Creating a successful ecommerce from scratch is an exciting and thrilling challenge that can open doors to unlimited opportunities in the online commerce world. However, beyond designing an attractive store, there are several considerations that require collaboration from a competent team of professionals and must be carefully addressed to ensure success.
In this article, we will explore step by step how to establish and launch your own ecommerce from scratch. From assessing the market context for your online store to implementing effective communication and sales strategies, we will provide a complete overview to help you on this exciting business journey.
7 Steps to Create a Successful Ecommerce
First, to create a successful online store, know the 7 steps you need to follow:
- Assess the Market Context
- Conduct a SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)
- Identify Your Competitive Advantage using Porter’s Five Forces
- Develop a Buyer Persona
- Set Up Your Ecommerce Platform from Scratch
- Design an Effective Communication Strategy
- Set Up Tracking and Analytics Tools
1. Assess the Market Context
To tackle the challenge of establishing an ecommerce platform, it is essential to create a solid business plan. As with any professional project, it is vital to start from the ground up. A critical stage in creating an online store is environmental analysis.
Conducting a thorough analysis of the environment provides the opportunity to understand in detail all the factors that will impact our project and helps determine the future strategy we should follow.
The environmental analysis can be broken down into two main components: external analysis and internal analysis.
External Analysis:
This section focuses on examining the digital ecosystem of competitors, from the ecommerce platform they use to their social media presence.
Internal Analysis:
Internal analysis focuses on evaluating the company’s internal resources, capabilities, and processes. Here, we look inward to understand how prepared we are to face online market challenges. Key aspects of internal analysis include:
- Resources: Identify available resources such as capital, technology, personnel, and logistics that can support ecommerce operations.
- Capabilities: Assess internal capabilities, including industry experience, innovation capacity, and ability to respond to changing market demands.
- Processes: Analyze internal business processes, from inventory management and logistics to customer service and data management.
- Technology: Evaluate existing technological infrastructure and determine if updates or investments in new technologies are needed to support the ecommerce platform.
- Team: Assess the human team and their level of competence in technical knowledge and skills required to successfully manage the online store.
- Organizational Culture: Understand the organizational culture and its capacity to adapt to a digital and customer-focused environment.
Internal analysis provides a comprehensive view of our resources and internal capabilities, which is essential for making informed decisions on how to tackle ecommerce challenges and opportunities.
2. Conduct a SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) is an essential tool for summarizing the information gathered during environmental evaluation. It is a strategic analysis that allows you to assess internal and external factors that may influence a company or project.
SWOT analysis organizes information into four clearly defined categories: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
This strategic tool helps identify internal positive (strengths) and negative (weaknesses) factors, as well as external favorable (opportunities) and unfavorable (threats) factors that could impact performance. With this perspective, strategies can be developed to capitalize on strengths and opportunities while addressing weaknesses and threats to achieve established goals.
3. Identify Your Competitive Advantage using Porter’s Five Forces
Identifying your competitive advantage is essential to stand out in an increasingly competitive market, and this distinction will be particularly valuable when determining pricing strategies. Michael Porter, a renowned business strategy theorist, proposed the “Five Forces” as an analytical framework to understand competitive dynamics in an industry. These forces are:
Threat of New Entrants:
Evaluate how easy or difficult it is for new competitors to enter your market. If you can keep this threat low, you gain a competitive advantage.
Bargaining Power of Suppliers:
Analyze how much power suppliers have to dictate terms and prices. If you can negotiate favorably with suppliers, that can be a source of competitive advantage.
Bargaining Power of Customers:
Consider how much power customers have to influence prices and conditions. If you can keep your customers satisfied and loyal, you gain a competitive advantage.
Substitute Products:
Examine the threat of substitute products or services that could attract your customers. Offering something unique or hard to substitute will differentiate you from the competition.
Industry Rivalry:
Observe the intensity of competition in your industry. Developing strategies to outperform competitors effectively will give you a competitive advantage.
4. Identify Your Target Audience: Create a Buyer Persona
A buyer persona, also known as an ideal customer profile, is a detailed and fictional representation of the person that makes up your target audience. This tool is widely used in marketing and sales to gain deeper insights into your audience. Creating a buyer persona is based on demographics, behaviors, motivations, needs, and preferences of your existing or potential customers.
Some aspects to consider when defining your different ideal customer profiles include:
- Age.
- Gender.
- Type of employment.
- Concerns and worries.
- Potential obstacles when considering purchasing your product.
- Problems your product could solve.
- Geographical location.
- Daily routines.
- Needs, hobbies, and interests.
- Sources and channels used to search for information.
