E-commerce business starting question?

How much money do you need to start your own e-commerce business?

 

It truly depends upon what you are planning to sell. There are free ecommerce engines out there for smaller operations and if you can code your own site and integrate the shopping cart, the development cost can be really low. If you drop ship to your customers, there will not be inventory costs, either. If you know how to market and are familiar with free ways to do so, it will not cost much for that, either.

On the other hand, it could costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars if you have a big play and few skills yourself.

 

It actually depends on what you want to do, what you can do and what you can't do that will increase the number of task you will outsource.

If you are in a tough niche you may need $5,000+ while small niches may start from $2,000

Building the site shouldn't take more than $300 to $800 depending on what you want.
Where most of the funds will go is marketing your products.

 

Depends on what type of e-commerce you choose and what niche it will reside in. For example, to run a shop offering raw materials for hand-made you need only a domain, a cheapest shared hosting and a free WP template = less than $50 in total. Marketing costs will make 90% of your expenses and will still be below $1000.
But try to begin a new online book shop or sell computer components - good luck with that...

Anyways, marketing is the key.

 

Don't scare the guy. Try with small steps now and you will see adapt in time. Each time you will want to change something at your website. Don't get all your money in from the start. My advice.

 

thanks for the reply guys I was thinking of starting online office supplier business. what say?

 

No one can give you valid advise if this would be a good venture or not because we are not in your shoes. What you need to do is an extensive research of the market and then compile a business plan. How big of a market you would want to cover? How many and how big are your competitors? What would your unique features be that will separate you from your competitors? What marketing budget you are prepare to invest? .... there are really many, many questions you (or anyone starting a new business for that matter) should have the answers too. Without those answers you will just be going head first, shooting in the dark and hoping to hit something. Don't want to discourage you but the good idea of a business is just the very first step towards really developing one

 

I cannot speak about the office supply market anywhere but in the U.S. where it is completely SATURATED by all size of companies. This includes established national companies like Staples (that combines online ordering with in store pickup for immediate needs) and 100-year-old regional suppliers like W.B. Mason and numerous smaller companies specializing in particular niches (like office supplies for industrial manufacturers or office supplies for doctors' offices, etc.) I would not want to have to put together a marketing plan for a new start up in this market, unless I had a high six- or, preferably, seven-figure budget to work with. Again, there might be opportunities elsewhere in the world, but I would not count on the U.S. market for any significant revenues, especially at first.

 

Yeah, as people above said already - depends on your location greatly. I can confirm most of Europeans still prefer real world shopping of office supplies to be able to check its quality before taking out the wallet. However, there are trends of changing malls into huge showcases with most of the shopping process moved online to cut the storage costs and improve logistics. Therefore, I assume there are some possibilities you can use, but I cannot predict future and cannot give you encouraging promises.

 

Don't do that. You will be absolutely eaten alive by Staples and even Amazon/Walmart. You have to really niche down. What would be your edge?

Just don't. It doesn't sound like you have even thought about a real business plan.

 

Depends on what you want to do and to sell. Do you have your own products or do you want to re-sell?