Conducting preliminary research is a necessary part of implementing an online store business idea . This is because the profitability of a business should be assessed before the costs of setting it up are incurred.
How to conduct marketing research for an online store business project?
1) First of all, you need to decide on the range of goods.
Since the goods ordered by customers will have to be delivered to the consumer, the possibilities of its delivery should be assessed.
Let’s say, goods of small size and weight, such as books, CDs, small electronics, seeds, clothes, shoes, cosmetics, spare parts, and so on, can be sent by mail to almost any corner of our country. But it makes sense to deliver heavy and oversized cargo only within your city, or contact transport companies, which entails additional difficulties in terms of cargo safety and insurance.
As a rule, small online stores focus on small, light and inexpensive items.
2) Further, within the framework of marketing research, it is necessary to roughly calculate the initial costs, which are divided into two parts:
— One part is the costs that you will incur to create the online store itself: registering a domain, buying a hosting, buying a software license.
The size of these costs is not so great, for example, a quite decent online store template can be purchased within ten thousand dollars.
However, you must immediately buy a license for an accounting program, for example, 1C, since you will need to not only keep accounts, but also prepare primary documents for clients.
— The second part of the initial costs is the organization of the back office of the store.
That is, premises for staff, a small warehouse, the purchase of computers, office equipment, furniture, and the organization of a local network. At the first stage, all this can be organized in an ordinary apartment, however, in the event of business growth, these costs cannot be avoided.
3) The current expenses of the future online store will consist of communication, Internet, employee salaries, taxes, utilities and premises rent.
4) In a marketing research on opening an online store, one should also not forget about the costs of advertising, which will have to be done almost from the very beginning of the project.
5) Separately, you need to consider the cost of purchasing goods.
You can, of course, use prepayment from customers for these purposes, but, as a rule, new online stores cannot count on such trust from customers, so you will have to make purchases of goods at your own expense, which can be significant even with small consignments of goods. Nevertheless, the margin that can be made when selling via the Internet can not only cover all the costs of creating and maintaining an online store, but also bring funds for its further development.
On our website you can order a business plan for opening an online store with calculations, which will allow you to accurately estimate all costs and profitably organize your own business.