How to Start an Online Store (7 Easy Steps) #eCommerce ????????

In this video, I talk about how to start your own online store in 7 easy steps.

Want to open an online store? You’re at the right place at the right time.

Segments
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00:00 Intro - How to start an online store
00:32 Choose an eCommerce platform
01:10 How to choose an eCommerce platform
02:00 Types of eCommerce platforms
02:18 Choose a product to sell online
02: 35 How to choose a good product to sell online
03:18 FInd your target audience
04:25 Set up payment gateway
04:50 Top payment gateways for eCommerce in India
05:10 Branding and domain names
06:10 Design your online stoer/website
07:00 Promote your online store

Due to the pandemic keeping people indoors and limiting options to shop in stores, online shopping grew this year exponentially.

And more and more people are moving their businesses online with new ideas, new businesses.

Whether you want to move your existing business online or build one from scratch, I’ll provide you all the tools and knowledge you need to get started.

Let’s go.

01. Pick an eCommerce platform

02. Decide what to sell online - your product

03. Find your target audience

04. Ensure you have the best payment gateway

05. Branding and Domain Name

06. Design your site

Now is the time to develop your online storefront and optimise it for conversions.

Conversions in Marketing lingo means number of people buying your product v/s number of people visiting your store.

While a good-looking eCommerce site is important, so is a smooth buying and checkout process.

Nobody likes heavy, slow, time-consuming websites with broken checkout processes and errors and all that.

Luckily most modern eCommerce platforms today come with pre built templates that you can choose from.

Be it Dukaan, Shopify or BigCommerce, they all have pre-built template galleries.

Just go through the gallery, choose the design that fits your store and use it.

Some of them are paid, some are free.

You can always customize them for colors and look.

A theme on Shopify may cost you extra money like a few hundred dollars

but new eCommerce platforms like Dukaan, has plenty of free themes in it, so you can keep changing or use the one that fits your store.

07. Launch and Promote.

The final step to launching your eCommerce website is to launch it to the world.

www.yourwebsite.com and let people buy from you.

But the world needs to know about your website.

For this, you can of course try sharing it with friends and family but that’s not enough.

Start promoting your website on social media like Facebook and Instagram and even Google.

So that when people search Google for related products your store link shows up.

For this you can use Google AdWords. Or do good SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

For Facebook and Instagram you can run advertisements targeting your primary audience in selected cities.

Most eCommerce tools give you promotion options.

Dukaan, for example, gives free tools for promotion, and even SMS marketing campaigns.

SMS marketing works really well in India. It’s very cheap as well.

There are also social selling features like being able to sell on WhatsApp and social media that makes Dukaan better than Shopify or BigCommerce.

Shopify has plenty of marketing options too but most of them require additional budgets and are tough to get started with.

Or you could get the help of a third party marketing agency and hire them to do your marketing. This may need additional budgets.

Either way, marketing and promotion is a must.

If you show your product to the right audience, interest will be generated and conversions or sales will happen.

Allocate a small marketing budget and start small. Taste success and then add more budget.

That’s the right way to do it.

So, there you have it.

Seven steps to start an online store and sell anything you want.

Gone are the days where you had to shell out tonnes of money and hire experts to launch your store.

Anybody with a product to sell and a business idea, can start their online store easily with eCommerce platforms like Dukaan today.

If you have a business idea or a product to sell, check out these different platforms and get started with what works for you.

If you are a small business and want to start fast, go for Dukaan.

If you are a big business, have a lot of money to spent and are technically savvy, then go for something like BigCommerce or Shopify or even WordPress Woo Commerce.

All the best with your endeavor.

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments section below.

This is Mani Karthik signing off.