Looking to start an online business? Then this e-commerce business plan is exactly what you need!
More and more people are interested in selling their products online, especially with the rise of social media and other digital platforms that allow you to showcase your products and services to millions of people across the globe.
With such a wide reach, e-commerce business is filled with opportunities, but to make it successful you should start with the foundation - creating an effective e-commerce business plan. A solid plan helps you make sure your business is sustainable and has potential for scaling in the future.
A good business plan also helps you stay focused on your goals, make informed decisions that lead to success, and help you adapt to the changes that are inevitable along the way.
But how can you create a proper e-commerce business plan yourself? I’ll walk you through some of the most important steps. And don't forget to download a free template at the end of this post so that you can put all these tips into action!
1
CREATE AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
An executive summary is like the introduction to your business. When you have a clear executive summary, you can make a clear and effective first impression because you know exactly what your business is about.
Start by clarifying your mission. Why did you decide to start a business in the first place?
For example, maybe you want to sell stylish activewear that’s also comfortable for women of different shapes and sizes. Or maybe you want to create eco-friendly beauty products that cater to a wide variety of skin types and skin tones.
Then, identify your vision or what you want to achieve in a few years or the long run.
For example, by selling eco-friendly beauty products for diverse women, you can help women around the world embrace their beauty and diversity while supporting the environment at the same time.
Defining your target audience is the foundation of a successful e-commerce business plan. To get as specific as possible, start by asking yourself these questions:
Who are they? Think beyond broad demographics like age, gender, or location. Dive deeper into their lifestyle, habits, and preferences. Are they busy professionals looking for time-saving solutions? Parents seeking safe and educational products for their kids? Or maybe health-conscious individuals looking for organic options?
What are their pain points? Identify the problems or challenges your audience faces that your product can solve. For example, if you’re selling sustainable fashion, your audience might be frustrated by the lack of stylish yet eco-friendly options.
What are their goals? Consider what your audience aspires to achieve. Do they want to save time, live healthier, or feel more confident? Understanding their goals can help you tailor your products and marketing to meet their desires.
Create buyer personas.
Once you’ve gathered data, create detailed buyer personas to represent your ideal customers. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional character based on your research that includes:
Name, age, and location
Occupation and income level
Interests and hobbies
Challenges and pain points
Buying motivations and decision-making factors
For example, if you’re selling skincare products, one of your buyer personas might be:
Sophia, 34, Marketing Manager
Lives in a metropolitan area
Struggles with sensitive skin due to stress and pollution
Seeks natural, fragrance-free skincare products
Values sustainability and cruelty-free certifications
Spends an average of $50 per month on skincare"
When you know your ideal customer, think about what products/services you can offer to them. Your product or service can make your customers' lives better by solving their specific problems, simplifying their daily routines, and delivering emotional benefits. Whether it’s saving time, boosting confidence, or providing peace of mind, your offering should create a positive transformation. Think about how it helps them achieve their goals or enhances their quality of life - whether through convenience, self-expression, or tangible results. Let's talk about it in details.
2
FIGURE OUT YOUR PRODUCT LINE OR SERVICES
Of course, you should also identify what you are selling. After all, this is what your business is about.
So try to describe your products and services and get as detailed as you can. Identify what makes them special compared to others and how they help your customers.
For example, if you want to start a jewelry store, you should figure out what sets your jewelry apart from the others on the internet. Maybe they’re handcrafted from sustainable materials or you create specific designs that no other business creates.
Additionally, you should also specify whether you’re working with suppliers or creating your own. This helps you understand the logistics and the process of creating your products, so it’s easier to price and market your offers.
If you’re offering services, you should be clear about the value you can provide for your clients. So if you want to offer consultation services, be specific about the information and help they’ll get through your consultations. Do you focus on mental health, leadership, or productivity advice? Do you specialize in working with corporate leaders, freelancers, students, or parents?
3
CONDUCT MARKET RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Before creating your products, you should also conduct your market research and analysis. Doing this helps you identify the actual needs that people have and what other businesses are doing to solve them. Then you can get an idea about how you can tailor your products and services to fill a gap in the market and become more valuable for people.
You can start by figuring out your ideal customer. Who are they? What are their key demographics, such as their gender, race, location, age, or career? What are their interests and needs?
Then try analyzing your competition. Identify the top businesses within your niche or find similar ones that align with your goals and offers. What makes them so irresistible to people? How are they presenting their products? How can you stand out from them?
With thousands of online businesses out there, you don’t have to analyze all of them. Just pick a few that are doing really well or ones that are similar to yours, observe their promotional materials, and read customer reviews. You can also pay attention to online trends to help you find and fill the gap for your audience.
4
BUSINESS MODEL AND REVENUE STREAMS
After figuring out your audience, competition, and products or services, you should also identify your business model and revenue streams. A business model identifies how your e-commerce business operates while your revenue streams are how you make money.
There are a lot of ways to sell and grow your business online, so pick one or two to start with.
For example, you could directly sell products on your website and use additional platforms like Etsy or Amazon. If it fits your business, you can also try a subscription box model and send curated products to your subscribers each month. Depending on your goals and your needs, you can decide on the best business model to adapt.
