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Starting Your E-Commerce Business: Key Points

Tag: Startups

Starting Your E-Commerce Business: Key Points

Starting Your E-Commerce Business: Key Points

Worldwide e-commerce sales is projected to grow to $4.5 trillion* by 2021. That’s almost double the current value. While at the face of it, the value seems mind boggling but it doesn’t come as a surprise because globally, e-commerce has been witnessing staggering growth, propelled by the sprouting of various e-commerce startups across the world.

Considering the growth of the industry, it is a lucrative proposition to start an e-commerce enterprise. Hence, if you have an idea and are willing to navigate through the challenges of building and running your own e-commerce enterprise, here are the key points you need to keep in mind:

  • Name & Registration: Choose a name for your business that separates you from the competition. Do a corporate name search to ensure that the name you have chosen is not in use. You would need to register the name and select a business structure for your startup, it can be a sole proprietorship/partnership/LLC/Corporation.
  • Domain name & Website: Ideally, your business name should be the domain of your e-commerce site. If the domain is not available, chose a domain name, that’s easy to spell and pronounce.
  • Banking Regulations & Identification number: Make sure you have your company’s identification number, as per the respective country’s law and ensure that you open up your company’s bank account. These are generally for tax & corporate records purposes.
  • Business Licenses and Permits: Check the operating licenses that you require to run an e-commerce business in your country and ensure you have all the licenses in place before starting business operations.
  • Find the right vendor: If you are going to running a marketplace, then you wouldn’t need a vendor for products that you would sell. But if it’s a standalone e-commerce platform, you would need a long term commitment from a vendor for supplies/raw materials or products.
  • Inventory: Make sure you have stocked your inventory. It would help tremendously, when your orders come through. You should be able to provision for x number of order and ship on time.
  • Logistics and Delivery: It is imperative for any e-commerce to have the logistics and delivery sorted. It is not only delivery for your customer orders but the delivery of your supplies that need to be streamlined as well.
  • Technology & Software: Having the right shopping cart plugin or building your own shopping cart is a must for any e-commerce site, the experience of your customer while shopping on your site, depends on your cart. Additionally, you need to ensure that you gradually invest in productivity software such as email marketing, CRM, etc…
  • Marketing: To start off with, use all digital marketing mediums, especially social media to spread the word about your business and drive sales. Prepare blog posts and social media properties well in advance.
  • Compliance: Your business will grow at the speed of light, but you must be mindful of the fact that you follow the regulations as per compliance, i.e. reporting annual results or quarterly results to regulators. Even the annual fees for your business permits and licenses. Do not ignore any aspect of being a compliant and legal e-commerce site.

Last but not the least, for transactions to occur on your e-commerce site, you would need a payment gateway to be integrated with your website. Sign up for a free demo to unlock the value that we can provide for your e-commerce venture, as a comprehensive payments solution provider.

*Data Source: Statista

Our exclusive Saudi National Day offer is here!

Our exclusive Saudi National Day offer is here!

Happy National day. As part of our Saudi identity, and our belief in the Kingdom’s 2030 vision, PayTabs is proud to introduce its exclusive offer for Saudi startups on the occasion of 87 years of unity in the Kingdom.

Saudi startups not older than 3 years are encouraged to sign up for our merchant account to receive the special benefits our offer entails. Pay only 87 SAR instead of our standard 1500 SAR fee as a one-time payment for the setup fees. PayTabs aims to enable businesses and entrepreneurs around the kingdom. Therefore, at this rate, accessibility is available to all!

To be eligible for the offer, your startup must be Saudi based, and as previously mentioned, not exceeding 3 years from the date of establishment. Also, kindly note that the offer is valid for one year from sign up date, the merchant must “Go-Live” before Oct 31st, 2017 to be eligible, and our transaction rate is subject to renewal on September 30th, 2018!

Furthermore, we have a secret competitive pricing deal waiting for you. To avail the offer, please contact our Customer Care Team for more info on [email protected]. If you’re interested in signing up now, please click here to enjoy our unmissable offer!

Offer runs for a limited time only. Sign up before September 30, 2017.