Nowadays, E-commerce Startups are trend in India. We all know that online shopping is picking up in a big way in India, it is changing the retail scenario totally. Even now there are so many new e-commerce ventures in India who already have huge customer base and they are not even 5 years old. For a smart Entrepreneur it is enough alarm to start something in this field.

The First question which comes to his mind is 'what all things are basically needed to get into an online e-commerce venture' and so, in this article we are going to talk about "How to start your own E-commerce business in India".

Following are some step by step guidelines :

STEP 1 : Find Products to Sell on Your Website

One of the most important factors in creating a successful E-commerce business is knowing what to sell online.

Which products you should sell on your website?

To help, I have listed some question below, by analyzing them you can choose best products to sell for you.

What Is The Potential Market Size?

What's Your Competition?

Is it a Trend, Fad, or Growing Market?

Can You Buy The Item Locally?

Who Is Your Target Customer?

What Is Your Markup?

How Much Can You Sell It For?

Can You Offer a Subscription?

What is Your Product Size & Weight?

Is Your Product Durable?

Is Your Product Seasonal?

Does Your Product Serve a Passion or Pain?

What Will Your Turnover Be?

Is it Consumable or Disposable?

Do You Need to Consider Perishability?

Will There Be Restrictions & Regulations?

Is Your Product Scalable?

Now, Question is how to find products to sell?

Okay, Either you can sell the products which are manufactured by you or by your relatives or friends OR you can make deals with manufactures, wholesalers & vendors to sell their products using your E-commerce website.

You can sell any products which are permitted to be sell online by Indian Government. I would like to suggest products which do not have any MRPs. The benefit of selling those products is you can set your profit margin and selling price as per your wish. You will not suffer of selling price competition. For example, Ethnic Garments where there is no any standard for MRPs, you will decide selling price of them. While deciding selling price keep two factors in your mind, first you set proper profit margin, second take care that selling price does not goes so high that customer can't afford at your price.

STEP 2 : Creating an E-commerce Platform

After deciding the products, now it's turn for creating platform(online store) from where people can buy your products by placing online order.

So, First thing to do is choose fabulous & memorable business name that no one else is using. Once you’ve chosen the name, register it as per your requirement.

Sole Proprietor

Partnership -if you have a business partner

LLC

Corporation

Now, secure your Domain Name. Ideally, you’ll get your business name as your domain name, but if it’s not available, choose a URL that’s easy to say and spell, and relates to your business.

To create E-commerce website you will require a Web Development team. But it costs high to keep web developers on permanent basis with you. As you may have limited financial budget. So, I would like to suggest, hire web developer only for limited time. One good thing is, we do not need to struggle for finding best suitable web developer because now a days there are so many popular and trustworthy freelancing staffing platforms are available. One can find out best free-lancers using those platforms. Here are one of the best platforms.

2. Freelancer

3﻿. Guru

Using these platform one can find best web developers among thousands according to needs.

After creating and testing of website, host it and make it live. Web developer can help you to host website to your hosting server. Make sure you use most secure payment gateway to get payment from your website. Some popular & secure payment gateways in India are CCAvenue, +Google Wallet, PayPal, Citrus Pay, PayU Money. Different payment gateways have different plan. Choose which is best for you among them. Later you can also provide Cash on Delivery service (very popular and preferred in India nowadays) by integrating courier partners such as FedEx, Aramex & DHL couriers.

STEP 3: Marketing of your E-commerce Website & Products

You have just set up a nice little shop to sell online. Now, it's turn for marketing.

Following are ways to make your first sell.

Social Media Marketing

Make friends & fans on Facebook & develop community [FREE]

Make Facebook page having the same name of your on-line store. Upload attractive photos & videos of the products that you have uploaded to your store on this Facebook page on daily basis (if possible every 2 hours). Send friend requests to relevant customers to increase visibility of your Facebook page. Make sure you always post genuine content on this page, because this page is going to become official Facebook profile of your store, and you will use this page to make paid marketing campaigns on Facebook.

