I built a successful ecommerce business because of the time I invested into making it happen and getting it right. While I delegate most tasks to my dedicated team these days, there are times when I need to step in myself on a weekly basis and ensure certain things get done, to deliver the best result and best customer service.
I might need to jump on the phone and spend some time with our local distributor, and sometimes be negotiating with the overseas manufacturer, in order to get urgent client product order requirements across the line and delivered.
About your idea
When you are embarking on your new ecommerce business venture, there are plenty of things to consider. You make plans about the business, potential revenue and the great results you’re going to achieve with your new idea.
When I consult with new clients, I find something often overlooked the most is the time investment.
Often there is a misconception with budding ecomm-preneurs that the whole of their ecommerce empire will be automated and they don’t need to do a thing to generate the success they desire. They have another business or a job, and this will generate them a comfortable 6 figure salary.
While it’s certainly true that you can automate many many things these days, and you can even automate an online store to take sales (for example, with eBay), and everything is done for you and you just clip the ticket, this in itself does not constitute a successful business for you.
Why?
Simply it comes down to return on investment. In order to generate a return on investment, the appropriate amount of time must be spent to make that happen. Tasks and activities can be delegated, but in order to maximise growth potential, you as the person with the idea needs to get out there and generate interest in your new ecommerce business, and bring in some customers!
Qualification
We regularly decline ecommerce web projects because no planning has gone into or will go into the site. There is no contribution from the inspired individual who came up with the idea, and they just want a turn key solution that will start instantly generating sales without any effort.
Heavy lifting
While we as the ecommerce specialists can do the heavy lifting in terms of helping everything falling into place, you should also think about what you want, how much time you’ll invest into it and whether you can service your clients.
Quitting while ahead
I’ve seen before clients who we have consulted with, that have been very successful with their ecommerce businesses, but have simply had too much on with other projects to commit time to the successful process of a well oiled ecommerce operation.
Where this occurs, either the choice is to hand over the online store to someone who can dedicate the time but wants a business with an already established customer base, or they’ll choose to close down the business altogether. While this may seem gloomy, it can sometimes be the best choice when the owner is not committing the time necessary, and does not want to muddy the reputation of their site due to poor client servicing.
It will surely be successful with your input
With all that said, you can certainly make this a success. But this is why we ask clients to consider their contribution, what they have planned, what time they can commit and what their goals are. From there it’s easy to work forwards together with you to deliver a successful ecommerce platform that solves your challenges and those of your clients.
Wrapping this up and delivering it
To summarise, there are many successful ecommerce businesses out there. If you read about their successes, there’ll certainly be lots of failures, late nights and coffees. But their relentless hard work and time investment is instrumental in the delivery of a world leading customer experience online.
It’s food for thought…