The e-commerce is on a roll: online sales continue to record double-digit growth. The 100 billion euro sales milestone was reached in 2019, an increase of almost 15% on the previous year. Nearly 40 million French people have already made an online purchase.
This trend concerns retailers in all sectors, whatever their size. Creating an additional sales channel is an essential component in optimizing production capacity and improving performance. Would you also like to benefit from this trend?
Let's find out everything you need to know to create and manage your own online store!
Setting up your own online store requires a rigorous, methodical approach. As a first step, study the commercial interest of this opportunity by answering the following questions: Does my target clientele buy online? Would they be interested in this new way of shopping? Is this a better way of attracting more customers?
If the answer is yes, it's time to build your market study. In the first instance, you need to focus on your market in the broadest sense (sales trends of similar online stores, successful concepts, business conditions, average basket per customer, etc.). In the second instance, you need to focus on the structure of online supply and demand for shops offering similar products, and with identical pricing policies.
Then it's time to draw up your business plan. This invaluable document should be structured as follows:
- A brief, concise presentation of your project
- A presentation of your market
- Highlighting the fit between your offer and your market
- Showcasing your sales and customer acquisition strategy
- Present your projected financial statements, to convince your partners of the viability of your project.
There are several possible legal forms for setting up an online store:
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EIRL (Entreprise individuelle à responsabilité limitée). As the name suggests, the entrepreneur is only liable for the amount of capital he or she has contributed to the company. His or her personal assets are protected in the event of bad business, and cannot be used to recover any debts.
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EURL (Entreprise universelle à responsabilité limitée). It offers the same advantages as the EIRL, but its manager is considered a self-employed worker. It benefits from a specific social protection scheme, less effective than that of salaried employees.
- The SASU (Société par actions simplifiée unipersonnelle) is particularly flexible. Its day-to-day operation is set out in the articles of association. The Chairman of the SASU is covered by the general social security system.
- The micro-entrepreneur status status is particularly easy to set up, manage and wind up. Your social security contributions are calculated on the basis of your gross sales. This is capped at €176,200 for sales activities and €72,500 for services.
The steps involved in setting up a company vary according to the type of status chosen.
Business is all about trust. To attract new customers, you need to create a safe, ergonomic and attractive environment. Attach the utmost importance to the ergonomics of your website, and to the clarity of your product sheets.
Think mobile, by making sure your platform is "responsive".
Create maximum interaction with your prospects to collect their contact information, and generate leads. Leads are people who have not yet made a purchasing decision and who are interested in particular products and services. Why not create a newsletter, for example?
Real-time stock management is also a solution to ensure that you never run out of stock. It may be a good idea to display the number of items in stock, for example, to encourage certain web users to place an order.
Boost your sales with an SEO marketing strategy, by creating content to improve your natural referencing. This involves creating a blog or articles on trends in your industry, for example. The appearance of keywords will help your business appear at the top of search results.
We recommend that you attend trade shows to hand out your business card and make yourself known. Don't neglect your presence on social networks by taking care of each of your online profiles (Google MyBusiness, Yellow Pages, Facebook, Instagram, etc.).
Using all these productive tools is a useful way of saving time and optimizing your performance. Throughout the course of your business, you need to keep a close eye on the progress of your activities by monitoring a number of KPIs : conversion rate, customer acquisition levers, service rate, etc. So, what are you waiting for?
Written by our expert Paul LASBARRERES-CANDAU
April 20, 2020