2. Start sharing your product photos online [FREE]

Nowadays, There are so many photo sharing platforms available. Use some popular photo sharing website such as Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, Google+, Google Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket to share photos of your products. Each of these can achieve different things to your business. For example, Pinterest can be a huge driver of traffic, Instagram is quickly becoming one of the best platforms for online store owners to build an audience with. Tumblr will help for adding content and building links back to your store.

3. Build your Network to strategically connect with people [FREE]

Use LinkedIn to strategically connect with people, complete your profile, decide what to post and leverage LinkedIn groups. Set up your Store's Twitter account and start strategically engaging potential followers and customers.

4. Upload Videos, Slide Show [Free]

YouTube is the most popular video-sharing website on the internet. Make videos of varieties of your products and upload it on YouTube. It has unlimited amount of creative ways in which you can drive traffic and sales to your E-commerce store. Vimeo is also the next open video uploading website to upload videos free. You can also promote your products and website via creating PPT & Share with PPT Sharing Website such as issuu.com, slideshare.net. From PPT Sharing websites, You will get Lots of Traffic to your online website & Awareness of Your Products.

Search Engine Marketing

Register your business to Google My Business & Maps [FREE]

By doing it, Your business will be listed on Google Search Page when customers look for your business on-line. To avail on Google Map, you can also use home address until you set up professional working place and when you are operating your online selling business from your home. Follow the same for Bing Places & Bing Maps.

2. Stand Out on Comparison Shopping Engines [FREE]

As an online retailer, comparison shopping engines are obvious places to get your products in front of the masses and see who bites first for that glorious first sale. Sites like Google Shopping, Shopzilla, Nextag and Pricegrabber have millions of shoppers searching for the best prices on online products – so surely you’re going to want to get some of those shoppers over to your online store.

3. Get Search Engine Optimized (SEO) [Required : SEO Specialist]

Search engine optimization (SEO) is often considered by some as the holy grail of Internet marketing. If you’re lucky and your website appears for all sorts of searches in Google (and other search engines), then you are the blessed receiver of free Internet traffic, which hopefully will bless you with a great deal of sales. Hire best SEO Specialist for it.

4. Become accessible on Mobile Devices [Required : Mobile Application Developer]

The amount of people browsing the web on mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) is increasing at an incredibly fast rate. You can kiss a fair deal of new sales by Developing Android & iPhone Applications for your online store. Other option is make your store's website is responsive (mobile friendly) to all type of Mobile Devices & Tablets OR make separate mobile website.

5. Start writing Blogs for your Business [FREE]

Starting a successful blog can be the easiest and cheapest way to attract thousands of new customers. All it comes down to is how well you can create valuable content for your readers. Use top free blogging platforms such as WordPress, Weebly, Wix and Blogger.

Paid Marketing

This is where the power of your Facebook page will become more apparent, especially when it comes to helping you generate sales. Facebook advertising has a unique advantage over almost all of the other internet advertising channels, which is that is you can target your ads by Age, Gender & Interest. Currently pay-per-click advertising networks like Google Adwords and The Yahoo! Bing Network can’t target this type of demographic and interest level. For an E-commerce business this is incredibly powerful in terms of direct targeting.

2. Google AdWords

AdWords is Google’s advertising network that allows online retailers to place advertisements on nearly every Google search results page, YouTube video and partner website. No other advertising network will give you faster sales results than AdWords. The reason for this is that your ad can be on the first page of a Google search query in less than five minutes after signing up.

3. Promoting Tweets on Twitter

Followers on Twitter are 72 percent more likely to make a purchase from you. There is a way to pay to get in front of more Twitter users – and that’s through the Twitter advertising platform.

4. Email Marketing [Economic and Cost Effective]

Email marketing is still huge tool for business and it's an easy way to start reaching consumers on mobile without investing a lot in new technology or software. Best Email Marketing Software for E-commerce Businesses is SendinBlue, MailChimp.