Ecommerce has provided the opportunity for entrepreneurs to begin selling goods with a lower cost of entry. You no longer have to front the money for a storefront so you might be excited at the idea of selling your goods online.
Additionally, with technology that enables you to set up an ecommerce website in minutes with no prior experience, online sales can become a great side gig. What is an ecommerce website, exactly? It is an online space where consumers digital trade and transfer money and data in exchange for physical goods.
Deciding what to sell and how many options to provide is an important first step in defining our ecommerce strategy. If you’re in the earliest phases of planning out your business, here are a few ways to break into ecommerce.
Artwork or DIY projects
Finding the right audience for each piece of artwork you create is no easy task. You can find beauty in such a variety of settings and places that pairing those pieces with a buyer in store with only foot traffic is a challenge.
Ecommerce is a great place to market your artwork and DIY projects. You can reach the perfect audience to match your goods with a buyer. Additionally, by selling your art through your own ecommerce website, you cut out the middle man and the fees associated with using a middle man.
A key aspect of selling your artwork and DIY projects online is to have stunning product photography. Consumers need to know what they are buying so your photography should be crisp, clean and detailed.
It’s important to have the right setup for product photography, but that doesn’t mean you need to go out and buy tons of equipment or hire a professional photographer. Today’s smartphones include sophisticated cameras and you can set up a studio in a small corner of your home.
Your artwork has many intricacies and beauty to it, so be sure to capture all of that. Take multiple photos of your product if that helps you display it better and then write clear descriptions of your artwork, so people know what they’re buying.
Leveraging drop shipping
Drop shipping allows you to open an ecommerce business without raising capital to purchase inventory. Essentially, drop shipping allows you to partner with a warehouse company that stocks the products you sell. Then, when you make a sale, the warehouse ships the item directly to the consumer without you ever handling it.
Your role is essentially to focus on customer acquisition and marketing. To ensure the best chances for success, your ecommerce website must be clean, easy to navigate and secure for receiving online payments. In a drop shipping situation, your branding and the customer experience take center stage as you focus less on designing and manufacturing a product and more on getting that product in front of consumers.
Before deciding to open an ecommerce website that depends on drop shipping, be sure you know the competitive landscape. This means taking a good look at who else sells your product and how good they are at doing so. Because you’re really an internet marketing company you need to have something that differentiates how you sell that product over your competitors to be successful.
Another key aspect of opening a drop shipping ecommerce website is to create a strong relationship with a supplier. This means you fully trust that the supplier will fulfill its responsibilities to your customers in a timely and efficient manner.
Selling T-shirt and clothing designs online
T-shirts with catchy phrases and funny sayings have become a great way to make a living through ecommerce. The same is true for other articles of clothing and you don’t necessarily have to make the clothing.
If you’re a graphic designer that can make stunning artwork that gets screen printed or embroidered on apparel or you’re really creative with catchy phrases and sayings, an online clothing business could be great for you. The neat part about an ecommerce business like this is, you can use your designs on more than just clothes. Coffee mugs, mouse pads, book bags and other household items can become your canvas.
The steps to creating a T-shirt and apparel business are pretty straightforward. You just need to create a design, get insights from your audience, choose the apparel to print it on, find a good printer or purchase the equipment yourself and begin marketing your new company.
The T-shirt business is highly competitive. Your apparel needs to be high quality and the artwork must be creative to compete. Your ecommerce website needs to make it easy to select a shirt size, color, etc. so be sure you chose the right technology to support your business.
Sell vintage goods
If you have an eye for true treasures at yard sales and flea markets, selling vintage goods online might be perfect for you. Finding those special items among a heap of junk can be a fun hobby, but you can monetize it by reselling the goods using an ecommerce website.
It can be a fun side hustle or even your main job if know where to find hidden gems. The key to selling vintage items is knowing what you’re looking at. You should be able to describe approximately what year the item is from, what it does and why it’s significant. This will greatly help your sales.
When selling vintage items, you’ll spend a great deal of time working on listing each item for sale since your inventory will be just one. It’s especially important that you have a turnkey solution for your ecommerce website when choosing to go this route.
Design, create and manufacture an invention
This option is probably the most difficult from the list. If you recognize a consumer need or gap in the marketplace, you can design and manufacture your own product.
Plenty of entrepreneurs have started a company with nothing more than an idea and a website to sell it. If the product is good enough and unique, it can take off and become your main source of income.No matter what you decide to sell, ecommerce is a great way to start a business and spread the word about your product offerings. So, gather up your photos and marketing collateral and start your ecommerce website.
