Are You Confusing Your Ecommerce Website with You Ecommerce Business?
I wanted to pick up a thought I started in an earlier post. This concerns the role of your ecommerce site and and your ecommerce business. And I’m really speaking more to those who are new at this or just thinking about whether or not to set up an ecommerce site.
First of all, ecommerce, and providing products via dropship wholesalers and dropship aggregators is heavily promoted in the Internet marketing sector as a sort of get-rich-quick gimmick. You are generally told–or otherwise lead to believe–that all you need is a website loaded with zillions of products and that wealth will soon follow.
I advise keeping in mind that ecommerce is first and foremost a business, not a website. Business success in ecommerce follows from careful planning, marketing, and implementation of a well thought out business plan. Don’t be fooled and think that just because ecommerce is largely conducted on the Internet that it is somehow different.
Now, there is money to be made in ecommerce, but one of the points I want you to take away is that ecommerce business is not the same thing as your ecommerce website. The website is just one aspect of the business. You will need to figure out what it is you want to sell, who your target customers are, demand for market, marketing strategies and so forth before you begin thinking about your front end. The front end, in this case, is the ecommerce website, but it could as well be a booth at a flea market or a store front.
I’m sorry to cut this short–I’ve got to run. But I think this is an important point, so I’ll try continue this thread. Feel free to leave a comment.
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Hi. Good point. Too often ecommerce business is promoted just as ownership of a shopping cart. That’s a part of it, but mostly ecommerce is a business just like any “brick and mortar” business. The Internet is a great tool and certainly has some advantages, but ecommerce business does not stop at the website/shopping cart.