We’ve come a long way on the web. As with many things in the technology field, raw power has gone up, while prices have dropped making many things possible, and accessible that once were not.
Ecommerce, or the act of selling online is one of those things. New services such as Shopify and Square and older services such as PayPal and even Ebay make selling online easy, and accessible to the average user.
However, as I’ll explain in this article, ecommerce is not as easy as some make it out to be, and if you want to dip your toe, or jump into ecommerce completely, there are some things you should know.
Easy right? We didn’t even talk about inventory control, taxes, marketing, or international orders!
My point is to show that even with powerful and easily accessible technology, there’s still a whole bunch of actual “work” to be done when selling something online. Even with low or no upfront costs, the overall budget when inclusive of maintenance and ongoing sales improvements can often exceed what the business owner had in mind.
Proper planning is key, and being flexible with your needs and processes is also important to avoid creating a custom, and expensive solution that is a nightmare to maintain.