We would like to help you start an ecommerce business in South Africa.
There is a quote from a lady, once referred to as the most hated person in America… Madalyn Murray O’Hair. She said “Get up off your ass and do something… It doesn’t matter if you fail, at least you’re trying!”
The context at the time was about fighting for a cause. But the sentiment is equally important in business, because starting a business or taking a new direction in your business is about a cause. Madalyn was a staunch atheist whose mission in life was to eliminate religion from, amongst others, American schools.
This was an interesting lady who met an interesting end and I would urge you to read up about her strange demise if you have an interest in crime mysteries. Madalyn, her son and granddaughter suddenly disappeared one day. Breakfast dishes were still on the table when her home was entered.
A vast sum of gold coins were purchased by her son, while they were “missing”, perhaps using money from the American Atheists organization that she has started. Eventually, a chap by the name of David Waters was found guilty of kidnapping, robbery and murder. The huge trunk of gold coins was stolen from a storage locker by thieves seemingly unrelated to the disappearance of Madalyn and company. But let’s get to the point…
Procrastination can lead to the death of a business. That sounds terribly dramatic but it is entirely true. Equally true, is that if you never try and start a business, you can never fail – but the corollary of that is that you can never succeed either.
It is quite possible to start a business while still being employed elsewhere. The reason I mention this is because starting a business can be a very costly affair, particularly in terms of losing employment income.
One possible solution to this, is to start an online business or ecommerce store. You can start the store during your free time in the evenings and on weekends. Over the course of the next few months, I will post a number of articles taking you through the entire process. Among the topics to be discussed will be:
-Identifying and sourcing suitable products to sell
-Linking up with and negotiating suitable delivery terms with suppliers
-Understanding the concept of drop-shipping versus doing your own shipping
-Deciding on a suitable and favourable business and domain name
-Choosing and registering a domain name
-Choosing and signing up with a hosting company
-Selecting an ecommerce platform
-Cloud, open-source and proprietary systems
-Platforms available in each system type
-Payment systems
-Plugins and apps to modify and optimize your store
-Marketing and SEO basics, social media presence
-Critical deliverables for an online store
-Scaling your store
That will get you started. Then the hard work starts.