Ecommerce Business Blueprint: How To Build, Launch And Grow A Profitable Online Store

by Richard Lazazzera Twitter  7 minute read 497 shares Facebook Twitter Linkedin
Ecommerce Business Blueprint: How To Build, Launch And Grow A Profitable Online Store
Starting an ecommerce business is hard work with many steps and decisions that need to come together at the right time. To help, we have put together a comprehensive resource list, compiled from Shopify's most popular blog posts. These posts have been placed into a logical order based on how you would research, build, launch and grow a profitable ecommerce business.

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Bonus Guide: Eager to make your first sale online? This comprehensive guide will teach you everything you need to know about getting that first sale for your business. Download your copy now.

Choosing a Product

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Finding A Product To Sell

The first step to building an ecommerce business is to know what products you want to sell. This is often the most challenging part of starting a new online business. In this section, we will highlight the strategies you can use to find product opportunities, explore the ten best places to look for product ideas, and finally, we will reveal ten trending products that we came up.

How To Find A Product To Sell Online: The Definitive Guide
8 Strategies for Finding Your First Product
10 Places To Look For Products To Sell Online
10 Interesting Product Ideas Trending Right Now
Evaluating Your Idea

Once you have a product idea in mind, how do you know if it’s a good idea or not? In this section, we will go through two exhaustive evaluations methods, evaluating both the product itself, as well as the market for your product choice.

How To Evaluate Market Demand For Your New Product Idea
How To Evaluate Product Viability
5 Strategies To Evaluate Your Product Idea
Obtaining Your Product

Having found your product idea and evaluating them in the previous section, you must now figure out where and how you’re going to obtain your products. The next two posts will cover the various methods for acquiring your products, along with the pros and cons of each model.

Make, Manufacture, Wholesale or Dropship: The Pros and Cons of Each Model
How To Find a Manufacturer or Supplier for Your Product Idea
Alibaba 101: How to Safely Source Products from the World's Biggest Supplier Directory
Research & Prepare

Research Your Competition

You’ve found your product, evaluated the potential and sourced your supplier. It’s time to write your business plan, but before you get into that, you'll need to research your competition thoroughly so you know exactly what you’re up against.

Tools To Research Your Competition
Writing Your Business Plan

With your competitive research complete, it's now the perfect time to write your business plan. A business plan will be your road map that helps bring your ideas and thoughts together. A business plan is vital so that you can determine how to best move forward and most effectively compete.

Why Your Ecommerce Store Needs a Business Plan (and How to Write One)
The Ultimate Guide To Business Plans
Registering Your Business

With a business plan in hand, now is a good time to consider your options for registering your business.

The Benefits & Costs of Incorporating Your Business
Setting Up Your Business

Naming Your Business

Aside from finding an actual product to sell online, another difficult decision is determining your business name and choosing an appropriate and available domain name. These blog posts will help you tackle these important tasks.

What You Need to Know About Ecommerce Trademarks
What Should I Name My Online Store?
5 Rules For Choosing A Memorable Domain Name
Creating A Logo

Once you have solidified your name and registered your domain, it’s time to craft a logo. In these posts, we will show you several options for creating a great logo for your new business.

How to Design an Online Store Logo
5 Easy to Use Online Logo Makers to Design Your Brand
Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You’re almost ready to begin building your online store. However, before you jump into it, you should understand the basics of search engine optimization so that you can optimize your site for Google and other search engines.

The Beginner's Guide To Keyword Research For Ecommerce
Ecommerce SEO Video Series
Building Your Store

With a better understanding of search engine optimization (SEO), it’s time to build out your store. There are many critical elements. Below we have included a list of our best blog posts to help you write captivating product descriptions, shoot beautiful product photography, and a list of some of the best tools to help you optimize those photos.

Write Product Descriptions that Sell
The Ultimate DIY Guide to Beautiful Product Photography
18 Free and Paid Online Photo Editor Tools for Gorgeous DIY Product Photography
40 Tools and Resources For Creating Beautiful DIY Product Photography
10 Must Know Image Optimization Tips
Don’t forget, if you run into any problems getting your store set up, you can always hire help from Shopify Experts.

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Email address
Password
Your store name
 Create your store
Preparing To Launch

As you prepare for the launch of your new business, there are several essential elements you need to prepare for. In this section, we have curated some of the most comprehensive posts on helping you determine your shipping strategy.

How to Choose a Shipping Strategy for Your Online Store
The Beginner's Guide to Ecommerce Shipping and Fulfillment
Furthermore, it’s a good idea to define your key performance indicators upfront so once you launch, you know what to measure of success to track.

32 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Ecommerce
Finally, before your launch, you’ll want to run your newly built storefront through the Shopify ecommerce store grader. This online application will show you errors on your site and SEO so that you can correct any issues before launch.

Store Grader
As a final checklist, this post covers the ten essential things you need to do before launch.

Countdown To Launching Your Ecommerce Business
Post Launch

First Customer

Now that you’ve launched, the hard work begins. Our 50 point guide to getting your first sale is a great start point and overview of a variety of marketing tactics that will help you in your first months.

50 Ways to Make Your First Sale
Marketing Your Store

You’re well on your way and now likely have some sales under your belt. It’s time to get serious and focused. The following posts will help you zero in on some top marketing tactics for driving traffic and converting that traffic to sales.

Email Marketing

How to Write An Effective Welcome Email
13 Amazing Abandoned Cart Emails (And What You Can Learn From Them)
Divide and Profit: How to Segment Your Mailing List for Better Engagement
How to Build an Email List that Builds Your Ecommerce Business
Driving Traffic

Why Every Ecommerce Business Needs a Blog (And 9 Ideas to Get You Started)
How to Land Your Business in the Press: 6 Tactics and 5 Tools
How to Build an Audience and Drive Sales With Persuasive Video Marketing
How To Build A Massive Following On Instagram
How to Use Polyvore to Drive Traffic and Sales for Your Online Store
6 Practical and Proven Ways to Drive Traffic to Your New Online Store
Optimizing Conversions

The Beginner's Guide to Simple A/B Testing
5 Ecommerce Pricing Experiments that Will Make You Want to Run an A/B Test Today
How to Generate Powerful Testimonials for Your Ecommerce Business
Using Analytics

Google Analytics for Ecommerce: A Beginner's Guide
Conclusion

Building your own ecommerce business is no easy task. From choosing a product, evaluating viability and sourcing, to building, launching and growing sales. There's a lot of puzzle pieces to put together. However, following this resource roundup should provide you with a clear roadmap to help you build a profitable ecommerce business.



About The Author

Richard Lazazzera is a an ecommerce entrepreneur and Content Strategist at Shopify. Get more from Richard on his ecommerce blog.

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