Ecommerce is a wonderful thing but the prospect sounds a little daunting for most, but these types of sites offer some real advantages. The whole idea of ecommerce is actually pretty simple its when it comes to implementing this concept that things get a little trickier. To make things a little easier to understand I have broken the basic concept of ecommerce down into 4 key elements and here they are key.

The Niche.

This is the starting point for most sites on the internet, but in the case of ecommerce your need to figure out what you plan to sell. Once you can do this many of the aspects of niche research will remain the same, you need to find a niche that isn’t too heavily saturated, when researching ecommerce niche you will usually find the current top ranking sites will be pretty aged and will have held their current rankings for quite a while. You will also need to look at each of their sites, are they stagnant?, have they been updated recently and are they actively working on improving their rankings? This is all pretty standard stuff and you would most likely go through the same process with any other type of site that you plan to launch.

Your Site

Which of the many ecommerce platforms to choose, There are countless available, everything from open source, to wordpress plugins, to make the choice easier you first need to decide on your requirements, Most available shopping carts have a lot of really good features, but I would normally base my decision on its SEO capabilities, the search engines will be your main source of traffic so it makes sense to use an optimised cart, I also look for a cart that makes it easy to run split tests, it should go without saying every ecommerce site should test to try and increase conversions, if you don’t you are leaving money on the table.

Company registration

This part I loathe but it’s a necessary evil and unavoidable, if you have not already registered as a company or sole trader then you will need to do so. To be honest I don’t even like to talk about this it’s much easier for me to leave this part to your accountant and let them make these decisions for me

Your products and suppliers

As we have already covered the niche and product selection, the next thing to cover is how to find a supplier.  These can be broken down into 3 main types, Distribution, wholesale and drop ship.

Distribution is where you will find the best deals available but with that comes the burden of having higher minimum orders. When starting out distribution may not be the best option as it will usually mean a lot of your operating funds will be tied up in stock.  Distribution companies are also less willing to negotiate on the price they offer. Your next option is to whole sale, usually more expensive, but are more open to negotiations and may not require any minimum orders and the final option is the dropshippers.,This option usually holds the least overall margin, but the upside is you don’t have to worry about, ordering, holding stock or dispatching the goods, which will free up to focus on making more sales.

If you are willing to take the leap into ecommerce you can build a business that will last the test of time, many think that ecommerce sites are really only for the blog players, but this is no longer the case, if the niche you are in suits an ecommerce site then why not give it a try and you may be surprised at what can happen.

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This is a guest post by Neil Jones who is head of marketing for eMobileScan who are one of the Uk’s leading barcode scanner and handheld computer specialists. Offering one of the largest ranges in the Uk.