So you want to build an E-store? Congratulations! Getting into online sales can be a rewarding and profitable experience. This article will look at the pro’s and con’s of starting and maintaining your own online store. First, we’ll look at some popular misconceptions about online stores. Then in Part 2, we’ll look at the planning stages, and budget considerations for an online store. We’ll also see some of the day to day maintenance that an online store typically incurs.
Debunking the Myths of Online Stores
- Myth #1: “It’s easy”
- Starting an online business is no different than starting a typical brick and mortar business. It takes planning, investment, time, and a viable product line. This is true even if you already have a brick and mortar business. In fact, if you do already have a local business or franchise, you should consider an online store to be exactly the same as opening another business location.
- Myth #2: “It’s cheaper than opening a local store”
- Nope. Unless you are prepared to build your own site, and do all the maintenance on it, you will have the expenses of hiring a competent developer to do all the work on it. If you will be doing all the work on it yourself, you have to consider the value of your time, as well as your opportunity cost. Either way, there can be significant cost involved in going online.
- Myth #3: “You can just build it and leave it”
- Perhaps this one needs some explanation. Many people think that if they can just get a good site built for them, then it will keep making them money without any more maintenance, updates, or expenses. This doesn’t work any better online than it does at brick and mortar store. Any good businessperson knows that any store that’s not improving what it’s offering, updating product information, keeping their store clean, fixed up, and fresh, offering sales, and adding new product lines, will eventually die off. A business that’s not growing and improving is bound to fail.
- Myth #4: “If my site ranks high on major search engines, it will be successful”
- If only this were true! The reality is that search engines are a very small part of a successful site. Even if someone finds you via search engines, it doesn’t mean they will buy from you. Factors such as poor site design, difficulty finding a specific product, bad splleing, and lack of good information/pictures, all make your site look like that run-down gas station down the road (the one you would never go into!).
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“…and never discount the power of word of mouth, and small beginnings.”
You should also take into consideration that just because you have a good site, doesn’t mean it will rank high on the search engines. Every major search engines goes to great lengths to make sure that sites(even good sites) can’t manipulate their way into first place. Therefore, you must realize that your site will be competing against every other site in the world that is selling similar products. Your best marketing tactic, just like a local business, is to advertise in as many different ways as possible, and never discount the power of word of mouth, and small beginnings.
The point that I’m trying to drive home is that a website business is functionally identical to a brick and mortar store. The website itself is much like the building, and obviously a building does not a business make. A website is just the “container” for your business, and creating it without a solid business plan, or perhaps with unrealistic expectations, is a recipe for disaster. Good planning with some common sense is the best road to having a successful online business.