Running an eCommerce business is challenging. Many struggle with whether to have their own site or simply sell on Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Etsy or other platforms. While they may be your partners, they are also your strongest competitors.
Are you a brick and mortar business with no online store? You need one – yesterday! Each new study that comes out shows that ecommerce sales are growing. Even if your in-store sales are solid, why not capture a piece of the online market, too?
Don’t feel like reading? Check out the SlideShare or watch this video which covers the high points from this post:
Own Where You Sell
It is a huge risk to only sell on a platform you do not own or control. Yes, you could spread that risk by selling on more than one of them, but you still don’t own or control where you are selling.
You never know when the rules may change such as eBay banning drop-shipping. That link says Amazon, but I know someone who was reselling from Wal-mart who is getting eBay warnings. Don’t wait until you lose your ability to sell with little notice.
So even if you choose to sell on one or more of these, I strongly recommend having your own store on a domain you own. You really must control and own your own domain. (Even if we do not really “own” them.)
Do not risk the customer base you build by selling only on someone else’s site. And get started growing your own customer base that you can upsell and remarket to regularly.
Choose the Best eCommerce Platform
It is never too late to start your own eCommerce store. Do it even if you already have an Amazon or eBay or other store somewhere. Cut out that middle man and get started increasing your average order size and repeat sales today.
Choosing the right ecommerce platform is extremely important. It must be fast, reliable and easy to use. The checkout process needs to be secure and have minimum steps – ideally a 1-step checkout.
Make sure the search function works well even for multi-word searches. Navigation should make finding products simple. And your store must definitely be SEO-optimizable.
I personally know of a business whose traffic and sales doubled simply by switching ecommerce platforms. There is no one best for everyone. So do your research and choose wisely based on the number of products you wish to sell and upselling features you need.
You could start with the link above and the January 2019 industry research on the best ecommerce platform for small business: What 78 Industry Pros Think. When comparing prices, compare total price, as some charge for features separately and others as part of the base package.
Stick to the major companies. Don’t risk your business going with others as unreliable shopping carts are common and can cost you sales. That is especially important if you are spending money on advertising to drive traffic.
Most importantly, make sure your ecommerce site requires and enforces the use of strong passwords. The last thing you need is to lose money to fraud and hacked accounts.
Competing with Amazon Shipping
Do you know what the greatest risk to individual ecommerce stores is today? I believe it is the discounted shipping deal that Amazon has arranged with USPS, FedEx and UPS that no smaller ecommerce seller can match.
Some even claim that the USPS is subsidizing Amazon’s costs of shipping.
Amazon Prime customers can get their packages in 1-2 days for free. Amazon doesn’t have to pay a premium to get them there – they actually get a discount. And now they’ve even convinced the USPS to deliver on Sunday in some areas.
They are not even charging extra for Saturday and Sunday delivery. Can your business match that? Read on for what to do about it.
What small businesses including ecommerce sellers most need to happen is to better educate consumers. They need to understand how the power of their buying dollars affects their lives beyond obtaining products they need and want.
This has always been important, and today, small businesses need to proactively educate their buyers on the benefits of buying directly from small businesses – even though it takes a few days longer to receive their packages.
What can you share with customers?
- Benefits of buying from small businesses.
- Point out why they should not support bad corporate citizens.
- Talk about the better pay and treatment small business employees receive.
- Tell them how much you appreciate their business.
- Share with them about your business, employees, and possibly family.
Many people are not aware of the importance of choosing where to spend their money. Some are because of what they’ve read on social media or in blogs or seen in videos on YouTube or Facebook.
Promote Small eCommerce Similar to Buy Local
The “Buy Local” campaigns are getting the word out well. Various groups have produced infographics like the one below that provide visual proof of how where shoppers spend their money has a great impact on their local economies.
Where are the campaigns ensuring that people understand the importance of buying online from small businesses, too? I have not seen any similar type of information being spread online in any organized manner. We need some visuals like that for ecommerce.
On Twitter, small businesses are using hashtags and sharing photos and statistics to grow their share of the market:
- #buylocal
- #shoplocal
- #eatlocal
Facebook has groups dedicated to specific locations, especially for local farmer’s markets. There are many large ecommerce groups on Facebook and LinkedIn where this can be suggested.
Use the ideas in this post to get discussions started on how to best encourage widespread support for buying directly from small businesses.
American Express sponsors an annual Small Business Saturday that occurs between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Ecommerce businesses need to mount their own campaigns to increase awareness of the importance of supporting small business.
Spread Small Business and Customer Success Stories
Small businesses have an advantage: being small enough to care about individual customers. Learn to share your company’s and your customers’ success stories so that other potential buyers identify with them.
The #1 reason customers give for changing where they buy is that they didn’t think their current supplier cared. Make sure your customers know you care about them! See How to Make Customer Success the Heart of Your Small Business for ideas.
