What this basically means is to start with just a couple of products that are going to make up the core of your offering.
How many products do you want to sell? (estimated)Īn expression that’s common in the world of online marketing is to always start with your minimum viable product and then scale from that. Zooming in on your target market can help you to discover unique promotion opportunities or reveal some details about your core customers that may not be visible on a larger scale. Are you going to sell to a local market - your city or county?.This is about the location of your target customer base. Generally speaking, most fledgling online stores will opt for the classic e-commerce model where it’s them - you - taking care of the entire fulfillment process. In this model, it’s still you selling your own products, but this time you get Amazon to pick up, pack and ship your orders for you. Amazon FBA: ‘Fulfillment By Amazon’ is somewhat similar to drop shipping, but not entirely.In this model, you don’t have to keep an inventory of the product, and, instead, you’re the middleman who finds the customer and sells them someone else’s product.
Drop shipping: The customer buys a product from your website, but then the product is fulfilled by a third-party - usually, the original manufacturer.In the classic model of selling online, it’s you who handles the entire process of getting the product ready and then shipping it to the customer. In most cases, you’re going to go with ‘products’ here.Īre your orders going to be fulfilled by someone else? A simple contact form may be enough since you’re going to handle all of the negotiations and payments later on. If you’re only going to be selling services, you may not even need an e-commerce setup. Some people also like to think about this in terms of selling a thing vs selling your time. So, for instance, even though you’re probably tempted to offer your products worldwide, will that really be the core of your business right from day one? If not, go with ‘locally’ for this one. The way to think about this question is to focus on the ‘most likely scenario’. Starting with taxation issues, all the way to shipping internationally. Selling outside your country complicates things on a number of levels. Digital - all downloads, PDFs, ebooks, content access, software, subscriptions, memberships and so on.Īre you selling locally or internationally?.Physical - simply speaking, this is everything that needs to be physically shipped to the customer.
Here are the questions (it’s best to write the answers on a piece of paper so you can keep them in a visible spot):ĭo you want to sell physical or digital products, or both?ĭifferent types of products will need different software to make selling them possible two of the most common scenarios are selling physical or digital products: We’re going to use that doc later on when deciding on the specific features the store will need, the customer base we’re targeting, the software we’ll use, and even the marketing approach. Your store setup sheet is a simple doc where you answer the most fundamental questions about your future online store. ‘A what?’ Okay, this may sound a bit cryptic, but at least I have your attention!