What is ecommerce?

Ecommerce is the buying and selling of products or services online. When you start an ecommerce business, you open a virtual store where customers can browse products online, and have items shipped to their address.

Ecommerce offers many benefits to entrepreneurs, such as:

Lower costs: Running an online business doesn’t necessarily involve paying rent on an office, which significantly lowers overhead costs.
International potential: Your business isn’t limited to customers physically close to you.
Convenience for customers: Customers can buy products and services at their convenience, which increases potential for revenue.
Scalability: Expanding an ecommerce business is much easier than setting up new store locations.
Easy data collection: Online interactions allow you to obtain customer data and use it to give your target audience exactly what they need. This data also helps you manage inventory, segment your audience, and create effective digital marketing strategies.

How to start an ecommerce business

To launch an ecommerce store, follow these steps:

1. Choose your business model

Ecommerce stores run under different models. Some of your options are:

Direct-to-consumer (DTC): You sell products directly to customers.
Dropshipping: You work with a supplier to ship products, so you don’t need to carry inventory.
Retail arbitrage: You buy products from a physical store and sell them online at a markup.

2. Identify your target market

Identify your ideal buyer by:

Analyzing your competition’s target market
Reading customer reviews for similar products
Using forms and surveys to gather feedback from people who buy similar products

With the information you gather, create buyer personas or fictional profiles of your ideal customers. Your buyer personas will help you position your product and direct any future marketing efforts.

3. Set up your ecommerce store

Set up your online store by:

Building a website from scratch: Hire a professional or build a website yourself.
Using third-part ecommerce store: Platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce make it easy to start selling online. They also integrate with marketing automation platforms, CRMs, and payment apps.

4. Promote your store

Once your store is up and running, build a customer base with a few simple marketing campaigns as tests. Here are a few ways to spread the word about your store:

Write articles that educate people about your products. Use relevant keywords to rank high in search results.
Host social media giveaways and offer discounts and promo codes to attract your target audience.
Use sign-up forms on your website to grow your email lists. Send them newsletters and other promotional material.

A quality marketing automation platform can help you set up and manage email marketing strategies.

5. Monitor and adjust performance

The more products you sell, the more data you gather about your target audience. With this information, you can understand your customers better and adjust your strategies accordingly.

Use customer data to create personalized experiences for your audience, focus on particular marketing channels, and manage inventory.

4 tips for running a successful ecommerce store

Here are a few tips to help you build a solid ecommerce business:

1. Prioritize website functionality

Make sure your online store is easy to navigate, or potential customers may leave before placing an order.

Double-check the functionality of your product description pages, checkout experience, and payment methods to prevent customers from abandoning their carts.

2. Reward loyalty

Create loyalty programs for long-time customers to keep them engaged and coming back for more. For example, you can:

Develop a points-based system: Allow your customers to earn points for every purchase they make, which they can redeem for discounts or free products.
Introduce tiered membership levels: Develop different levels based on the amounts your customers spend on your products and offer rewards like VIP discounts, faster shipping, or special perks.
Provide referral bonuses: Encourage your customers to refer their friends by offering points or discounts for every referred friend who makes a purchase.
Launch exclusive access perks: Offer rewards like early access to sales or VIP events as part of a loyalty program to encourage your customers to sign up for the program.

3. Offer shipping perks

Customers are more likely to buy products online when there are no shipping costs. But, offering free shipping to everyone can be costly. You can reduce expenses by:

Setting a minimum order value that should be met to qualify for free shipping.
Adding conditions like subscribing to your newsletter or joining your loyalty program to be eligible for free shipping.
Limiting free shipping to only select items to clear out stock while keeping customers happy

4. Cross-sell and upsell products

Cross-selling promotes similar products based on what your customers have ordered. For example, if someone ordered earrings from your online jewelry store, you can recommend complementary necklaces in a future email campaign to that segment of customers.

Upselling encourages customers to buy more expensive products or add-ons. For example, after a customer buys a certain dress, you may want to upsell them on a more expensive one to test their price tolerance.

Promote your ecommerce store with Klaviyo

As a powerful marketing automation platform, Klaviyo helps ecommerce brands of all sizes promote their stores with:

Forms: Obtain explicit consent from your target audience to send them messages promoting your online store.
Audience segmentation: Segment your audience based on website interactions and shopping behavior to create personalized messaging for each customer segment.
Templates: Choose from 100+ customizable templates to simplify creating newsletters, review requests, and welcome series.
Flows: Customize triggers to create flows for cart abandonment, cross-selling and upselling, winning customers back, and more. Build cross-channel experiences through email, SMS, and push notifications.
Campaigns: Send one-time messages to your audience to promote new products and deliver important announcements.
Klaviyo AI: Use Klaviyo AI to write messages and estimate next order dates, customer spending potential, and average time between orders to make smart decisions and drive growth.
Reporting: Understand how well your owned marketing strategies are performing based on granular metrics, and adjust your approach based on results.

Klaviyo integrates with 350+ tools and platforms, including Shopify, WooCommerce, and Wix.