That can be as simple as a handwritten thank you note in every order. Or an inexpensive sample tucked in the box. Do not under-estimate the value of the little things that can set your small business apart.
Encourage shoppers to be patient enough to wait a couple extra days. What day they receive most products doesn’t matter much in the long run. Buying from individual small businesses can change the economy and environment for the better. And it is so easy to do.
You can do this collectively – through organizations – or individually using their sites, social media and email messaging. Just do it. Or someday, as in the days of buying with script and company stores, there may only be Amazon left.
Originally published 1/27/19. Updated and added video and SlideShare 4/12/19.
Gail Gardner
Small business ventures do have a very tough competition. I have recently switched my career into a start up business and was reading related blogs and article when I came across your read. It is a very detailed and comprehensive read and gives a clear idea of what things to accept and what to avoid while handling a small business.
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I’m planning to start a new online venture and this article helps me a lot to understand the initial risks associated with e-business. Thanks for sharing this informative piece of content.
Great read! Planning to start my online business this year! Thank you so much for sharing this informative post.
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hi, I think that selling international though can bring a lot of business but it is too tough and competitive to survive.
The ones who are just starting should try dropshipping or ecommerce locally and then proceed to expand gradually.
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Hello Sajid,
Yes, selling internationally is very complicated. The shipping costs can be high. Many items cannot be shipped to some countries, but can be to others. It is far better to start locally and expand nationally before even considering selling outside your own country.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Trigger these Emotions to Fantastically Boost Your Sales
Great thoughts,
A lot of useful information for those who just getting started.
Thank you for sharing these tips with us.
Wow,
Thanks for sharing these tips.
it came in the appropriate moment that I have been experiencing low turn out in my new open E-commerce Store.
But with these tips, I know my Business will rise and turn up…
Thanks for sharing once again!
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Great article…….
keep it up………..thanks for good information………….
i am following your point about small business
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Very impressive article..such great stuff…great to learn something new from e-commerce..thanks for being shared
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This an absolutely relevant blog for those who are going through a havoc in their ecommerce store/websites. Glad to have gotten the opportunity to read this.
Yes absolutely correct running a e commerce business is today is very challenging task for small business. Nice post very informative content keep it up !!!
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Even if your retail outlet is doing just fine, there’s a good chance that some of it will move online.
You might as well keep your customers when they move online, rather than ceding them to somebody else. The status quo is not an option.
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Hi David,
Thanks for making the time to comment. Yes, I see that common problem too often, especially when the economy is struggling. Local businesses say, “We have plenty of customers now”.
And I reply, “Yes, but when they eat out less often or have less disposable income because inflation is eating up more and more of their paycheck and if they get a raise at all, it doesn’t keep up, then you need MORE customers. ”
Don’t wait until the decline starts hurting and you can’t afford to do anything about it. Act to grow continually so that doesn’t happen to you.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Why Partnerships are the Ultimate Growth Hack
As the saying goes, if it wasn’t for the 11th hour, nothing would ever get done.
David Leonhardt would love you to read ..Proofreading saves lives! How a celebrity chef became a cannibal
I believe that if you start small and provide really unique customer service and personal touch, you can gain a share of the big market. Trying to compete with the big companies is not a good strategy, to begin with.
Hello Ivaylo,
Yes, even though small businesses cannot compete in some ways: often on shipping and sometimes on price due to not buying in volume, they CAN compete for customers in other ways.
Actually interacting and caring about your customers goes a long way to encouraging loyalty. Small businesses that do not want to do that are at a disadvantage and have to compete on price alone.
People have been heavily conditioned to care only about price. But more and more people care about much more than that. I used to pass several places I could have stopped on the way to the one whose owner or manager was friendlier and appreciated my business.
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I have been looking to Promote my Amazon and Flipkart store but unfortunately unable to find the right way or approach that helps to encourage traffic towards my Store.
Hi Ashish,
How you promote on each platform can vary. Try reading the posts you’ll find here on how to promote on Amazon.
Use the information you’ll find here for how to promote Flipkart stores.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Flipboard is the Future of Content Marketing and PR – AMA with Janette Speyer
Great post, lot of useful information for those getting started
Cheers
Hello Les Michels,
Did you see my recent post on Featured Snippets? If you join the BizSugar Mastermind Community you can see all Ann Smarty’s answers and also interact with small businesses who would be your target audience.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Ann Smarty Answers About Link Building and Featured Snippets
I think everything we do have some risk in it. all we need in SEO on my personal tough is consistent and fresh content. If we do it right you gotta see some result
Hello,
Yes, there is risk no matter what we do. Any site that ever links to any other site can be penalized by Google. Not having sufficient content on every product and category page on an ecommerce store can cause Google to take away your traffic.
