How to write an e-commerce Business Plan

So you have a business idea, a product to sell online, and the passion for getting started. You might be motivated to jump right in and start building your business without a formal e-commerce business plan. Then please don’t.

We’ve been in the e-commerce business for 12 years, and we’ve seen hundreds of online stores come and go. The number one mistake new business owners make is failing to create a professional business plan before getting started. If you’re serious about starting an online e-commerce business, then please read the complete article.

At their core, e-commerce business plans force you to think critically about every important segment of your online e-commerce store, enabling you to know and withdraw major problems before getting started. Your e-commerce business plan will become the foundation of how you spend, how you budget, what products you sell, and who you sell them to, how you talk about your business, and much more. To put it bluntly, businesses without a business plan are more likely to fail.

The actual length of your e-commerce business plan

For the most top part, an e-commerce business plan for your online store will look quite similar to the business plans you’d see for a brick-and-mortar shop, a clothing shop, or even a large company. The level of detail you provide for each section may vary, and that’s just fine; for some preparers, business plans are 50-page books that cover every possible detail or scenarios, and for others, twenty pages are enough to get the creative juices flowing and to build a primary guide to follow.

Drafting Your Own Ecommerce Business Plan

Once you have a basic idea of a business plan’s scope and content, here’s how to write one for your e-commerce store. We’ll start with the most obvious aspects of your e-commerce business and then focus on the important details. Our experts highly recommend using a professional e-commerce business plan template and following the walkthrough below to create your investor-ready business plan.

Company Description

Always start with a company description where you will have to explain the business’s nature and what you are trying to sell online. You must also include company goals and milestones in the future.

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary is the first part you’ll write, but it constructs your entire business plan. Think of it as the “summary” for your business, introducing important elements and sharing your enthusiasm for what you do. Even if you think you have a solid understanding of your business at the outset, it’s still a good practice to write this first; it will likely feel more organized and pull in more information once you have the rest of your e-commerce business plan nailed down. There might also be a particularly striking point or emotional benefit that emerges in the process of writing the plan, and you’ll get to include it here!

Operational plan

This concerns your business’s moving parts and logistics – how you’re getting your online products from the manufacturer to your customers.
The following is included in operations.
• Location of business.
• List your management team and staff and.
• List your product, how you will acquire what you will sell, or suppliers.
• List your vendors who will provide packaging.
• List your storage capacity.
• Include a list of third-party vendors.
• Create brief information about the shipping, fulfillment, and payment collections processes.

Market Analysis

Market analysis will tell you whether the customer will buy your product based on analysis and trends.
It is subdivided into three categories:

• Audience Segmentation It included where the actual audience is and where people are buying the products you are selling. For example, people in large cities often buy frozen foods.

• Industry Analysis: What does the market look like for your targeted industry overall? How the industry is growing, and what will be the revenue shortly. You will have to include its opportunities and how strong will be the cashflows and investment.

• Competitive Analysis: Provide an overview of your competitors. How good they are at their service, and how much investment they are getting, what technology they are using at the moment. Also, in this section, you have will to explain their strengths, weaknesses, and size.

Marketing Strategy

Before you start your online store, it’s essential to spend time thinking through your marketing strategy. This will cover how you obtain, convert, and retain customers through various platforms and channels (like Website organic search or social media ads). It is one of the most critical sections of your e-commerce business plan. All of your other planning is worthless if you can’t draw customer’s attention to your store.

The Marketing Strategy is a crucial part of any e-commerce business plan. Your marketing strategy will discuss the following:
• Content Strategy
• SEO
• Website Plan
• Paid Search
• Social Media Advertisement
• E-mail Marketing
• Promotions

Financial Plan

The Financial Plan. This is the most challenging part of the business plan for many business owners, and honestly, the least fun. However, it’s imperative. If you don’t want to write a business plan at all, you’ll still need to do this part. If you’re exploring outside funding or bank loan, this is the part that should contain the highest degree of detail – investors care about where their money is going. They need the reassurance of an ultimate return on their investment.

If you’re not seeking external funding, this section is still important, and the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. Planning your finances can make the difference between a scalable, successful business or face completely unexpected expenses or unsustainable profit margins. At least, your financial plan should examine:

• Operational Costs
• Utilization of Funds
• Investment required
• Balance Sheet
• Income Statement
• Cashflow Statement
• Advertisement Budget
• Cost of Customer Acquisition ( CAC)
• Break-even point

 

Want to know more about financial plans? Check out our financial planning service. You can book an expert for a free DEMO.

Complete your Business Plan

Think you made it this far, then congratulations. Therefore, building your business plan will be easy, and success comes to those willing to put hard work into the work. Building your business plan will let you avoid and identify common obstacles and give you a quick and easy source to review the most important information about what your business is and how it operates. It will help if you referred to it often. As you create your product website, set up a marketing campaign and social profiles – it’s a live document, so don’t wait to make changes as your store evolves. Or, if you feel like you’re confused, don’t feel like you have to include everything – some business experts can help you plan your business. The most crucial thing is that you keep moving forward and improving your business – success will come with time.