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Where practically everything has switched the form of its appearance and conduct in today’s age, why would business stay far behind? Over the last few decades, e-commerce business ideas have been gaining more and more popularity with passing time, and it has now grown to be a way of life.
It is even more important due to its ability to reach a huge amount of customers immaterial of their geographical location – a benefit that traditional businesses fail to provide. Furthermore, E-commerce businesses also guarantee the customer’s ease as now, and the latter does not have to personally visit retailers to make a purchase.
In this article, we try to tell you why e-commerce is the need of the hour in the current scenario and what the different e-commerce business ideas are for you to try out.
E-commerce or electronic commerce refers to the exchange of goods with the internet as the platform. Simply put, it is the buying and selling of goods and services electronically or virtually.
Some common or popular e-commerce businesses are Olx, Amazon, Flipkart and Quickr.
However, as a concept, e-commerce businesses are characterized by the following:
In the course of conducting business operations in the e-commerce, one of the most important factors is the availability of technology and the internet. As e-commerce businesses function over the internet only, they incorporate technology as a crucial element of their activities. In such businesses, the seller and the buyer do not communicate in real-time but through virtual mediums only.
Since e-commerce businesses function over the internet, you can operate them from anywhere in the world. Thus, such e-commerce business ideas are characterized by the feature of universality. This feature helps businesses employ labor from any corner of the world and attract customers globally.
E-commerce facilitates the growth of several businesses as it indicates less expenditure on operational costs. Businesses that operate virtually do not need to pay for the rent of a physical shop, overhead charges and a lot more. Thus, this saving helps small businesses grow as they do not need to make unnecessary payments not crucial to their operations.
Over the internet, several e-commerce businesses provide the facility to customize your order before making the final payment for the same. Such options may be available in products related to art & design, wardrobe, or technology. This product customization ensures that items are custom-made as per the customer’s taste and preferences. This also ensures customer satisfaction and is a stepping-stone in making them long-term customers.
For instance, Dell Computers offer customers the choice to mention their preferred device configuration on their official website. This customer preference is adhered to, and consequently, items are made available according to these selections and orders.
Now, to put it concisely, what is the overall exact difference between e-commerce businesses and traditional business? Well, here you go:
| BASIS OF COMPARISON | TRADITIONAL BUSINESS | E-COMMERCE BUSINESS |
| Value Creation | Goods and services | Information |
| Accessibility | Normal working hours (limited) | Any time (24x7x365) |
| Interaction | Personal or face to face | Screen to face |
| Medium | Physical or real-time | Internet |
| Promotion | Merchandising | Word of mouth, advertisements |
| Examples | Ration shops | Amazon |
Bill Gates, the great visionary and founder of Microsoft, once correctly said, “if your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of business.”
As established by this point, e-commerce businesses are the way to go in today’s world. “But, how do we get started?” Here is a step-by-step guide to help you find your way through the same:
The first and most important step to having a successful e-commerce business is the birth of relevant e-commerce business ideas. Before getting started on any technical formalities, you must first decide what you wish to offer to the public, whether or not it will yield positive results, and what business model you plan to incorporate.
As far as business models are concerned, you can choose a single vendor or multi-vendor e-commerce store. However, you will first need to decide if you can offer single or multiple product lines before selecting a business model.
A brand is what defines a business and its USP. Therefore, your brand name must be unique and easy to pronounce. It may also be self-explanatory to a certain limit.
A few factors you must keep in mind while brainstorming a brand name are:
Once you have selected the brand name, the next step would be designing an appropriate logo. Here, again, the uniqueness of the logo should be maintained. It must be attractive, easily distinguishable and relevant to your products and services.
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, has today grown to be the determining factor of where your business stands in the world of the internet. With the implementation of accurate SEO techniques, your website could show up amongst the top few results of a relevant search on any search engine. For this, basic knowledge of how to optimize the internet presence of your business is required. Then, you may use relevant keywords with high presence and volume for the same.
Now that all technical and other legal formalities of your e-commerce business are done with, you are to solely focus on building your website. The better the appearance of the website, the better shape you would be able to give to your e-commerce business ideas. The high appeal and the uniformity of your website must be maintained. You may choose a colour palette, theme or fonts for the same.
Do not forget to incorporate feedback forms or other platforms for inviting customer interaction throughout your website. This increases conversion and attracts more consumers as you add a personal touch to your virtual presence.
