E-commerce is becoming increasingly popular among the ever-changing forms of business. This type of business opens up new, previously inaccessible opportunities. If you want to open your own online store, you need to understand what will bring the most profit and what – will be unprofitable. This article is devoted to these questions.

For example, the world’s largest online store is www.amazone.com Its owner – Jeff Bezos. His business did not develop easily and quickly. In Jeff’s memoirs, much is said about the failures, in particular, about the refusals received from investors. The millionaire says that if he had saved a quarter after every such failure, the first million would have appeared in his account much earlier. Once a young man desperately needed $300,000 to develop his business. He received it from his father, and that amount has risen to several billion dollars in Amazon’s annual turnover.

What are the benefits of trading in virtual space?

At first glance, you can buy and sell absolutely everything online. However, there are certain categories of goods that are almost certain to be successfully traded. These are a variety of computers, household appliances, mobile devices, toys, books as well as tea, coffee, and perfumes. The fact is that the Internet trade does not know the geographical limits: the seller and the buyer can live on different continents, but this does not prevent mutually beneficial cooperation, if, ordering goods, the customer knows in advance what to get. For example, the phone of a certain model looks exactly the same anywhere in the world.

Which product is unsuitable for sale in the network?

Experts believe that electronic trading in products is unprofitable. Large department stores, which are very large, often remain at a loss. This is due to two factors. First, to buy food on the Internet you need an incredibly fast interface, and there are no such yet. Secondly, having delivered to the client a minimum order, for example, a loaf of bread and a pack of oil, the seller will be in loss, because courier delivery will cost more than the goods themselves. It is difficult to sell clothes. Finally, it’s possible to estimate shipping table rates here.

Few people dare to order a thing, focusing only on the photo. There is a high probability of disappointment after the first fitting. Part of the proceeds from a detailed description of the product, but it is not so easy to make it.

How to open your online store?

The minimum requirements – the availability of access to the global network and web resource, where your online store will be arranged. To register the domain name of the site you will need a few minutes, the fee for the service – $ 20 per month.

If you plan to rent a place on someone else’s server, hosting will cost $ 15-20 per month. As for the program for an eCommerce store, you can create it yourself or rent a standard e-shop from computer companies. Such rent costs from 50 to 150 dollars a month. The rental company usually provides consulting, template design, necessary software, and traffic. The original web design will cost at least $100 per month. Often, even modest online stores are willing to pay and 1000 dollars for the stylish and functional design of its web resource, because it depends on the effectiveness of sales.

Suppliers of products are looking for as well as in the field of offline commerce: thanks to personal connections and agreements. As far as the purchase of goods is concerned, it is very different. As a rule, the online store collects the right number of customer requests and then takes away the goods from the supplier. Certain advantages, of course, are: you do not have to rent storage space. But there are also disadvantages: in order to trade at low prices and not to lose the range of products, you need to have a large number of distributors, proven schemes and established relationships.

In due course, all this will appear, but at the initial stage, there will be great difficulties with guarantees of full execution of the order. It means that for a quick profit it is necessary to create your own stock of goods. This is available if the electronic trade is based on the base of the offline company, which is firmly on its feet. If your budget is a limited and substantial investment is not possible, start by contacting one supplier. You may have to work on a prepayment basis. But e-commerce minimizes overhead costs and allows you to pay attention to each client.

Finding a reliable courier isn’t easy. It should be a responsible person who is not afraid to trust the goods and money. The main requirements to it – decency and punctuality. Network firms take the checked up employees, constantly are engaged in their training, resort to a system of fines and awards, supervise their work, selectively calling up clients. For small online stores suitable options of hiring friends or relatives. As an option – sending by mail, but the time is quite large. You can also use the services of specialized courier services, but seriously increase the cost of delivery.

Ways to promote the online store without advertising.

It is impossible to promote without advertising. Some online stores prefer offline advertising campaign, others find it very expensive. Some online stores prefer offline advertising campaign, others find it unpromising. If you look at the experience of large e-commerce outlets, the opinions of the owners will be very different. For example, the Russian bookstore “Ozone” has become known due to the stretch slogan placed on Tverskaya Street (Moscow), but the stores of the holding “eHouse” prefer to advertise themselves in virtual space.

Owners of small online stores often resort to advertising with the help of spam, but professional marketers are confident in the low efficiency of such a campaign. Experts believe that targeted advertising – more productive, at the same time, it is very time-consuming. High efficiency can be obtained by raising the web resource in search engine rankings. This provides high traffic to the site and, accordingly, an increase in sales. To improve the positions used to place links to your online store on third-party resources. You can also buy traffic: for 200-250 dollars a month you get 1000 visitors to your site and go up in the top twenty ratings. It is also important to know how correctly composed the semantic core of the resource. A set of well-selected keywords will cost $100, and an order for an artificial conclusion in the first twenty sites in search engines will cost 250-300 dollars.

Information base

Attendance resource – not an end in itself, and the means of sales, so you need to focus on how to keep visitors, to gather a wide information base to win loyalty to your resource. According to statistics, 80% of profits are provided by 20% of regular customers. For example, if in an online bookstore one of the buyers bought a work of modern author, it is possible to inform the client about the release of a new book in this series, tracing the path of the buyer and noting it in the database. Thus, the chances of its sale through your store are increased. And carefully considering the feedback and providing ample opportunities for communication, the buyer becomes loyal and, as a consequence, increases the chances of his return. To make an online store effective, successful and safe from the point of view of financial settlements, it is necessary to stick to the following rules of online trading:

To study the law on consumer protection and comply with it,
To provide maximum information to visitors,
Not to neglect promotions, to develop a discount system,
To entrust the delivery of valuable orders to a group of couriers,
To track the information about the owners of credit cards to protect their business from fraud,
In case of non-cash payment for the goods, ship the order after receiving money on the account
In case of courier delivery the money should be taken by the messenger, – In case of payment by plastic card the courier should bring the device for removal of slips with him/her,
Use the possibility of postage by cash on delivery.

Opening an online store has its difficulties and benefits. The application of the above practical rules will give its results and optimize the process.