Having your own website is one of the best options as you have full control over design, functionality and your traffic. Check out our Wix E-commerce Websites here (hundreds of people are using them to sell their physical and digital items):
Aside from your business model, you should also try to think about your revenue streams. Having multiple ones can help sustain your business and provide you with additional income apart from your main products and services.
For example, aside from your consultation services, can you also sell educational resources for your clients, like worksheets, guides, or templates? Maybe aside from your consultation services on your website, you can also consider creating a YouTube channel and get monetized for posting your tips and sharing your expertise.
5
BUILD YOUR BRANDING
A business is nothing without good branding. Powerful branding can help you resonate with the right people, establish your expertise, and cultivate loyal customers. It involves so much more than visual aspects, such as logos, fonts, and colors. It also includes your messaging, how you present your business to people, and how they view your business.
You can start building your brand by going back to your mission, vision, and product offers. How can you represent and embody the values that make up your business?
For example, if you sell art supplies for kids, you can tailor your branding so it attracts your target audience and embodies your values of fun, creativity, and play. You can choose bold, vibrant colors, fun illustrations, and fonts to design your products and online store. Your messaging should also be light and playful, instead of being overly professional or using big words.
Define all the things that give your business its identity—both the visual and the non-visual aspects. Then make sure they’re all cohesive and empower your image as a business. You can think about things like:
Fonts, color themes, logo, and product design
Messaging tone and style
Your business slogan or tagline
How you package your products
The story behind your business
Your target audience
The best way to brand your business for success is to use our premade Branding Kits that you can find here:
6
MARKETING STRATEGY
It doesn’t matter how great or life-changing your product or service is. People won’t buy and your business won’t grow if no one knows about them. An effective marketing strategy can help you introduce your brand to the world and offer your products to a wider, global audience.
You can start creating your marketing strategy by identifying your goals and target audience. You can’t create an effective marketing strategy without one or the other. For one thing, it’s because your audience shapes your goals. So you should always aim for something that aligns with your customers’ needs, preferences, and behaviors. For example, if your audience relies on social media to look for products, your goal could be to increase your instagram engagement.
Once you’ve identified your goals, your understanding of your target audience can guide you on how to achieve them.
For example, if your goal is to increase engagement on social media, you can learn more about your audience’s preferred social media platform, the type of content they resonate with the most, and at what specific times are they online.
Most importantly, knowing your target audience allows you to tailor your strategies based on their needs. That way, your marketing plan can be more specific, enticing, and effective. So if your goal is to increase engagement and you know your audience needs help with parenting, your marketing strategy can involve content that helps your audience answer their parenting questions and concerns. Maybe you can host Q&A livestreams where you can offer your expertise, post Reels or TikToks about parenting struggles and how you overcame them, or create a resource that gives them easy-to-follow tips.
7
CREATE A FINANCIAL PLAN
Your finances are one of the most important aspects of your business. It’s something that you should never neglect, especially as a business owner. That’s why planning out your finances is an essential step in creating an e-commerce business plan. It’s all about understanding the costs of running your store and figuring out how to make a profit.
Start by listing down your startup costs. This could include things like your website fees, inventory, marketing expenses, or shipping supplies. You should also estimate your monthly expenses, such as your subscriptions or advertising budget. You can keep these details in a spreadsheet or use apps like Quickbooks.
Next, you can try to forecast your revenue. How much do you expect to sell each month? Try to be as realistic as possible and consider factors that affect your sales, such as inflation, seasonal holidays (e.g. Christmas), and your pricing.
Finally, figure out whether your sales can cover the cost of maintaining your business. If the numbers don’t add up, don’t worry. You can always adjust your strategy or expenses to make it work. With a clear financial plan, you can be realistic about your budget, pricing, and your expectations for your e-commerce business.
8
SET GOALS AND METRICS FOR SUCCESS
A plan should always have a clear goal. And when it comes to your e-commerce business, setting clear goals can help you stay on track, measure your progress, and help you understand how to move forward.
You can set big-picture goals, like reaching $10, 000 sales within your first year. But it’s also important to set smaller milestones that give you a sense of fulfillment and progress when you’ve accomplished it. For example, you can aim to gain 500 followers within 6 months on Instagram or grow your email list to 300 subscribers.
Whatever your goal is, make sure it’s specific and measurable. Otherwise, it’ll be hard to track your progress and see whether you’ve achieved it or not. For example, instead of setting a goal to “boost sales and grow my business through social media marketing,” you can specify it to be “increase monthly website sales by 20% within the next 3 months by launching a new Instagram ad campaign and offering a 10% discount code to new customers."
Clear and specific goals make it easier to move forward because you exactly what you’re aiming for and how you plan on achieving it.
In order to track your progress though, you can take advantage of digital tools to help you analyze key metrics. If you have a business account, most platforms allow you to track and measure things like your website traffic, click-through rates, conversion rates, likes and comments, etc. And depending on your goal, you can identify which aspect of your analytics to focus on.
Monitoring your analytics regularly can help you understand what’s working and what’s not in your business plan, so you’ll know what to tweak and what to maintain.
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Download this free E-commerce Business plan for Canva:
I hope you liked this blog post, and let me know if you have any questions!
Are you ready to bring your business to the next level? Get a full rebranding of your business with our premade Branding Kits that includes everything from logos and business cards to flyers, brochures, ebooks, webinar slides and so much more!
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