Ecommerce Websites –
What is an Ecommerce Business?
Ecommerce business is a business model where the buying and selling of goods or services is done over the internet. Ecommerce business’s will digitally transfer money and data to execute these online transactions.
With retail ecommerce sales worldwide reaching nearly $5 trillion in 2021, it’s never been a better time to start an online business.
If you’re a skilled entrepreneur or craftsperson, you’ve probably dreamed of starting your own ecommerce store and building a business that gives you a sense of achievement and freedom. You’ll learn each step in this guide.
We’ve put together a comprehensive blueprint for starting a business, compiled from Shopify’s most popular content. These blog posts, guides, and videos have been organized based on the most important tasks you’ll face when researching, launching, and growing a profitable e-commerce store.
Table of contents
- Learn how to start an ecommerce business
- Calculate ecommerce business start up costs
- Understand profitability, audience and product
- Find product opportunities and choose what to sell
- Thoroughly research your competition and write a business plan
- Choose a logo and name and set up your online store
- Choose your shipping strategy and set sales and marketing goals
- Launch your business
Ecommerce Websites : Outstanding Ways To Build A Long Lasting Ecommerce Business (Flaxx Recommendation) – 2023 Update
1. Find product opportunities and choose what to sell
The first step to building an e-commerce store is knowing what products you want to sell direct-to-consumer. This often is the most challenging part of starting a new online business. In this section, we’ll highlight strategies you can use to find product opportunities, explore the best places to look for product ideas, and finally, look at trending e-commerce products to consider.
Evaluating your idea
Once you have a product idea in mind, how do you know if it will sell? In this section, we’ll cover a few approaches that active entrepreneurs have used to validate their product ideas and potential market.
Product Research: The 15-Step Checklist for Finding Profitable, In-Demand Product Ideas

2. Thoroughly research your competition and write a business plan
Research your competition
You’ve found your product, evaluated its potential, and sourced a supplier. But before you get into that, you’ll need to thoroughly research your competition so you know what you’re up against and how you can differentiate your business from theirs.
- How to Conduct a Competitive Analysis for Your Business (Plus a Free Template)
- SWOT Analysis: A Simple Way to Find Your Competitive Edge (Plus a Free Template)
3. Choose a logo and name and set up your online store
Choose a business name
Aside from finding an actual product to sell online, another challenging decision is determining your business or brand name and choosing an appropriate and available domain name. These blog posts will help you tackle these important tasks.
Creating a logo
Once you’ve selected a memorable name and registered a corresponding domain, it’s time to craft a simple logo. In these resources, we’ll show you several options for creating a great logo for your new business.
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 you can properly structure your site and pages for Google and other search engines.
Building your store
With a better understanding of search engines, it’s time to build out your store using a website builder. There are many crucial elements to consider. Below, we’ve listed our essential reads to help you build high-converting product pages, write captivating product descriptions, shoot beautiful product photography, choose your ecommerce color palette, and much more.
Choosing your sales channels
One of the best ways to reach new customers is to choose sales channels where they already shop. The right mix of sales channels will depend on your products and your target market, but there are a number of great options that can complement and support your self-hosted store.
4. Choose your shipping strategy and set sales and marketing goals
As you get close to the launch of your new business, there are several shipping and fulfillment elements you need to prepare for. In this section, we’ve curated a few comprehensive guides on how to determine your shipping strategy.
It’s also a good idea to define your key performance indicators upfront so, once you launch, you know what measures of success to track.
5. Launch your business
Acquiring your first customer
Now that you’ve launched, the hard work of marketing your products begins. While many new store owners should consider selling their physical products in person, the rest of digital marketing relies on doing one thing well: driving targeted traffic. Next, we’ll share a variety of marketing tactics that will help you in your first months.
You’re well on your way now and likely have a few sales under your belt. It’s time to get serious and invest in marketing your store. The following posts will help you zero in on your top-performing ecommerce marketing tactics or expand into new ones for driving traffic and converting that traffic to sales.
