Get Started

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Get a head start with our help! Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán on Pexels.com

Getting Started in eCommerce

All the best resources from Commerce Journey in one place! Here are the essential webinars, podcast episodes, and articles that will help you get started in eCommerce quickly.

1. Getting Yourself Ready

  1. Begin with yourself. It's completely natural and appropriate to face a major new project with some anxiety. Listen to Brian and Cory talk about overcoming your fear of starting a new business. 🎙️
  2. Make Time and Choose Your Costs Wisely. Some costs are way too high! Get the flexibility and fulfillment you want from your eCommerce business — but not at the cost of your relationships and emotional health.
  3. Slay your dragons. Imagine your adversary as a mythical monster.🎙 ️Overcome fear and envision success by facing your biggest barriers and adversaries in a story where you can find what you need to prevail. 🐉
  4. Play to your strengths. Topher DeRosia busts the myths and explains the realities of eCommerce. (It's not about the technology. Focus on business fundamentals.)
  5. Take the first step. Look at the big picture, but begin at the beginning. It's simpler if you break your journey down to The Key Steps to Starting Your Store. 📺

Get the Commerce Journey Guide to Building an eCommerce Business Plan

How to Start an eCommerce Business in 10 Steps

2. Learning by Example

The Vida Bars was born out Ana's personal mission to create hair products that are free of harsh chemicals and have a minimal impact on the environment. It's a great story about a solopreneur winning at eCommerce through smart sales and marketing — and lots of hard, rewarding work!

3. Planning Your Strategy

  1. Arm yourself with knowledge. Fear of risk and the unknown will diminish as you gain knowledge and develop a plan. Research emerging trends in eCommerce to discover opportunities to leverage and risks to look out for. 📈📉
  2. Envision your success! Imagine the outcome you want and create a compelling vision of your future business.🎙️
  3. Create your roadmap. 🗺️ Map out the paths you can take to a winning eCommerce business with the Message, Audience, Product, and System Framework. 📺 Use MAPS to evaluate your business and build a roadmap for its future.
  4. Write a business plan. Check off these Ten Steps to Starting Your Store. 📺 (They're focused on developing a business plan.)
  5. Plan your grand strategy. Read “How to Plan an eCommerce Business.”

4. Get Down to the Details

  1. Get a business bank account and put your financial and legal house on a solid foundation.
  2. What should you sell? Read “How to Choose a Product to Sell” to decide how to focus your store. 📺
    1. Consider selling personalized products to a niche market. 📺
    2. Recurring revenue has huge value. Does your business model include memberships or subscriptions? Read eCommerce for Membership Sites and Why you should consider selling products through subscriptions.
  3. How should you sell?
    1. Is Dropshipping a good option for you?
    2. What if your business model is not commercial or for-profit? Read eCommerce for Non-Profits.

5. Building Your eCommerce Site

Choose your platform.

  1. WooCommerce or Spotify? 🛒 You have many options, but these two are the most popular and versatile. Use them to build a storefront customized for your needs.
    1. Essential extensions to build out your WooCommerce store.
    2. Learn about WooCommerce from CEO Paul Maiorana.
    3. Essential Apps to extend and customize Shopify.
  2. What makes a cost-effective site? Learn how to get the most out of your investment.
  3. What makes a good eCommerce web host? Hosting expert Kevin Ohashi explains how to find a good eCommerce host. 📺

Define — and protect — your brand.

How to…

Build and Launch Your Site

  1. How to Prepare for a Product Launch. 🎙️
  2. How to Optimize your WooCommerce site — make it fast! 📺

Get the Commerce Journey eCommerce Site Pre-Launch Checklist

Our two-part breakdown of the essential steps in building and launching a new storefront is a concise but deep primer on everything you need to get started in eCommerce.

eCommerce Website Launch Checklist Essentials
Optimizing and launching a new eCommerce website

6. Marketing Your Store and Products

  1. Omnichannel marketing can be the ideal online strategy for reaching and relating to your customers everywhere they can be found, on any device or channel.
  2. Writing Content for Your Store 📺 is the first step in online marketing.
  3. How can you sell products when you don't have an audience built up yet? Learn how to start from scratch in this podcast episode.🎙️
  4. Building Your Tribe — Your Customer Community. 🎙️ Find your customers, build your membership or subscriber base, and nurture your biggest fans.
  5. Support your customers' journey with a great online experience. 📺
  6. Social media marketing works! Learn how to create and buy ads on Facebook and Instagram. What makes an effective social media ad? Find out here.

Email Marketing

  1. Why you need a newsletter — Don't overlook this powerful marketing tool.
  2. Building Your Email List 📺 — Email marketing is one of the strongest ways to find and reach your customers.
  3. Learn how to make your store's default, transactional emails an effective marketing tool with our WooCommerce Clinic: 7 Ways to Make Your Transactional Emails Shine.
  4. Read our Introduction to Automated Email Marketing. 📺

7. Operating Your Store