How to start learning e-commerce step by step

E-commerce has become the trend for any business owner thinking about expanding his business or starting a new profitable business. With the great facilities provided by e-commerce platforms and content management platforms, creating an online store from scratch has become simpler and easier than ever before.

So, if you are planning to switch to the world of e-commerce and you have questions in mind such as: Where do I start in e-commerce? How do I choose the right products? What are the steps to create an integrated online store from scratch? In this article, we will provide you with a comprehensive and simplified guide to take your first steps in the journey of learning e-commerce.

What is e-commerce

E-commerce, in its simplest definition, is the process of buying and selling products and services over the Internet. This includes displaying products, browsing their description, pricing them, ordering them, determining shipping methods, paying for them, and other steps involved in traditional commerce, but within the orbit of the Internet world.

If you are wondering about the importance of e-commerce, in 2021 alone, more than 2.14 billion people around the world made purchases online, and global e-commerce revenues at that time reached approximately 4.9 trillion dollars, and 54.8% of these total sales were made via mobile devices. Revenues are expected to rise to $6.4 trillion by 2024, and may reach $8 trillion by 2026.

Types of e-commerce

Before you embark on the journey of learning e-commerce, you must learn about the types of e-commerce so that you can choose the appropriate type for the business project you want to create. The main types of e-commerce include:

Business-to-business (B2B): includes business transactions between manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, wholesalers, and other organizations.
Business to Consumer (B2C): This is the most common form of e-commerce and includes retail e-commerce sites and small and medium businesses that sell directly to the public.
Consumer to Consumer (C2C): This type has witnessed a significant increase with the emergence of platforms that allow individuals to offer their used products for sale (such as the Saudi Haraj website).

How to start your e-commerce learning journey

The essence of the success of any emerging online store project is the correct planning of all stages and steps. Take your time to analyze each step and invest the time and effort it requires, because modification and change later will cost twice the effort and cost. We can summarize the basic steps for starting a successful online store as follows: Choosing profitable and distinctive products that attract customers

Choose the customer segment and determine the type of store products

The first and most important step in your journey in the world of e-commerce is choosing the target customer segment and products. This stage must be given sufficient time and study, for the simple reason that changing the spectrum of your online store’s products or the type of customers later will put question marks about your store.

How do you choose the target customers and products you want to adopt in the online store? Are there certain products better than others in terms of profitability and speed of sale?

Of course, if you have a traditional store and adopt a specific type of product, or in your plan there is a specific type and a specific customer segment that you target, the matter is settled. All you have to do is conduct a careful feasibility study for these products and analyze their market well.

However, if you do not have the slightest idea about the products you want to adopt and the customers you want to target in your new store, there are some golden points that you must take note of before making your final decision to choose your store’s products. We mention the most prominent of these golden points:

First of all, you will have 3 basic options in terms of customer level and targeted products:
- Either you go towards luxury products and the wealthy customer class
- Or it adopts medium-level products, and the target customer class here is often the largest.
- Or to focus on products with competitive prices and a segment of customers with limited income.

Many consequences will vary depending on your choice, for example how products are displayed, pricing, packaging, delivery, marketing mechanism, etc.

After choosing the level of products for customers and before determining the type of those products, you must determine their orientation, meaning in which field your products will specialize, in the field of clothing, for example, accessories, electronic products… and others.

There are two fundamental keys to determining product orientation, the first is market need; That is, what is missing in your local market, and this depends on a careful study of the amount of supply and demand for each type of product. Always go to fill your market’s need for a specific type of product because it will be a golden opportunity that you may quickly miss.

The second key is the prevailing trend in your country or target market, and we advise you here to carefully study customer trends and interests and not to be drawn into fast-fashioned products that may disappear after a short period.

At the stage of choosing the type of products, you must keep in mind a solid rule, which is: a good product is one that exactly meets the customer’s need, so it would be very good to conduct a field survey or online questionnaires for the types of candidate products.
There are several additional factors that affect your choice of the type of products for your store, such as the possibility, ease or difficulty of importing them, taxes on them, their legal status, and others.

Calculating the costs of starting an online store project

Calculating the costs of starting an online store project requires thinking about many factors and points that can affect the total cost of the project and its feasibility.

There are many points, including website creation costs, monthly or annual hosting costs, costs of purchasing the domain name for your online store, logo design costs, branding, software, and marketing costs, in addition to the initial capital, which represents the cost of the products offered on the store.

You should conduct a careful feasibility study to ensure that you are able to cover all costs associated with the project and achieve the desired return.

You can see more details about the costs of the online store in our detailed article: How much does it cost to create an online store? Learn about basic and optional costs .

Determine the required profitability

Determining the profitability required in an online store project depends on several factors, including the type of products you offer, the costs associated with operating the store, and the expected rate of sales. It is necessary to go through some basic points at this stage, the most prominent of which are:

Determine costs : Determine all costs associated with the online store, including the costs of establishing, operating, marketing, shipping, delivery, etc.
Determine the profit margin : Determine the percentage of profit you want to achieve on each product. The profit margin is usually the difference between the selling price and the cost of the product. We note here that the margin may vary depending on the amount of supply and demand for the products, the nature of the goods, and also the target customer segment and class.
Determine the average sales to be achieved : Rely on market study and research to determine the average sales to be achieved monthly or annually to achieve the required profitability.
Performance evaluation : Regularly monitor store performance and product sales to check whether you are achieving the required profitability or not, and be prepared to make adjustments to prices or marketing strategies if necessary.

