Bill Gates once said, “If your business isn’t on the internet, it will go out of business.”
The ecommerce industry is bringing the next wave of change to the Indian economy, and if you’ve been thinking about taking a step into its world of endless profits, the time is right to start your own ecommerce business in India.
Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal all proved that online shopping is the way of the future. And the only reason they got as big as they did was because they saw the huge potential of the ecommerce market and tried it out.
Binny and Sachin Bansal, who started Flipkart, once said, “We weren’t thinking about numbers back then, but we knew that e-commerce could lead to something big.”
Are you still not sure? Let’s look at the facts to make our case stronger.
The Economic Survey of 2017-2018 said that the ecommerce market in India was worth $33 billion. This is an increase of 19.1% since 2016-2017.
The Nasscom Strategic Review of 2018 said that the ecommerce market was worth $33 billion in 2017-2018 and had grown to $38.5 billion in the financial year 2018-2019, which is a good growth rate of about 17%, according to The Business Standard.
These numbers should give you the confidence you need to start your own online business in India. Don’t give up, and who knows? You might be able to make the next “Alibaba.”
In the end, Jack Ma says that all you need to start a successful e-commerce business is a great vision. “My goal was to start my own online business. In 1999, I had 18 people over to my apartment and talked to them about my vision for two hours. Everyone put money on the table, which gave us the $60,000 we needed to start Alibaba. “I wanted a worldwide business, so I chose a worldwide name,” he said.
So, how about it? Here is a step-by-step guide on how to start your own ecommerce business in India.
Step 1: Decide On The Perfect Business Plan And Model
The first thing you need to do is spend a lot of time thinking about the best ecommerce business plan and ecommerce business model.
“E-commerce is not an industry; it’s a strategy,” says Tobias Lutke.
You can choose between two different ways to run a successful business. You can choose either a single vendor or a store with more than one vendor.
To do this, you can choose a single product line or multiple product lines, depending on how much money you have set aside for your ecommerce business.
Single-Vendor Marketplace
This type of e-commerce business model is good because it only involves two people: a single seller who sells their product to multiple customers. To this end, it is easier to keep track of the transactions between the two entities, administrative costs are lower when you only have to pay one supplier, and you have more control over the inventory on hand.
Multi-Vendor Marketplace
This kind of model calls for a lot of different sellers to sell their goods to a lot of different customers. All of the sellers must be registered on your site.
If you use this kind of ecommerce business model, you are more likely to make a sale. For example, if one of your suppliers can’t sell his or her products for some reason, you have other suppliers to fall back on. This not only helps you deal with changes in demand, but it also keeps the supply process from getting messed up.
It’s important to note that you can also choose to sell a unique product yourself through your own online business or a similar platform, or you can let other sellers sell their products on your store.
In the first case, you could make a lot of money. In the second, you will get a commission every time a sale is made by a seller who is registered with your brand.
Step 2: Brand Your Brand
Once you’ve decided which business model you want to use to build your ecommerce business and have narrowed down the product or products you want to sell and the people you want to sell to, the next step is to come up with the perfect name for your brand.
You might be wondering, “What’s in a name?”
Tim Ferriss has the answer: “Personal branding is about managing your name in a world of misinformation, disinformation, and semi-permanent Google records, even if you don’t own a business.” Getting married? Your “blind” date probably looked up your name on Google. Going to an interview for a job? Ditto.”
The name of your brand should be:
It’s short and easy to remember.
In line with your brand
Unique and usually not used in another language to mean something else
Along with this, you should also decide on a final logo design for your business.
After you choose a name and logo for your brand, the next step is to set up your business. Most companies in India fall into one of four categories:
- Sole proprietorship (no limitation of liability)
- One-person business
- Limited liability partnership (LLP)
- Private limited company
Which type of formation you choose will depend on whether you want to run the business on your own or bring in more partners. This is important because if you choose a corporate or partnership structure, you will need a tax ID number and to file tax returns. This type of online business needs an Employer Identification Number (EIN) to open a business bank account so that taxes can be filed next year. EIN is a number that is used to identify your business.
If you choose to be a sole proprietor, on the other hand, you do not need a tax ID number. You can use the Social Security number that was given to you instead.
Step 3: Register Your Ecommerce Business
Now comes one of the most important parts of starting an ecommerce business in India: getting registered and taking care of all the legal paperwork.
Apply for a Director’s Identification Number (DIN). The DIN application form (DIN 3) can be downloaded from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs website. You can also apply for a DIN online. Just attach and upload the documents you need.
Make sure you have your Digital Signature Certificate and Permanent Account Number (PAN).
Once you have the DIN, you can go to the Registrar of Companies (ROC) to find out if the name you want for your company is already taken. This can also be done by looking for it on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs’ official website.
Within six months of getting confirmation on the name, you can form the proposed company. You can also pay a certain fee to keep the same name for your business.
Apply for the Goods and Service Tax (GST) certificate, Shops and Establishment Licence (needed for Payment Gateway Integration), and Professional Tax Certificate (PT).
