Ecommerce stores are outcompeting brick and mortar stores and becoming the new normal. As more and more people do their shopping online, the opportunities for people looking to purchase products online increases.

You can get in on the action and start making money in ecommerce. You don’t have to create the products you sell. You can sell other companies’ products the same way Wal-Mart sells other people’s products.

The idea of opening an ecommerce store can be intimidating if you are not a techie or a business person with some trading experience. Once you get the hang of it and learn the few things you need to know to succeed, you’ll realize that it is not that hard after all.

Creating an Ecommerce Site

There are solutions today that allow you to launch an ecommerce store and be up and running in a day or so without having to code anything.

Solutions such as Shopify, BigCommerce and Volusion offer ready-made software you can use to launch your eCommerce store. Shopify will also give you important tools and training to help you get started the right way.

Finding a Product

If you don’t have a product ready, you can find one locally or import some from China. Alibaba.com gives businesspeople from all over the world an opportunity to source products competitively from China and do so while bearing the least risk possible.

The product you choose to carry on your ecommerce store will make or break your business. Doing product research is very important.

You also need to research the price at which your competitors are selling the product. There are a lot of things that go into pricing. You might find a product selling on Alibaba for $5 while it is being sold by your competitors in the United States for $20. A novice businessperson may quickly jump on the product thinking that they can beat their competitors on price not knowing that there are various costs that could have pushed the competition to offer the product at four times the initial cost.

Some of the costs you need to factor in while pricing your product include:

• Transportation costs
• Import duty
• Marketing and promotion
• Shipping costs
• Operational costs (of running the store)
• Legal fees
• Storage and holding costs.

When buying a product for the first time, purchase it in small quantities so you gauge how it performs. If it performs well, make a bigger order and enter into an agreement with the supplier for frequent and expedited supplies.

Promoting the eCommerce Store

The fastest way to get traffic to your eCommerce store is to buy traffic. You can buy traffic on YouTube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, blogs or any website people frequent. The characteristics of the demographics you are targeting will determine the platforms you buy traffic from.

If you are selling fashion items, for instance, you will see better results if you run targeted ads on Instagram, Facebook and fashion blogs.