If there’s anything lockdown has taught us, it’s that we all need to be prepared to move to a fully digitalized world.
According to 99firms e-commerce statistics, 95% of all purchases are to be made online by 2040.
In the next twenty years, physical retail stores will become practically obsolete except for a few industries.
If you haven’t yet looked at the internet as a source of income, then you’ll start to lose out soon, if you haven’t already.
However, starting an online business may seem complicated, especially to those who aren’t too familiar with the technology.
So today, we’re going to introduce you to the wonderful world of e-commerce.
We’ll also introduce an easy way you can start participating in it today.
Keep reading to find out more!
What is E-commerce?
E-commerce, also known as electronic commerce, can be defined as selling or purchasing a good or service through the internet. The transfer of money and data is needed to be able to refer to a transaction as e-commerce.
E-commerce only refers to the transaction between a buyer and a seller. It doesn’t mean the same thing as e-business, which is an online business’s operation and all actions associated with it.
So don’t get them mixed up. To become truly involved in e-commerce, you must have a product to sell. Now you’ll have to ask yourself: What can I sell?
The Types of E-commerce Business You Can Start
Here’s a more detailed explanation of the type of e-commerce businesses you can start.
1. Selling your physical and digital products online.
You probably already have a skill that can be used to make money online; you don’t know it yet.
There are so many things you can create a business out of that it’s crazy. If you already have a skill that can produce results online, that’s also a moneymaker right there.
Skills like singing or making funny voices can be turned into voiceovers. Making witty comments can make you a print T-shirt star.
Being organized can earn you money as a virtual assistant, and knowing how to edit your pictures is a skill wanted by teenage girls and public relations people everywhere!
You can easily take a course to learn a marketable skill if you don’t think you have one.
Sites like Udemy, Coursera, and more all teach income-earning skills like graphic designing, programming, web development, content creation, etc.
Some products are (as yet) cheaper when bought physically than online.
You can buy these products and sell them to buyers online for a higher price. You’ll make a tidy sum that way.
Or better yet, if you’re handy, you can make purchasable goods to sell.
These have to be high-quality things, however. You might also make better sales if your products perform some function.
2. Dropshipping
This is the business model we talked about above.
Dropshipping is a business model where you collect product orders from people, buy from the manufacturer or wholesaler, and then sell to the consumer at a higher price.
The difference between this business model and a typical manufacturer > wholesaler > retailer > consumer relationship is that a dropshipper doesn’t buy and keep products to be later sold.
That is, a dropshipper has no goods in stock, waiting to be purchased. They only purchase goods on customers’ orders and then sell back to them at a higher rate.
Because the product already has an owner, it eliminates the risk of wasted goods and losing capital.
Most of this business’ expense is concentrated in marketing and drawing in new customers and orders.
3. Drop servicing
Services can sell just as we or even better than physical goods. So why not offer them up to the public.
Drop servicing does just that. It’s a business model that takes orders for a particular service from customers, sends them off to be done by a previously marked freelancer, and then delivers to the original customer.
The money for the service is then paid to the freelancer, with the remainder as profit for the drop servicer.
That is, after finding a suitable freelancer, the drop servicer’s only job is to advertise their services, get customers’ orders, and funnel them to the freelancer.
When the freelancer is done, collect it, send it to the client, collect the cash, and split it between the freelancer and themselves.
Middle-manning is their game, and you don’t need any skill to be a drop servicer.
This is an excellent business for beginners who have low capital.
Learn what you do need in this article.
An Easier Way to Run A Successful E-commerce Business
Now that we’ve taken you through what e-commerce is and what is and isn’t sellable, we’ll now introduce an easy way to start your online career.
Our method involves making use of Fiverr. Fiverr’s a platform that helps connect freelancers with buyers. In essence, it’s a marketplace for freelance services.
However, in the years that Fiverr has been around, it’s evolved to become more than that.
Right now, Fiverr has courses and guides for freelancers, content marketing, invoice software, a Pro service that only has experts’ services for sale, and more.
Within the last few years, they’ve been continuously expanding to provide anything a growing business might need.
They even have two new features that’ll become indispensable to your business. More on that later.
In summary, Fiverr has all that most entry-level entrepreneurs need to start and grow their online businesses.
That is, there are inexpensive services to handle the work you can’t or don’t want to do yourself, courses to ensure to increase your knowledge, invoice software to tally your expenses and income, and even ways to advertise.
Still in doubt? Here are a few reasons why you should choose Fiverr as your platform for e-commerce.
How Fiverr Can Help You Build and Grow Your E-commerce Business
If you really want to start an online business, Fiverr is a good place to purchase services, with hundreds of thousands of freelancers ready to meet your needs.
You might be wondering about the practical applications of Fiverr’s functions.
To prove that Fiverr can help grow your business, we’ll show you how Fiverr can help you start and improve your business
1. Creating Your E-commerce Platform
All businesses need a platform to show off their products or services. As a new business, you’ll need to create a website or online store.
There are many ways to do this but one of the easiest and cheapest is using Fiverr.
Fiverr offers a website creation service where you can take your pick of tested and trusted web designers.
Some services include web hosting fees within their original charge so all you have to do is pay one amount and wait for your new store.
2. Creating and Optimizing Content
No content, no buyers. This saying may not be completely true but you can’t deny that good, engaging content is a huge draw for customers.
If you’re not great with the written word, then you can easily get a freelancer that writes within your niche and has great reviews to whip up some SEO-optimized articles that’ll get you on the first page of Google.
3. Invoicing
Fiverr has a new service that does the billing for your business automatically. This is a great tool for a new online store because it means you don’t have to pay extra for any billing software tools.
4. Marketing and Advertisement
Every business needs exposure. The more, the better. However, your business’ advertisements need to be done properly in regards to content and targeting.
You can create the videos, banners, posters, images, animations, and slogans of your dreams straight from Fiverr.
You can take a look at the services available on the categories page here
5. Videos
Describing your services and product is all well and good but you will need some videos to spice up your pages sooner or later. Fiverr is full of people who are ready to make any type of explainer video you want and you can also get a voiceover done for cheap.
6. Attracting Traffic
Fiverr had loads of services that work to indirectly increase traffic on your website.
But there are gigs that actively send keyword targeted traffic to your site for a fee. They’re cheap and great for your SEO. Here’s an example.
Bonus Tip: Fiverr Business Tools
Through the use of Fiverr’s freelancers’ services, you can get your business started easily and inexpensively.
However, designing, management, and billing can get confusing when you have several freelancers performing tasks for you.
Fiverr relates. And so, they created Fiverr Business Tools.
With Fiverr Business Tools, you can create a team of up to 50 freelancers to work on projects.
These freelancers have been vetted and you can choose your favorite from a catalog or allow a Fiverr Business Success agent to make the decision based on the information you filled in.
You can communicate with your team in real-time, view projects’ progress, and control billing and budget.
Plus, the first year’s free! You can check it out here.
Conclusion
Running an online business just got a lot easier. Now, you can hire people to help you grow your business while managing them with ease.
Plus, you can dump some of those expensive software tools and choose a cheaper, more malleable alternative.
What could be better?
