Ecommerce Business Blueprint: How To Build, Launch And Grow A Profitable Online Store

Choosing a Product

Finding A Product To Sell

The first step to building an ecommerce business is to know what products you want to sell. This is often the most challenging part of starting a new online business. In this section, we will highlight the strategies you can use to find product opportunities, explore the ten best places to look for product ideas, and finally, we will reveal ten trending products that we came up.

• Find a product on the Oberlo marketplace
• How To Find A Product To Sell Online: The Definitive Guide
• 8 Strategies for Finding Your First Product
• 10 Places To Look For Products To Sell Online
• 10 Interesting Product Ideas Trending Right Now

Evaluating Your Idea

Once you have a product idea in mind, how do you know if it’s a good idea or not? In this section, we will go through two exhaustive evaluations methods, evaluating both the product itself, as well as the market for your product choice.

• How To Evaluate Market Demand For Your New Product Idea
• How To Evaluate Product Viability
• 5 Strategies To Evaluate Your Product Idea

Obtaining Your Product

Having found your product idea and evaluating them in the previous section, you must now figure out where and how you’re going to obtain your products. The next two posts will cover the various methods for acquiring your products, along with the pros and cons of each model.

• Make, Manufacture, Wholesale or Dropship: The Pros and Cons of Each Model
• How To Find a Manufacturer or Supplier for Your Product Idea
• Alibaba 101: How to Safely Source Products from the World’s Biggest Supplier Directory

Research & Prepare

Research Your Competition

You’ve found your product, evaluated the potential and sourced your supplier. It’s time to write your business plan, but before you get into that, you’ll need to research your competition thoroughly so you know exactly what you’re up against.

• Tools To Research Your Competition

Writing Your Business Plan

With your competitive research complete, it’s now the perfect time to write your business plan. A business plan will be your road map that helps bring your ideas and thoughts together. A business plan is vital so that you can determine how to best move forward and most effectively compete.

• Why Your Ecommerce Store Needs a Business Plan (and How to Write One)
• The Ultimate Guide To Business Plans

Registering Your Business

With a business plan in hand, now is a good time to consider your options for registering your business.

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• The Benefits & Costs of Incorporating Your Business

Setting Up Your Business

Naming Your Business

Aside from finding an actual product to sell online, another difficult decision is determining your business name and choosing an appropriate and available domain name. These blog posts will help you tackle these important tasks.

• What You Need to Know About Ecommerce Trademarks
• What Should I Name My Online Store?
• 5 Rules For Choosing A Memorable Domain Name

Creating A Logo

Once you have solidified your name and registered your domain, it’s time to craft a logo. In these posts, we will show you several options for creating a great logo for your new business.

• 5 Logo Design Tips for Ecommerce Websites
• 5 Easy to Use Online Logo Makers to Design Your Brand

Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You’re almost ready to begin building your online store. However, before you jump into it, you should understand the basics of search engine optimization so that you can optimize your site for Google and other search engines.

• The Beginner’s Guide To Keyword Research For Ecommerce
• Ecommerce SEO Video Series

Building Your Store

With a better understanding of search engine optimization (SEO), it’s time to build out your store. There are many critical elements. Below we have included a list of our best blog posts to help you write captivating product descriptions, shoot beautiful product photography, and a list of some of the best tools to help you optimize those photos.

• Write Product Descriptions that Sell
• The Ultimate DIY Guide to Beautiful Product Photography
• 18 Free and Paid Online Photo Editor Tools for Gorgeous DIY Product Photography
• 40 Tools and Resources For Creating Beautiful DIY Product Photography
• 10 Must Know Image Optimization Tips

Don’t forget, if you run into any problems getting your store set up, you can always hire help from Shopify Experts.

Preparing To Launch

As you prepare for the launch of your new business, there are several essential elements you need to prepare for. In this section, we have curated some of the most comprehensive posts on helping you determine your shipping strategy.

• How to Choose a Shipping Strategy for Your Online Store
• The Beginner’s Guide to Ecommerce Shipping and Fulfillment

Furthermore, it’s a good idea to define your key performance indicators upfront so once you launch, you know what to measure of success to track.

• 32 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Ecommerce

Finally, before your launch, you’ll want to run your newly built storefront through the Shopify ecommerce store grader. This online application will show you errors on your site and SEO so that you can correct any issues before launch.

• Store Grader

As a final checklist, this post covers the ten essential things you need to do before launch.

• Countdown To Launching Your Ecommerce Business

Post Launch

First Customer

Now that you’ve launched, the hard work begins. Our 50 point guide to getting your first sale is a great start point and overview of a variety of marketing tactics that will help you in your first months.

• 50 Ways to Make Your First Sale

Marketing Your Store

You’re well on your way and now likely have some sales under your belt. It’s time to get serious and focused. The following posts will help you zero in on some top marketing tactics for driving traffic and converting that traffic to sales.

Email Marketing

• How to Write An Effective Welcome Email
• 13 Amazing Abandoned Cart Emails (And What You Can Learn From Them)
• Divide and Profit: How to Segment Your Mailing List for Better Engagement
• How to Build an Email List that Builds Your Ecommerce Business

Driving Traffic

• Why Every Ecommerce Business Needs a Blog (And 9 Ideas to Get You Started)
• How to Land Your Business in the Press: 6 Tactics and 5 Tools
• How to Build an Audience and Drive Sales With Persuasive Video Marketing
• How To Build A Massive Following On Instagram
• How to Use Polyvore to Drive Traffic and Sales for Your Online Store
• 6 Practical and Proven Ways to Drive Traffic to Your New Online Store

Optimizing Conversions

• The Beginner’s Guide to Simple A/B Testing
• 5 Ecommerce Pricing Experiments that Will Make You Want to Run an A/B Test Today
• How to Generate Powerful Testimonials for Your Ecommerce Business

Using Analytics

• Google Analytics for Ecommerce: A Beginner’s Guide

Conclusion

Building your own ecommerce business is no easy task. From choosing a product, evaluating viability and sourcing, to building, launching and growing sales. There’s a lot of puzzle pieces to put together. However, following this resource roundup should provide you with a clear roadmap to help you build a profitable ecommerce business.