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If you're even a little familiar with Amazon, you're probably raising your eyebrows at the title we've chosen. But bear with us as we think you'll like this article.
We'll talk about ecommerce, especially using Amazon and Shopify. And we'll walk you through some tips you may not have come across yet.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard about tech giant Amazon and its billionaire founder Jeff Bezos. You could be justified in saying that Amazon is pretty much everywhere. You've most probably even used one of their services.
The company started with humble beginnings. It created a platform that sells books and little by little it expanded to other areas of commerce. It now is the largest marketplace in the world.
But this article is not about the chronicles of Jeff Bezos or how far Amazon has come. However, it does have services that are beneficial to your budding online business
Obviously Amazon is not the only platform that helps you set up a business. There are several different options for selling products online, from Amazon to custom solutions that work specifically with your brand. It's also clearly one of the best places you can buy products.
The great thing about Amazon for buyers is that you can test out each option to see which one works best for you. You can start by adding a product to your cart and then once you’re done checking out, proceed to checkout with PayPal or credit card payment methods.
In any case, Amazon may not be the best solution for you. In order to get started with the right e-commerce platform, first find out how people buy things in your industry. Is it through social media? Google search? Word of mouth? Only after you know where your customers are coming from will you be able to create an effective campaign.
If you still choose Amazon, how will you do business? Through FBA. And how does this FBA thing work, you ask? Read on.
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), also known as inventory fulfillment is one of the most popular ways to sell products through an online store. With this method, you register with an aggregator website such as eBay or Amazon and then list your items for sale. You set the price you want to charge and the minimum amount you are willing to pay per item. When it comes time to ship the product, the site will handle all of the shipping costs.
Additionally, you can choose how many days in advance you would like to schedule delivery and receive your orders.
This way you do not have to worry about packaging, ordering, picking up supplies, or calling customers to make sure they got their order. The process is completely automated.
You must be prepared to hand-enter information from each shipment label into the registration form so that there is a record of who you sent it to. It’s important to keep this documentation until all of your items have been delivered.
Upon completion of the transaction, you provide the customer with a reference number and payment. This document serves as proof that you received payment and ensure that the person paid what was ordered.
Amazon sounds good, but of course it's not the only platform you can use when thinking of starting an online business. There are many different ways to do this, but another one of the most common ways is using a platform created by Shopify.
This program helps you set up an account easily, and gives you options for either building your own website or buying a pre-made site from them. Once you have an account, you can add your products and sell your items.
When people download the app, they can list all of their products without having to pay anything. Listings range in price from $5 to $250 depending on the product. You are able to make changes regularly and also has helpful tools such as lists and videos.
You can connect your accounts through Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. This makes it easy to share updates with those networks. It’s also where users can find your reviews and posts.
By having these connections, customers can get notifications when you update your status. This saves time because consumers will know immediately when there's a new review or post.
Your e-commerce platform actually has several moving parts. Not only do you have the website that customers visit, but you also have an app they can use, programs for managing customer accounts, and perhaps other services like shipping.
All of these pieces need maintenance, updating, etc. And unfortunately, if something goes wrong with any of them, it can damage their entire operation.
A large part of running an online business is maintaining those operations so that people will buy from you instead of someone else.
If you want to run an online store, you need to understand how to manage multiple systems. More than anything, people should be able to get help from you when things go wrong. You are being paid to learn this by doing it yourself.
There are many different ways to set up a web presence, and each one needs some amount of technical knowledge to execute. While most require paying a service fee, there are free ones as well.
Paying for a site takes money, however. You must consider what you are willing to spend money on and whether or not it would be worth it to you. Just because another company has a similar product or service does not mean you have to pay extra for having the same feature.
Some sites allow you to charge users either per month or per sale. There are benefits to both models. If you choose the former, keep in mind that more users means more sales which means greater potential earnings.