EMAIL MARKETING ESSENTIALS
- Learn Email Marketing: Everything from List Building to Advanced Lifecycle Automation
- 7 Automated Email Campaigns That Win Customers and Keep Them Coming Back
- How to Write Engaging Welcome Emails (+ 12 Examples to Inspire Yours)
- What I Learned Analyzing 60 Days of Emails from a Fast-Growing Ecommerce Brand

DRIVING TRAFFIC FROM SOCIAL
- Go Beyond Likes and Follows: How to Create a Social Media Strategy That Sells
- How to Get More Followers on Instagram: 15 Reliable Ways to Grow Your Audience
- Pinterest Marketing 101: How to Successfully Promote Your Business on Pinterest
- How to Start a Successful YouTube Channel: 12 Steps
- Find The Best Fit: Your Beginner’s Guide to Influencer Marketing in 2021
DRIVING TRAFFIC AND CONVERSIONS FROM PAID ADS
- How to Advertise on Facebook: A No-Nonsense Facebook Ads Guide For Beginners
- The Google Ads Playbook: 13 Campaign Types And What to Expect From Them
- 17 Best Price Comparison Engines to Increase Ecommerce Sales
OPTIMIZING FOR HIGHER CONVERSIONS
- The Complete Guide to A/B Testing (Tips from Google, HubSpot, and Shopify)
- How to Find and Plug the Leaks in Your Conversion Funnels
- Drive More Ecommerce Sales with Live Chat Without Being Trapped at Your Desk
- 19 Growth and CRO Experts on Increasing Revenue Without Increasing Traffic
- 9 Ways to Earn Customer Trust When You Have Zero Sales
- The 39-Point Store Trust Checklist: How Trustworthy Is Your Online Store?
- Driving Traffic but No Sales? Here’s How to Diagnose and Improve Your Store
USING ANALYTICS TO UNCOVER INSIGHTS
- The Beginner’s Guide to Analyzing Shopify Reports and Analytics
- 5 Google Analytics Segments (and How to Use Them to Increase Revenue)
- 9 Google Analytics Custom Reports by the Experts (and How to Use Them)
- Facebook Custom Audiences 101: A Starter Guide for Ecommerce Businesses
How much does it cost to start an ecommerce
business?
An ecommerce business can be started for as little as $100, which is spent on a subscription and purchasing a theme for your store. Ecommerce companies cost less than brick-and-mortar stores because they don’t require the same amount of licenses and permits, and you don’t need to pay rent for a retail space.
If you operate as a dropshipping business, for example, it’ll likely cost less to start because you don’t need to pay for raw materials, inventory, or manual labor. You only pay for products after a customer purchases them. If you’re creating your own products by hand or working with manufacturers, you’ll need to pay for equipment, materials, and labor upfront.
Many ecommerce entrepreneurs start a business on a shoestring budget. To get a better idea of upfront costs, we surveyed 150 entrepreneurs and 300 small business owners in the US to find out.
According to our research, new ecommerce store owners can expect business costs to total up to $40,000 in the first year, which is paid back to the owner through profit margins.
Expense categories included:
- Product: raw materials, inventory, supplier, manufacturing, patents, etc.
- Operating: incorporation/legal fees, additional software, business insurance, accounting, etc.
- Online store: website/platform subscription, hosting/domain, contract developer/designer, etc.
- Shipping: packaging, labels, etc.
- Offline: stall/table fees, rent, gas, etc.
- Team/staff: salaries, benefits, perks, etc.
- Marketing: logo, branding, ads, printed materials, business cards, etc.
In the first year, business owners spent:
- 11% on operating costs
- 10.3% on marketing costs
- 9% on online costs
- 31.6% on product costs
- 8.7% on shipping costs
- 18.8% on team costs
- 10.5% on offline costs
Now, this doesn’t mean you will definitely spend $40,000 opening up your ecommerce store. The amount spent in the first year varied significantly, depending on industry and ecommerce business model, whether the business had employees, or if it was a full-time gig.
You also don’t need $40,000 in cash lying around to start an ecommerce business. While many entrepreneurs use their personal savings to fund their business, others could choose more than one funding source, they also used financial support from friends and family and personal loans .
Tips for starting an ecommerce store
Starting an ecommerce business is thrilling. Whether you’re starting your first or fifth one, keep the following tips in mind:
- Forget about year one profitability
- Know your target audience
- Sell an in-demand product
- Experiment with marketing and advertising
- Invest in outreach and link building
Conclusion
Building your own ecommerce business is as exciting as it is challenging. At a rapid pace you’ll learn a ton about choosing a product, evaluating its viability, figuring out how to get it produced, building an ecommerce website, and marketing and selling to new customers. The process can feel like you’re solving a head scratcher of a puzzle, but it’s rewarding all the same.
We hope following this resource roundup helps provide you with a clearer roadmap. As always, the best advice anyone can give is to just get started and to enjoy yourself along the way. I’ll love to hear from you in the comments, What are your views on this content?
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4 thoughts on “Ecommerce Websites : Outstanding Ways To Build A Long Lasting Ecommerce Business (Flaxx Recommendation) – 2023 Update”
For my thesis, I consulted a lot of information, read your article and it made me feel a lot better, benefited so much from it, thank you for your help. Thanks!
My Pleasure Andrew, You could also check out the rest of our articles, hoping you have a good read.
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