Best Ideas to Start an E-Commerce Venture [Profitable Businesses]

E-commerce is the fastest-growing retail market and it’s no wonder that you would want to be a part of it. Due to its global reach, e-commerce helps in multiplying your target audience exponentially. Small businesses, large corporations and even freelancers have benefitted from e-commerce. Their products and services are now so easy to discover and purchase at any hour of any day from almost anywhere in the world. Below are some of the eCommerce business ideas; some of them are easy to start, some are less capital intensive, while some are high profit-making e-commerce business ideas. You can consider or take inspiration from these ideas if you are planning to start an e-commerce venture anytime soon.

1. Online Grocery store

When a customer buys groceries they usually don’t buy a single product, they shop for at least 15-30 items. This makes the shopping experience very challenging. So to make grocery shopping easy for the customer an online grocery store is a great idea, to begin with. People, especially in the urban areas, don’t have much time as they have a pretty busy schedule and it becomes difficult to take out the time for grocery shopping.

So offering them a service that delivers groceries to their doorstep in the shortest time possible is a great relief from a customer’s standpoint. The demand in the grocery sector is much greater than the supply. You need to decide which business model you want to adopt. It can be a logistic model (here, you don’t have to manage your warehouse and the order is fulfilled by a nearby small store), or an inventory model (if you adopt this model, you’ll have to manage your delivery as well as warehouses).

2. Selling craft online

This is one of the trending small business ideas. To sell your craft online, the first thing that you need is to find a niche. If you start selling numerous items at once, you might confuse the potential customers as they don’t know what your business is all about. Decide what specific products you want to sell for the specific customers, so that you can have a cohesive shop and a cohesive brand. After finding your niche, the next step is to do some research. Research is vital because you can only sell the items that people want to buy. If there is no demand, no one’s going to look at your product even when you are extremely passionate about creating it. Thus, follow trends and do some research to make sure that you’re entering the market with something that people wish to buy. Another important point that you should consider while starting an e-commerce business is that you need to price for profits. So you must understand in detail how pricing works.

3. Online streetwear store

You need to start with setting up a goal first. Your goals can revolve around making money or creating a legacy. Once you’ve set up your goal, the next important step is to create a customer profile. Once you have the core niche market, you don’t need everybody to buy your brand. Your job as a brand owner is to target the trendsetters and early adopters. In the age of social media, this is what a lot of brands are trying to do. Therefore, create a customer profile, understand the lifestyle, be a part of it, and make yourself known in that space.

Every fashion designer needs inspiration from somewhere and most of that inspiration comes from their surroundings. After setting up your goal and finding the target customers, the next step is to create a budget. You need to have a financial sheet where you can list all the outflows and inflows. Knowing how to make the right use of money while starting a business is extremely crucial. Another important task is to create a product lineup. You have to make a lineup of what you want to make. So you can have your primary products, which you ideally want to make, and then secondary products, which are usually the entry point items.

4. Online learning platforms

The education sector is growing rapidly in India, and it’s expected to be valued at INR 360 billion by 2024. Educational services can mean many different things, but one big area of opportunity is online learning. Providing an online education service eliminates physical barriers to learning and makes it more inclusive for students from around the globe. You can start your business by providing courses on one specific subject, and once you start getting positive feedback, diversify into other specialisations. You can also partner with industry experts or academicians and provide an online platform for them to share their expertise and knowledge.

5. Selling home products online

Another online business idea is selling home and kitchen items. The essential home and kitchen items that you can sell are bed sheets, curtains, tableware, home appliances, kitchen storage, home décor, furniture, mattresses, cooking ware, etc. Since it’s a product-based business, you’ll need to inject some capital and create inventory. After deciding your business model or drafting your business plan, make sure you have enough capital and a place to stock your products. You can provide free shipping on the first orders or new subscribers. You can provide various such offers to boost your sales, keeping in mind what your customers want. When you sell products online, the website is your store. Thus, develop a website that is user-friendly and not too complex. You don’t want your customers to be confused when they first visit your website.

Some other e-commerce business ideas:

• Personal Services: Personal services involve services such as pet grooming services, handy-man services, event planning services, etc.
• Online book store: If you are looking for a consistent source of income .i.e. not too high and not too low, you can consider buying and selling books online. You’ll need a warehouse to hold the inventory.
• Home health care service: If you are a licensed doctor, nurse, or therapist, you can leverage your degree and experience into a home health business.
• Print on Demand: As the name suggests, you can display your creativity by printing t-shirts, bags, bedsheets, etc., and monetise your skills by selling them online. The risk factor is low and there is no need to buy in bulk. Before starting the business, make sure to conduct extensive research to find target customers. You also need to have a solid or unique design that can attract a large consumer base.

Also read:

1) What Are the Business Ideas I Can Look at If I Am an MBA Graduate?
2) 20 Business Ideas for Stay-At-Home Parents
3) 21 Successful Small Business Ideas for New Entrepreneurs in India
4) What are Some of the Best Online Businesses?
5) OkCredit: All you need to know about OkCredit & how it works.

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FAQs

Q. What are the basic requirements for starting an e-commerce business in India?

Ans. A PAN card, GST number, and sole proprietorship account. You’ll also need to open a current account and get a payment gateway registration.

Q. What is needed for the packaging of the products?

Ans. To make sure your product reaches the customer in perfect condition it’s important to consider the points outlined below.

1. Bubble wrap
2. POD packet (10 * 12 is the standard size and costs around INR 4-10 per packet)
3. Label printing

Q. What is RTO & NDR?

Ans. RTO stands for Return to the Origin. As the name suggests, the RTO is when a product is not delivered to the customer and is returned or shipped back to the warehouse.

Under NDR or Non-delivery report, when you ship the product and it doesn’t get delivered, it gets listed on your NDR report citing the reasons for non-delivery.

Q. Why is marketing so important in e-commerce?

Ans. The main factor is visibility and without visibility, no one will buy your product. It could be the best product in the world but without adequate marketing, it’s going to be very hard to succeed. Raise brand awareness to increase sales. Your marketing plan depends on your business type. For some businesses, marketing through Instagram influencers might be the best ROI, while for other businesses it can be YouTube, Google, or Facebook Ads that can do the work. Thus, having a solid marketing strategy is important.