No matter if you’re at the beginning or if you’re nearing the end of your university days, chances are that you’re spending a lot of time thinking about your career goals. Well, okay, you’re probably focusing more on partying if you’re a first-year, so keep doing that, but all of you who are finishing up your studies are probably looking into some great job opportunities or how to work from home. While there are many career paths you can take, becoming an entrepreneur is definitely one of the more lucrative options out of the lot. After all, who doesn’t want to be their own boss and cut out the middleman?

Remember, there’s nothing wrong with working a stable job building someone else’s empire, but you’ll only be able to ensure true financial independence if you take matters into your own hands. So why not become an E-commerce entrepreneur? Hey, the field is growing constantly, it’s going to be worth more than 6 billion US dollars by 2023 – do you need any more incentive than that?

Today, we’ll be going over some smart steps you need to take in order to make your E-commerce venture a success from day one. Here’s how you can stand out in such a competitive field.

 

Focus on building a strong brand

First things first, understand that branding is one of the most powerful driving forces behind E-commerce success. You can’t just make a website and start dropshipping products, because quite simply, nobody gives a crap. There are so many E-commerce stores out there, why should anyone put their trust in yours? The answer: is branding. Hey, you’ve been building your personal brand in college, now’s the time to build one in the business world.

Building a strong and recognizable brand identity is imperative for improving your company’s visibility and trust in the online world. The more you focus on e-commerce branding, the better your business will grow and thrive. To that end, be sure to come up with core brand values that resonate with your target demographic, be sure to adapt your tone of voice for your audience, and don’t forget to create a unique visual identity to stand out from the crowd.

 

Emphasize customer communication and experience

To make it big in this cut-throat industry, you have to constantly engage your customers in meaningful conversation. Communicating with your target demographic allows you to generate quality leads, improve conversions, build up your brand’s trust and image, and most importantly, it allows you to elevate customer experience as a whole. And as you can imagine, a happy customer is more likely to make a purchase, recommend you to their friends, and become your lifetime fan.

To communicate effectively without going broke, though, you can’t rely on a traditional phone system. Instead, you need to have a cloud-based system like VoIP, and the best VoIP solution on the market should provide you with all kinds of digital features like mobile optimization, low call costs, video and audio conferencing, and call analytics, all of which will help you communicate with your audience to improve their experience and satisfaction. 

 

Make the most of customer and industry data

Every decision you make as the leader of your E-commerce brand needs to be founded on relevant customer and industry data. Yes, you could go with your gut feeling, but that’s no way to run a growth-oriented business, and that way you’re bound to make a mistake. 

Instead, you need to let technology help you out, and use artificial intelligence in conjunction with big data analysis to make use of all that customer data flowing around the web, and make better business decisions. This is an easy and effective way to minimize risk and keep growing your business all year round.

 

Don’t skimp on search engine optimization

As an E-commerce leader, you’re going to be spending a lot of time working with your marketing team. Now, you should use every digital marketing tactic in the book, sure, but you mustn’t make the common mistake of prioritizing paid ads over SEO. Search engine optimization is imperative for your brand’s reputation and long-term success, because it gives you visibility, credibility, and it shows people that Google trusts you. This is something that Ecommerce leaders know all-too-well in highly-competitive regions like Asia (take the example of Malaysia in this Malaysia market report).

In Hong Kong, for example, E-commerce leaders will even emphasize local SEO and will get specialized SEO services for Hong Kong and every other relevant region where they have a brand presence and where they want to boost sales. This allows them to emphasize localized SEO in their marketing strategies and complement other targeted marketing tactics to improve results, engage more people, and drive traffic to their stores.

 

Look for internship opportunities

Last but not least, don’t rush into this without first obtaining some hands-on experience. Before you get that business loan or invest your hard-earned money into building an E-commerce startup, be sure to look for internship opportunities in various Ecommerce companies and specific niches, so that you can gain some experience, see if this is really what you want to do, and get the inside knowledge necessary to avoid the common mistakes from day one. 

Hey, everyone wants to become a millionaire overnight, but rarely do people understand that overnight success is built upon years of hard work. Spend some time working for an E-commerce leader, and you’ll soon gain the knowledge you need to succeed. And if you are planning to sell your business, read more about E-commerce valuation.

 

Over to you

Ecommerce is one of the most lucrative markets on the planets right now, and it’s only going to grow in the years to come. If you’re thinking of launching your own business straight out of college, then consider becoming an E-commerce entrepreneur, and be sure to use these tips to optimize your e-commerce website and make your brand stand out in a sea of competitors