Shift4Shop eCommerce Blog | Starting a Business

Launching a new eCommerce product is hectic! You invest countless hours and considerable resources in developing something stellar. The bigger challenge, though, lies in getting the market to notice. 

Running an eCommerce store can be extremely rewarding. It’s a chance to establish a brand, attract an audience, and most importantly, maximize online sales. Inevitably, though, achieving business growth is also extremely time-consuming. The last thing you need is to be bogged down in day-to-day administrative tasks like responding to emails or managing social media.

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is critical for reaching target customers and achieving competitive advantages when launching a new product or service. An effective GTM strategy employs various strategies and tactics to increase the adoption and usage of your company’s products. When executed correctly, it successfully launches a product and drives revenue growth.

Have you ever dreamt of a business that just keeps growing? Imagine pouring your heart and soul into something, then watching it effortlessly expand and reach new heights. That's the magic of a scalable business!

So, you’ve finally found that fantastic retail product people can’t wait to get their hands on. But that’s only half the job done. You still need to make the critical decision about the best place to get your product to your target audience — should you go online or just stick to offline channels?

Are you currently looking for ways to do your part to combat the climate crisis? If the answer is yes, look no further.

In an age when environmental concerns are at the forefront of global discussions and affect us all, more and more consumers are favoring sustainable eCommerce businesses over their competitors. 

While tangible products have dominated digital market spaces for the longest time, they’ve gradually given way to a new frontier — digital products.

This shift has resulted from more brands embracing innovative and impactful digital products as a strategy to reach global audiences and ensure online sales.

Whether you’re talking about vehicles or working arrangements, “hybrid” is everywhere. It essentially means merging two concepts to create a better version of the original. 

Hybrid shopping is another trend that will take the world by storm. It’s a meshing of physical and digital shopping — and it's quickly gaining traction in a way that retailers will find hard to ignore. 

Everyone has gone online — you would be hard-pressed to find anything in the “real” world that you can’t find for sale on the Internet somewhere. And just as physical shops need an alluring display to attract potential customers, your eCommerce store needs the same. 

If you’re launching a new eCommerce business or simply introducing a new product line, one challenge remains the same: pricing. 

Get it wrong, and your business won’t reach its full profit potential. That could be the case whether you go too high or too low. To get it right, price testing is the way forward. Undertaking valuable price testing helps you understand where your products sit in the current market conditions. 

Running an online business has its challenges, and sustaining cash flow is vital. 

In simple terms, cash flow is the net amount of cash and equivalents transferred in and out of a company. How well you track and maintain it can make or break your business’s growth. 

So, you have a great idea for an online business. You’ve done market research, know current eCommerce trends, sourced the products you will sell, and built a snazzy new website to connect with your customers. You have also identified the best social media platforms to market your products, so you’re ready to get on the path to that first million, right?

Inflation is a standard economic process. But runaway inflation leads to steep price increases for businesses and their customers. 

With the pandemic affecting everyone’s life in many ways, many people have tapped into the possibility of doing business remotely. The biggest misconception about establishing a remote company is how challenging it is to start. 

Aside from the toilet paper shortages and newly-formed streaming service addictions, the pandemic has also given rise to a number of more positive trends, like a huge boom in new startups that have given people from all walks of life the excuse they need to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.

Starting a business can often be expensive. It can sometimes take all the money in the bank just to get started, and you may not see any returns for a while.

However, as the pandemic caused almost every industry to shift online, there is an abundance of opportunities to establish your own digital business with little to no money. 

Leading into the start of 2023 is the perfect opportunity to take stock of your current operations and learn what works and what needs improving.

Over the past few decades, employee engagement has become a top priority for global organizations. Although "employee engagement" may appear ambiguous, it truly refers to doing things that make an employee feel happy, fulfilled, and safe at work. Employees are more likely to maximize productivity and performance if they are more engaged.

Launching a startup business requires creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, and courage. The first year in the life of a startup business can pass in the blink of an eye; it’s a busy, exciting, gigantic learning curve. However, amid all the challenges of setting up, hiring staff, and deciding on your marketing, website, and content strategy, it’s a moment to assess how the business has done and what you’ve achieved.

There is no such thing as a business that’s easy to run and manage. Regardless of your industry, there will be various challenges and obstacles to growing and staying competitive. It should go without saying that when trying to run any business — especially a relatively small eCommerce store — it’s vital that owners and management allocate resources appropriately and efficiently.