For more details on how to determine the profitability of an online store:

Learn about the average order value and its role in increasing the profit margin of your own store

Study competitors and come up with a clear business plan

Studying competitors is an important step in your e-commerce learning journey to understand the market and determine the unique competitive advantages of your online store. Remember the most important steps of this stage:

Identify competitors : Identify online stores that operate in the same field as you or offer products and services similar to those you want to sell.
Analyze their websites : You should visit competitors’ websites and study their design, user interface, and shopping experience to understand how they display products and information and provide payment and shipping options.
Product and price analysis : Compare your products and prices with those offered by competitors. Do you offer better products? Can you offer a competitive price?
Monitor offers and discounts : Track pricing strategies and discounts offered by competitors to understand how they are trying to attract customers.
Create a business plan : Devise a clear business plan based on what you learned from studying competitors. Determine marketing, promotion, pricing, customer service, and distribution strategies that will help you achieve a competitive advantage, and always try to answer the following question: Why would a customer shop your store over other competing stores?

Continuous follow-up : Always stay up to date with competitor news and any changes they make in their strategies and try to adapt periodically to shifts in the market.

Learn marketing methods and strategies for the online store

There are many marketing methods and strategies that can be used to promote your online store and attract customers. We mention the most prominent ones:

Social Media Marketing : Use social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others to interact with customers and post engaging content and promotions.
Email Marketing : Build a database of potential and current customers and use email to send marketing messages and special offers.
Content Marketing : Create a blog that addresses topics that your customers care about and its impact with value-added content that enhances their knowledge of the products and services you provide.
Marketing with offers and discounts : Provide special offers and attractive discounts to attract customers and encourage them to purchase.
Affiliate Marketing : Collaborate with digital influencers who have a large audience to market your store and products.
Local Marketing : Target local customers via local search and advertising for the geographic area surrounding your store.
Marketing through reviews and ratings : Offer excellent products to encourage customers to leave positive ratings and reviews about your products and services.
Marketing with competitions and gifts : Organize competitions and offers to attract attention and increase the number of followers and potential customers.
Video Marketing : Use marketing videos to showcase your products and explain their benefits and how to use them.

Keep in mind the necessity of constantly measuring the performance of your store’s marketing strategies and constantly improving them to achieve the best results.

For more details about e-marketing strategies, read:

Choose an e-commerce platform

The next stop and one of the most important steps in the e-commerce learning stage. In this step you will choose between several ways to enter the world of e-commerce. There are three general ways to create an online store:

Through e-commerce platforms, or known as SaaS: These are e-commerce sites that allow you to create an account on them and display your products, but you cannot create your own commerce space or customize your store on them, primarily Amazon and eBay.
Through content management platforms (CMS): These platforms allow you to create a special space for your store through which you can customize and design the store to a great extent. You can also benefit from many tools and add-ons that add unique features to your store, such as adding WooCommerce to WordPress, the Shopify website, BigCommerce, and others.
By programming an online store from scratch : Here you need to hire a specialized programmer to set up the store (Back end + Front end). You can customize your store in this method 100% as you wish, but the main problem is the high cost compared to the previous two methods.

Perhaps the best, simplest, and broadest of these methods is through the WordPress platform and through the distinctive WooCommerce add-on to it. Through WooCommerce, you can almost completely customize your store, from the store design (by choosing the available free and paid templates) to how products are displayed, the pricing policy, the provision of offers and discounts, and the ratings and reviews system.

Learning to use a WooCommerce plugin is very simple, and does not require any previous experience in programming or design, as the user interface is simple and easy to use. You can learn how to create a store on WooCommerce step by step through the following stations:

Choosing hosting for your store’s website, specifying the domain name, and installing WordPress : You can see the following simplified articles to learn how to accomplish these steps easily:
Learn how to set up WooCommerce and add products to it: This step will take some time, and you can check out the following articles to learn how to accomplish it step by step:
- Explaining WooCommerce to create an integrated online store – step by step
- How to Manage Products and Categories in a WooCommerce Store | Comprehensive guide
Learn how to take advantage of WooCommerce affiliate plugins to customize your store: This includes how to add offers, ratings system, shipping mechanism, payment methods, and more. You can see the following articles for more precious details:

For more details about adding WooCommerce and how to manage your store professionally using it, you can see the Learn WooCommerce section on our website, where you will find a comprehensive list of detailed and simplified explanations.

Determine product shipping methods and payment mechanisms

Another important stop in your e-commerce learning journey. At this stage, you must learn about the available shipping mechanisms and protocols, how to price them, and add them to the product details, in addition to determining the payment mechanisms that will be available in your store, which relate to several factors, including:

Details and legal and financial facilities in the project country.
Nature of customers.
Your own preferences.

You can see the following articles for more details about this stage:

Visual identity design and online store design

Visual identity means everything that may reflect your brand or business project that you want to establish, including the logo, colors, symbols, slogans, etc.

Visual identity design is a separate stage and you will need a specialized designer to complete it, but it is nonetheless a necessary stage because it will be the mirror that reflects the value of your store and your project, so do not hesitate to invest enough time, effort and money to accomplish it.

After preparing the visual identity by the designer, you can easily add it to your online store if you decide to create it on the WooCommerce platform, through many template editing tools and add-ons.

You can see the following articles for more details and tips on implementing visual identity in your store:

Learning e-commerce and entering the world of digital commerce has become an urgent necessity if you want to continue in the labor market, especially in light of the fierce competitiveness witnessed by the trade sector in our world and even the world. Do not delay any longer with the decision to start your own online store, as it does not require a lot of thought and time is not on your side. The earlier you start, the greater your chances of success in the labor market and profit.