Apply to open a Provident Fund (PF) with the respective Provident Fund Organization. Register with the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation for medical insurance for the employees. Finally, apply for the Certification of Company’s Incorporation, where your company will be officially registered under the Company’s Act, 2013.
Step 4: Opening A Bank Account
You will need to open a bank account for your business once it is officially registered under the Act. Any bank can open the account, but it has to be done in the official name of the business.
If you want to run your online business as a sole proprietorship, you need to register for GST. Once you do that, you can open a bank account in the name of your online business.
In this case, once your bank account is ready, you can list the products you will sell on your ecommerce website to get and then run a payment gateway.
Step 5: Build Your Ecommerce Website
You could set up your website on a platform that was already made, or you could start from scratch. Both have their own advantages, but that most people choose to start from scratch because once creating a website.
Using a pre-built platform
When you use a platform that’s already been made, like WordPress or Wix, you get ready-made templates that are made for the kind of online business you want to run.
For example, if your online business is about fashion, the template will be colourful and have room for a lot of visual content, as well as a page where shipping orders can be placed.
You won’t have to spend time and money making this website from scratch. Instead, you can just add all the information to a ready-made template and change it to fit the design you had in mind.
Making a website from scratch
However, many often vouch for the custom-made platform option, since you can visualise and design your whole website – exactly the way you’d imagined it in your mind.
Some of the most popular ways to make websites for an ecommerce business are with WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify, Zepo, and KartRocket.
Now, you need to keep in mind that your website is the face of your whole online business and the visual representation of your brand. So, no detail is too small. Everything, from the colour to the font to the images, should tell a small part of your brand’s story.
Step 6: Payment Gateways
For your online business to make money, you need to set up payment gateways. This will let you accept credit cards, debit cards, net banking, and cash cards through your ecommerce website.
For your e-commerce business to get a payment gateway, you need to send in the following documents:
- Bank account in the name of the business
- PAN card of the business
- Certificate of Incorporation
- Memorandum of Association
- Articles of Association
- Identity proof
- Address proof
- Website terms of use
- Website privacy policy
Once you’ve sent in all of these documents, you’ll be given a payment gateway for your online business that you can use to start accepting payments online.
PayPal, PayU, and RazorPay are some of the most well-known payment gateways.
Step 7: Logistics
This step is important if you want to run a successful online business in India. Logistics is the process of getting a customer’s order to them or getting stock to a merchant. This process also keeps track of the goods that have been shipped and are on their way to the customer.
In order to do this, logistics management is the process of finding and partnering with distributor companies. Most e-commerce business owners prefer to hire a third-party transport and storage company to handle their logistics.
Step 8: How To Attract Customers To Your Website
The former CEO of Walmart, Joel Anderson, once said, “You can’t just open a website and expect people to flock to it. If you want to be successful, you have to get people to your site.
SEO marketing:
Search engine optimization (SEO) marketing is the way of the world right now, and it will continue to be the best way to market in the future.
The most important thing for the success of your ecommerce business is to get the attention of potential online customers. SEO strategies help with this. SEO gets you on the map of search engines. And since 44% of online shoppers start their search with a search engine, you need to be visible to them.
Choosing the right keywords:
About 700,000 Google searches are made in one minute, according to reports. You need a targeted keyword list to make sure that you show up in these searches. To get your online business to show up in search engines, you need to use different kinds of keywords. Head terms are what people usually call keywords that are between 0 and 26 characters long. The other kind is between 26 and 40 characters long, and these are usually more specific.
Tools like Google Keyword Planner, Google AutoSuggest, Keywordtool.io, Keyword Dominator, and SEMrush will help you find the keywords that will help your content show up the most on search engine platforms.
Advertisements
Advertisements are another way to get the attention of a customer. You can choose the “paid ad” option on Facebook and Instagram and pay a certain amount of money for your ad to show up in the daily feeds of their users. When these people click on the ad and go to your website, it’s up to you to turn them into possible customers.
Promotions:
This isn’t the most practical thing to offer when you first start your ecommerce business, but in India, sales and promotions sell like hotcakes. You could tell people about these sales through social media posts and announcements.
Retargeting
Retargeting is the process of putting a cookie on the computers of people who have been to your site before but didn’t buy anything. Once the cookie is put in place, your ad will be shown to these online users when they go to another site that shows ads from the retargeting network. Even though this is an expensive way to go, it usually leads to good results.
Word of Mouth
When you’re just starting out, you might not have a lot of money to spend on expensive methods like advertising. If this is the case, you can always use the oldest way to make sure people know about your business: word of mouth.
Ask your customers to tell their friends and family about your brand. You could also work with professional bloggers and ask them to write about and review your brand, which would bring more people to your website.
To sum up, it’s a great idea to start an ecommerce business in India, especially right now when the market is growing. But a word of warning: it won’t all be rainbows and butterflies. Get ready.
Right now, the world of ecommerce in India is a well of endless possibilities for you. So, just start.