SEO is complicated. I would love totally ignore it, but unfortunately, it seems almost essential to have to learn it if you have a website. Even if you never build links, what other people beyond your control do can affect your site.
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Due to modernization in the business world, E-commerce becomes the most important. This is helping businesses to access the global market easily. At the same time, competition among businesses will also increase. Thanks for sharing an article related to E-Commerce.
Hi Babar,
Not all businesses choose to sell globally because it is more complicated. Shipping internationally can be expensive. Knowing the laws of other countries is tricky. Europe, especially, has new laws related to selling to their citizens.
For small, local businesses, having an online store helps them sell more to their local customers because they can look online and find out what you carry they haven’t noticed when inside your store.
It also helps them expand their market within a particular region or their own country. Deciding to sell globally is another thing, and should be carefully thought out first.
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competition in E commerce websites getting tougher and tougher almost 40 percent businessmen looking to develop thier websites to sell online
Yes, competition tends to increase over time and only rarely decreases as the largest players absorb any that start getting too competitive.
But it is still possible to make money. You may have to keep pivoting, though, to do it.
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As someone that has been struggling with e-commerce for sometime now, I find this article very helpful. Thank you so much for posting it!
Hi Col,
‘
Remember that there are a ton of resources available online including videos on YouTube. They may be able to help you figure out how to generate from income from your e-commerce offerings.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Why Partnerships are the Ultimate Growth Hack
Your predictions are simply futuristic. I am following Your point about small business. I want to start an online e-book store.
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Hi Rupak,
Do lots of research so you know exactly what you want to offer and how. You could start with this search: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+to+start+an+online+ebook+store&t=canonical&atb=v1-1&ia=web
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Thanks for compiling this one for more, this is very useful and helpful for us.
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Hi Saheem,
You’re welcome. There are some etailers who are very good at teaching how to increase your ecommerce income. This is a good place to start:
Yahoo Stores Expert Rob Snell $10,354,767 Sales Increase
Why eCommerce Sales Decline and Fluctuate
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Thank you for sharing this piece of writing really got knowledge about e-commerce competitive
Loved reading your blog posts. This article was surely worth reading.
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Assuredly interesting blog..!
The best part of the blog is content.
Content is really poignant and will lead readers to look more into it and along with the content, ideas you have contingent on is really mind-blowing.
Even I came up with an idea of starting E-commerce business soon after reading your blog.
Will be looking for more exorbitant forthcoming blogs.
Keep going.
Thumbs up for you.
You have such a good point with Amazon’s shipping deal.
If they are here in 2019, where are amazon going to be in 2030… Scary times!
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Hi Nick,
Yes, I suspect most have no idea just how deep a discount they were given. I know someone who has been with the USPS for decades and when he told me I was shocked!
Amazon is the Walmart of the internet! Yes, you can sell on their platform, but if you rely on it one day they can just take all your customers away in the blink of an eye.
While it is easy to just build your business on the shifting sand of any platform, whether that is Amazon, eBay, Facebook or wherever, they can and do change the rules with no notice.
Look at what happened to people who spent money to grow Facebook following – and now those followers never see what they share unless they pay to promote!
And the eBay sellers who just found out eBay hates drop-shippers. They hated them, then they loved them, now they’re being tossed out.
What we really need to do is get buyers to understand they control what happens with where they spend their money. They can reverse the damage done by Walmart and get small businesses flourishing both locally and online again.
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As I am new to business and learning is going on. This post boosts a bit of my knowledge. Thanks for sharing and keep sharing.
Good post, as per my view the main struggle for small size business owner is maintaining stock, catalog designing, promotion
Hi Vishal,
All businesses have many challenges. The cost and technical challlenges of maintaining stock is one of them. Many don’t have print catalogs anymore, instead relying on online product categories and pages.
Promotion and getting actual buyers is where most have the greatest struggle.
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I agree as e-commerce companies are taking up the market it quite difficult for the local shops and vendor. Thanks for sharing the information with us.
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Hi David,
Local shops have to try harder to keep in touch with their customers and make sure they know they’re appreciated. Otherwise, they’ll use an app and simply buy wherever the price is lowest.
But local shops don’t have to ship to their local buyers, so they have that advantage. Shipping can be expensive, especially on large, heavy or fragile items.
As online sellers increasingly are adding sales tax now, they won’t have the benefit of buyers not seeing those costs when they make a purchase.
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Thanks for your good information good work keep it up
In my opinion the best option is start with a own store AND marketplace sales, is almost impossible sell without have credibility and good reviews, so is very important sell at marketplaces. In fact, you need to do it in way that promote your own store, where you will have better margins.
Hi Fernando,
Yes, I agree with you. It is best to have both your own store and to also sell at least some of your products on marketplaces. If you name your store wisely and do it right, you can end up with direct customers who don’t buy through the marketplace forever.
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