Evaluating the real costs of launching an online store

When launching an online store, it is important to take into account a number of cost considerations to get it started on the right footing. Read on to find out what you need to before diving into the world of online business.

By the myBusiness techblog team

We are all familiar with stories of the self-made entrepreneurs who have cashed in on the vast commercial potential of the Internet to achieve seemingly immediate success. But just how much does it cost to start an online store? What are some of the new technologies that have emerged that will help you to avoid traditional business processes and help reduce cost?

Creative business ideas can go a long way, and increasingly, a well-designed website or an innovative mobile app can serve as a vital engine of growth for a new online store. Adding social media into the mix also provides an additional avenue to reach a wider demographic, as well as engaging potential customers in a much more personalised and direct manner. It is therefore essential for any online store to grasp the basics of using social media tools to help market, promote and ultimately sell its products.

Here are a few important cost-related considerations you need to keep in mind before starting up your online store:

• Start by considering the cost of setting up an online store

Depending on the nature of your business, the expenses of building and maintaining a website or online store for your business can vary quite significantly. There are numerous blog-hosting platforms such as WordPress and Blogger that provide flexible and affordable commercial-grade hosting services to get an online store successfully and quickly off the ground. At the same time, consider the fact that an online store is essentially more than just a website, and it will cost you money to get your business equipped with the commercial functions and core e-commerce features such as payment gateways to operate like a shop

Another point to consider would be if the products you are selling are more niche. It might be a worthwhile investment to hire a web designer to develop a specific look for your website to better tie in with your line of business.

• Manage your business development costs while maximising reach

Online stores are typically small-scale operations, but as the scope of your business grows, new tools or sales-oriented features are necessary to help develop a more sophisticated web presence that will take your business further.

A challenge that many successful online entrepreneurs face in the business building processes is that while initial sales might be manageable, the online store must be consistently updated to handle growing volumes of customer traffic and commercial transactions. The associated costs can be high and unpredictable, but such investments are necessary to empower your fledging online business to better capture potential sales at the most critical points of customer engagement.

At this point, you might also want to consider adding in additional technologies such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to your online store. You can even tap into Social CRM, which can help in managing your increasing customer base, generating new leads, and increasing customer loyalty.

• Watch out for other overhead costs

Besides the monthly costs associated with maintaining your online store, there are other overheads ? from hardware and equipment costs to electricity bills and other utilities ? that need to be taken into consideration. ?You can even consider using cloud-based or hosted solutions as an alternative to offset the costs and effort of maintaining hardware.

And unless you are convinced that your business can be sustained on word of mouth, set aside part of your budget for marketing purposes. The good news is that there are a variety of effective online marketing channels such as paid online searches that you can leverage to improve your business performance. You can also think about utilising Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), to help your online store to show up on search engine result pages.

Do you have any stories that you want to share about the costs of starting an online business? Let us know in the comment box below.

Tagged as: Business Management, By myBusiness techblog, Entrepreneurs, Sales & Marketing, SMEs, Tips and Tricks

Source: http://mybusinesstechblog.com/archives/blog/real-cost-launch-online-store

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