Samuel Onuha’s Guide to Starting an Online Business

If there is one thing that Covid-19 brought out, it’s how rewarding an e-commerce business can be. With Lockdown measures in place, many companies were forced to pivot from brick-and-mortar stores to an online environment. Consumers saw value in the convenience provided by online shopping, and even with things slowly resuming back to normal, it is undeniable that e-commerce is here to stay. Therefore, it would be in your best interest to take the plunge and set up a web-based shop if you haven’t already.
There is, however, more to e-commerce than just setting up a website and loading it with products and services. There is a lot more content to consider and technical aspects of navigating. 

Samuel Onuha shares this five-step guide that will make your process of starting an online business clearer and less stressful.

As someone who has had tons of experience in the e-commerce space, Samuel Onuha shares this five-step guide that will make your process of starting an online business clearer and less stressful.

1. Decide what you want to Sell and How
   Transitioning to e-commerce might be a breeze if you already have an established store. However, if you’re just starting an e-commerce business, you will need to decide on a product or service that you want to offer and where you will source it from.

Ensure that you have a target market that is willing to send on your products and that the product you choose is relevant to them.
The next step is to define how you want to sell your products. Some of the options you have are:

1.Direct to Consumer – Here, your company does everything from the design to manufacturing, sales, and promotion.

2. Business to Consumer – In this business model, you sell to the end-user, although in some cases, there may be a middleman such as Amazon.
3. Subscription service – To save on time and cost while still delivering to consumers regularly, you could opt for a subscription service such as SaleHoo
4. Drop shipping – Onuha says that the benefits are innumerable. You need no inventory or storage. You virtually source out a product from a supplier, market it to the consumer, and the supplier ship it directly to the customer. Onuha says to keep in mind dropship is only short term.
5. Buy a Domain name
   Some top-level domain names to consider are; .com, .org, .co and .nl. However, for your primary domain, Onuha advises that you strive to get the esteemed .com.
6. Build an e-commerce store

Louis talks more about this in a separate article, but essentially you need to think about your visual branding, shipping model, build a shopping cart and establish a payment method.

4. Center your marketing on SEO
   Of all the online marketing tactics, SEO has the highest return on investment. Do keyword research to find out which keywords your target market uses to find your product, then produce content-rich in these keywords to draw traffic to your site.
5. Create value-added content
   Provide value to your customers by adding useful tips on your website and reassuring them that their credit card information is safe. Post blogs, videos, and articles regularly to engage your audience and increase your search engine rankings.

There is a lot more to e-commerce, the world is changing drastically, and so should you if you want to keep up.