As the last step of building your website, you would need to set up several payment gateways so that customers do not find any trouble in placing orders and subsequently more orders are generated. The most common of such gateways are Google Pay, Credit Card, Debit Card and Netbanking.
As we know, promotions and word of mouth are what help an online business the most in growing; thus, attention must be paid to the market image and presence of the business too. The most popular ways to carry out these marketing tactics are promotional emails, advertisements on social media sites (like Instagram), or paid advertisements through ad servers (like Google Ads) on different websites.
You know how to start but are confused about where to? We sorted it for you. Here is a list of the 10 best and most profitable e-commerce business ideas:
Today, when the world is facing a global shutdown, everyone is locked inside their homes, and practically everything has resorted to a virtual medium; education does not stay far behind.
WHY CHOOSE?
Food has repeatedly served as the connecting link across communities, different lands, and cultures. In the modern era, the food you consume is not merely your cuisine. Instead, we go out for dining or order-in food belonging to a variety of cuisines.
WHY CHOOSE?
Over the last few years, owing to ecological crises, people all over have grown to become conscious of the damage synthetic products cause to the planet. As a result, they continue switching to organic products more with each passing day.
WHY CHOOSE?
You can try to be a writer with suitable qualifications by recruiting other writers and collaborating with clients to assist them in their website build-up.
WHY CHOOSE?
Online businesses also require trained professionals to manage their online presence and websites and thus, recruit those skilled, particularly in the website domain, at a considerable high salary. These jobs include web development, web maintenance, web hosting and website flipping.
WHY CHOOSE?
You can also sign up on various sites that would pay you for your creative writing. Most sites make this payment based on the number of subscribers or readers that you can garner or those readers who make donations.
Revue by Twitter, Medium and Substack are the 3 most popular websites specially designed for promoting creative writing and helping you make money off of it.
WHY CHOOSE?
As a social media manager, you would be responsible for formulating strategies and campaigns for their products, interacting with potential leads, and maintaining the social media appeal of the concerned company.
WHY CHOOSE?
Companies also recruit a few top-rated social media sensations to promote the former’s products and thus, help it reach a wide audience. As a social media influencer, all you need to do is post regularly about the company you are associated with and interact with your followers. Thus, it is partly like social media management – the only difference is that you manage your social media and only promote the company.
WHY CHOOSE?
If you are artistically skilled and would like to earn money off your creative talents, you might want to consider this option. You can make and sell your items and be free of the hassle of a vendor. The most common domains under this line of business are art & design items.
WHY CHOOSE?
In this line of business, you can either sell your notes and books if you have recently graduated. Otherwise, you can also procure materials from other students and serve as a retailer.
WHY CHOOSE?
source: limecall.com
Limecall, a real-time customer engagement platform, combines personal interaction with its CRM (Customer Relationship Management) techniques and helps convert leads into customers. When users visit your website, they are easily and instantly connected to real humans to discuss their plans and needs.
As a result, more users, visitors, and first-time customers are transformed into long-term assets of the business. This consequently assists in amplifying sales. Moreover, when customers are satisfied with your business’s operations and services, they tend to praise you in front of their peers. Hence, word of mouth spreads rapidly, therefore attracting and inducing more customers.
Limecall assists interaction between customers or users and legitimate humans instead of automated machines. This personal interaction helps in building trust between the two parties. This, subsequently, leads to the introduction of more customers.
With the numerous benefits, Limecall provides, it inevitably helps an e-commerce business enhance their sales, increasing their size of operations, thus improving their profit margins.
If you are an e-commerce business owner or have some e-commerce business ideas – and, still have your doubts and are wondering why you should go for Limecall, here’s why:
Limecall can thus cater to the roots of a successful e-commerce business as it is experienced in customer relationship management and is a customer engagement platform. This feature helps it in delivering high returns to any company that associates with it. It uses call analytics, CRM techniques, lead management and team management to achieve the same.
Hence, if you are interested in working independently or remotely, e-commerce would be your way to go. Different e-commerce business ideas are born each day, and it is not long until some competition is also born in that field.
While setting up and carrying out e-commerce business operations may not look very tough, promoting it adequately and generating enough audience to keep your business going might be a little difficult. However, that is not something you would need to worry about if you collaborate with Limecall at the right time. With Limecall, your business would not only generate a wider audience but the right one!
Never underestimate the power of passion. With over 17 years of experience in building internet businesses, 5 successful bootstrapped b2b brands. Sathish spends most of his time executing ideas into niche internet brands through a lean team and enjoys being a wanderlust.
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