E-commerce has been around since 1971, long before the dawn of the consumer internet. Since the 90’s, however, thousands of businesses have set up online stores, with many growing to be retail mega-giants. Notably among these is Amazon, which is already commanding a staggering 37% market share according to Sellbrite.
But despite its dominance online, e-commerce is still at its infancy stage globally. Last year, retail e-commerce hit only an estimated 10.1% of global retail sales. This translates to $2.290 trillion and is projected to reach $4,479 trillion by 2021. The exponential growth coupled with the relatively low market share indicates that there is still a massive opportunity for new e-commerce businesses to be more profitable than traditional bricks-and-mortar stores.
While there is a vast potential for success in running a home-based online business, jumping into the online selling world by buying a starter store takes more than just bidding for a sleek e-commerce website, setting it up, waiting for it to be flooded with shoppers and hoping that somehow the e-commerce store will turn out to be a huge success. Buying an online business is similar to buying a physical outlet; it takes a lot of researching the market potential, understanding the daily running of the business and assessing costs.
If you are looking to buy a starter e-store, these are the pitfalls to avoid
- Product/Web-store obsession
It is common for business owners, both online and offline to obsess over the products on offer and the aesthetical aspect of the business. This is especially true if your e-commerce store is targeting a local market. For example, if you are planning on running a hunting e-commerce store and are looking for businesses for sale in Michigan, you need to keep in mind the types of products that hunters use in the area in comparison to other areas where people hunt.
Even though it is only natural to be passionate about the products you are selling and your desire to offer the best quality to your clients, it is best you don’t get caught up in them. Once you identify a web store that you’d like to purchase, it is crucial that you focus much of your efforts on understanding the website functions and features, ensuring the UX design is flawless, and checking that the plug-ins work efficiently.
- Overstaffing
E-commerce stores have incredibly low overhead. You can efficiently run it by yourself, especially if you are drop shipping. If you are looking to buy an e-commerce store that keeps an inventory and ship to customers from home or warehouse, then you may need to hire personnel. Even so, you don’t need cashiers, cleaners, store clerks, security and customer care assistants. You can get away with the bare minimum by automating some task using plug-ins and other apps. Understanding how you can cut down on daily business operations without affecting business flow will help you avoid expensive costs.
- Lack of Outsourcing
One big problem e-commerce owners make is trying to be an expert in all aspects of the online business. You, of course, have the personal drive and passion for your business and may even have necessary expertise like Facebook ad targeting, but you honestly can’t know it all. Fortunately, you can outsource expertise online like SEO, graphic design, accounting or programming and end up saving time and costs so you can focus on scaling the business. If you try to take it all on, it may not come out how you want it to, and the e-commerce store will be a failure.
- Website maintenance
E-commerce sites, just like bricks-and-mortar business need care, upgrades and constant polishing. Don’t make the mistake of buying a beautiful and functioning online store and expecting it to work just as efficiently months later. Technology is continually changing, and so are the expectations and demands from customers. How easy is it to update plug-ins, alter code and design of the website and are all check out add-ons installed efficiently? Paying attention to the website and regularly updating plug-ins will ensure that your site offers your customers the best shopping experience always.
Running a successful e-commerce store today requires a great deal of focus. Nonetheless, there are enormous profits for entrepreneurs who efficiently meet the market demands and keep up with the fast-paced changing digital world by buying an already established store and making it as profitable as possible.
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