to find out to pick the best eCommerce platform for you.
But, we’d recommend going with Magento, an open-source perfectly suitable for a tailor-made eCommerce solution that comes with all eCommerce features and advanced business capacities.
7. Pick The Right Web Design
Besides all those paperworks, business name, eCommerce platform, business plan, and niche there come another aspect to note on, your web design. Arguably, the integral part of developing an eCommerce store.
Your site is your online store’s index, so it’s your complete responsibility to find a dedicated design team to design a visually attractive design that grabs users’ attention and make them leave an email address, requests for queries to be solved and completes a purchase at any time they visit your eCommerce website.
Remember, the aim of an attractive design is to pull customers into the store and create a great user experience, so be aware of your store design idea with business goals in your mind generally.
Best Practices To Implement In Your Store Design
- Implement sleek and structured design
- Use white spaces strategically to align with your brand
- Ensure that your store design contains all the functional elements rather than only just decorative designs
- Make sure that design merges well with your niche
8. Performance Optimization Is The Key
Once you’re ready with your store and all its elements, you’re ready to make move to start your platforms and pull audiences.
After the official launch of your business, conduct an online event with sensible promos and attractive deals. It is not where all your responsibilities end, after a while, monitor the performance of your eCommerce store to boost instant results.
9. Keep Your Products In The Limelight
Business owners like you always have a tendency to work to make their product or niche special in a passionate way. Here keeping your products and services in the limelight doesn’t mean they need to be kept under the light, it means to flood the positive light on your products via various channels to promote and make your audience the most.
For instance, let’s take an example, social media is widely considered as the greatest marketing channel, especially for newly developed eCommerce stores.
10. Get Your Add-Ons And APPs Ready
It wouldn’t be good if you don’t discuss the add-ons, apps, and other additions while developing an eCommerce site. These add-ons are great in boosting your store’s performance.
As with other businesses, there are multiple options there for an eCommerce business to boost user experience and revenue through mobile apps that make your site contents even more engaging.
For example, if you sell goods to foreign customers(target audience), you can use a specific app or extension that helps you translate your content so that it’s easier to digest for your customers.
Let’s take an example for better understanding: Like if you’re selling larger brands for customers in other countries, you can use a specific extension that translates your native content into their language, it’ll be easier for them to understand your product. This possibly helps you expand your user base widely.
So claim your eCommerce store app and improve your site’s performance, in turn, your business performance.
Take the first step toward your ecommerce journey with our experts. Follow our 10-step roadmap!
Promote And Launch Your Ecommerce Business Website
Marketing channels are a new way that determines any eCommerce business. Ecommerce marketing is not a point-to-the-point kind of process, it includes A/B testing, Ad campaigns, product page optimization, and fresh content, putting all this in the right channel, you can regulate the user’s flow and returns on business.
Now the future projection has a piece of good news to tell you with recent stats proof, that is:
- Ecommerce sales are projected to hit $5.4 trillion by 2023 and are growing 23% year-over-year.
- And 5 in 10 purchases are made only using an online channel for searching and buying.
The primary focus of Ecommerce marketing is creating awareness about the brand, to stand on that note, your eCommerce business can be promoted via some inbound ad strategy, organic SEO, and other marketing strategies that drive website traffic, brand visibility, and sales.
Ecommerce business marketing needs an omnichannel approach to succeed with a great conversion rate.
– Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Every digital marketer considers search engine optimization(SEO) as a long-term marketing strategy to drive web traffic via organic and unpaid rankings on search engines. For eCommerce business websites, technical SEO, and content strategies play a predominant role, this including mobile optimization, URL structure, keyword tags, and speed optimization. It’s better to have high-quality content on pages to rank better in alignment with SEO strategies.
– Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising
PPC advertising comes under the paid marketing tactics, using marketing tools like Google Ads and Bing Ads to pay for placement on search engines. Running an effective PPC campaign needs great bidding strategies for targeted search terms related to your business to drive traffic as much as you want. These search ads appear along with the organic search results, but on the top and bottom of the results, this is surely a good way to boost website traffic.
– Social Media Marketing
Try to expand your business brand on social media, as everyone is on there, and so your brand should be too. Leveraging social media marketing ensures you a good boost in social presence, increase in the social platform followers, and manage better brand reputation.
There are two ways to market on social media as similar to the search engines, like organic social media includes drafting, creating, and updating posts on your official eCommerce business pages so that users find and resonate it with. On another side, paid social media includes having custom images, or video ads to target a specific audience based on their interests, shopping behavior, and demographics. Either organic or paid, both social media marketing tactics help in a great way to increase brand awareness and showcase your brand as possible.
Set your ecommerce business up for success with us! Discover the essential do’s and don’ts for a seamless launch..
Do’s and Dont’s Of Ecommerce Business Launch
Building a successful eCommerce business website comes with a bundle list of DOs and DON’Ts along with its launch. Knowing them is key to the road to success in any business, same as it does fit for online eCommerce.
Dos
- Do have the best business model that works.
- Do analyze the market environment.
- Do build a solid foundation before launch.
- Do have a business model that makes money.
Don’ts
- Don’t give up quickly.
- Don’t assume that buyers easily find your website and buy just like that.
- Don’t hurry to do everything at once.
- Don’t spend any time less than 10 hours a day.
Challenges In Running An Ecommerce Platform
1. Technical Challenges
A considerable amount of technical expertise is required for building, operating and running an ecommerce business. Regardless of whether the ecommerce software is built from scratch or a white label solution, challenges will arise in performance optimization, security, system integration, integrations with third-party services and scalability.
Solution: Although the challenges are inevitable, they can be mitigated to a greater extent by investing in a skilled technical and development team, using robust APIs for seamless integration, and deploying cloud-based infrastructure for scalability. Above all, the most important factor is the right choice of the ecommerce platform that is responsible for performance and security features.
2. Sourcing Funds
Securing sufficient funding is a common struggle faced for any startup. Since there is no past track record available, a strong business proposal that details every intricate complexity and their backup plan needs to be laid out clearly to persuade investors to fund the ecommerce platform and build your ecommerce store.
Solution: Crafting a comprehensive business plan aligned with realistic risk mitigation strategies must be prepared to build investor confidence. Alongside this, other sources of funding should also be explored to diversify ownership risk and take advantage of flexibility.
3. Attracting Traffic
Since there are already established leading ecommerce platforms, gaining exposure, visibility and attracting traffic is quite a challenge.To start your online store, locating your target audience and targeting them with suitable marketing strategies requires research into finding the right channel to be able to reach them.
Solution: Ranking in the results pages is of high priority for which SEO optimization should be given utmost importance. Additionally, focus on paid ad campaigns and social media marketing to gain visibility organically.
4. Customer Retention
While acquiring customers poses one type of challenge, retaining them is another. This is especially due to market saturation where differentiation becomes difficult to implement and customer acquisition costs are increasing. Set up your own ecommerce website with a focus on customer retention.
Solution: Identify pain points and gaps in the offerings from the competitors, pitch your offerings there and gradually gain traction. Alongside this, implement loyalty programs and enable a personalized experience across all touchpoints.
Wrapping up
The ecommerce sector is one among exponentially growing industries with tons of opportunities to make revenue with few to zero efforts.
If you’re ready to get begun on the start of your eCommerce business website, then for sure, you definitely would have queries jumping in your mind, right?
Don’t worry; if you’ve questions to ask, feel free to consult our eCommerce experts today and launch your eCommerce platform in no time.
