How to Set up an ECommerce Business in India?

There is no doubt that the opportunity of selling online in today’s market scenario has helped a lot of businesses to grow and expand. The increased use of smartphones has led to a major inflow of investments in e-commerce startups.

Most of us feel that starting an online business is quite a difficult task. But, if you are well aware of the process, then this is one of the best ways to expand your business. So, here is a guide to help you with how to start selling online and a few tips to be kept in mind while entering the online market.

Choose a Business Model

You can enter the online market in India through two options-

1. Create your own e-commerce Website\store
2. Sell through an established marketplace such as Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, etc.

Creating your own ECommerce Web Store

If you have a unique product that only you can source, then setting up an ecommerce web store is a good way to enter the online market. This option allows you to create your own brand name.

Before going for your own web store, you should also consider various costs involved in online selling and decide whether you are making good profits after considering all these costs. Some of these costs are-

1. Shipping costs
2. Packaging Cost
3. Payment Gateway Cost
4. Storage Cost
5. Marketing Cost
6. Heavy Development Cost

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Among these, the development cost is a pre-requisite huge cost which is incurred even before you enter the market. So, you should first plan your expenditure before going for this option.

Things Consider Before you Open Online Store

There are certain requirements listed below that one needs to fulfill for setting up an online store.

• Choose your Business and Domain Name

Customers recognize you through your business name only. So, It is very much important to choose the right domain and business name which is which is short, attractive, not similar to any other name. After deciding the name, you can even hire a professional website designing company to create an effective web store without writing a single line of code yourself.

• Set up a Payment Mechanism

While dealing in online business, besides creating an attractive online web store, you need a way to accept online payments. Either you can open a merchant account tied to your bank account to accept credit and debit cards payment directly, or you can skip creating a merchant account and use a third-party payment processor like Paytm, PayU, ccavenue & Paypal. These payment processors are easy to set up and already built into most eCommerce software.

Nowadays, there are many customers who prefer UPI payments or digital wallet solutions like Google Pay, Amazon pay, Paytm as a better alternative to make online payments. So, accepting payments through these alternate mediums is worth including.

• Select your Shipping Method

Online business is nowhere successful unless your products are easily reachable to your customers. So, it’s very important to decide in advance which shipping carrier you’ll be using and what shipping charges you are going to charge from customers.

Many websites are nowadays providing free shipping and if you are planning to do so, then you’ll need to absorb the cost. It might be difficult for you to decide cost absorbing techniques and to maintain your accounting due to various number of transactions. But there are some software available with Expertbells to make it easy for you.

You can contact our Professionals from Team Expertbells – They will suggest you the best possible way. Click here - https://www.expertbells.com/contact-us.

• Promote your business

If you are done with a good website but you are not into the promotion of the same, it would be useless. A good promotion and marketing technique can make your online business accessible to customers globally. Make sure that you use 2-3 platforms of social media to promote your business. You can contact the bloggers and Influencers to endorse your products where you find your audience.

SEO(search engine optimization) can play a vital role in promoting your website in an organic way, and it provides a long-term advantage to rank among the first page in search engines like Google. So, make sure that you spend ample time on business promotion.

Before going for your own website, you should also consider various costs involved in online selling and decide whether you are making good profits after considering all these costs. Some of these costs are-

• Shipping costs
• Packaging Cost
• Payment Gateway Cost
• Storage Cost
• Marketing Cost
• Heavy Development Cost

Among these, the development cost is a pre-requisite huge cost which is incurred even before you enter the market. So, you should first plan your expenditure before going for this option.

And if you are not interested in starting with such a huge cost of developing a webstore, then you can go for e-commerce websites to sell your products.

• Sell Through an Established Market Place

Selling your products through an established marketplace such as Flipkart or Amazon is the easiest and fastest way to reach a greater number of customers in a short time of span.

Process

All you need to do is to visit these websites and register yourself by submitting your business details. It is advised to keep your GST registration number, Bank details, and PAN number handy. Some websites need address proof as well.

Suppose you are planning to sell your product through Flipkart. Then, you just need to visit its page (link of Flipkart website) and submit your GSTIN, bank details, and details of your product.

After uploading scanned copies of all these documents, verification generally gets completed in a couple of days.

These marketplaces have millions of visitors on their page every day and enjoy a loyal user base. You also don’t need to worry about the payment gateway and shipping costs.

These e-commerce websites also provide advertisement and marketing facilities to their suppliers on payment of fees.

But like every coin has two sides, selling through these websites also has some drawbacks such as they charge very high advertising and marketing fees along with a huge commission on every sale, and you don’t have any control over how your product is displayed.

So, it is much required that before starting online selling, you should consider all these factors and choose the right business model as per your product in order to be successful in this field.

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