How to start a successful eCommerce marketplace in India?

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India has become the contemporary podium of eCommerce business in a steadfast manner. Entrepreneurs do have their neurons bursting with ideas but they still have a prime question in their mind, How to start a successful eCommerce marketplace in India?

 

Competitive entrepreneurs are gushing with innovative business concepts in the eCommerce cosmos to set their benchmark. Those who can carve their place in this sphere become global leaders.   

 

You must be all fired up to cram all the methods to scale on top as quickly as possible but hold your horses and let ’s take a look at the history of eCommerce in India how the eCommerce bloomed and metamorphosised along with the trend. It will give a whole screen of the evolution so far so that you can have a rough vision about how it may change in future.  

 

History of eCommerce in India

 

According to software suggest eCommerce was First introduced in India with rediff.com when they induced an online shopping portal on their site.  

 

 

 

 

Following the footsteps of Rediff, indiatimes.com did the same. However, none of these could kindle the interest of the shoppers to shop online.

 

In the same year as indiatimes.com, baazee.com was introduced. The concept was just like OLX. It became a hit overnight. Later it was acquired by eBay. 

 

In 2002 and the following year IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation ) and Air Deccan introduced the online ticket reservation system so that people can book tickets from the comfort of their home or anywhere. 

 

 

 

This step eliminated the need to stand in long queue and saved a lot of time for people. With the digitization of the process of ticket reservation, as if a new dimension came into being.  

 

 

With the ease of booking tickets, people started having this new found interest in travelling and touring. Sites like makemytrip.com, yatra.com, goibibo.com etc. sprang up sensing the heat of the tourism market. 

 

Flipkart, India originated product-based eCommerce emerged in 2006. It popularised as soon as it popped up due to excellent service.

 

 

Same year as Flipkart, bookmyshow.com got introduced and became an instant hit to the people who by now had gotten used to multiplex culture by then. Tickets of any events, play, movie etc. can be pre-booked through this site online. 

 

 

Gradually the eCommerce market was expanded more by Myntra, the introduction of Amazon.in, Jabong, Bigbasket etc.

 

Now that we have gone through the eCommerce History in India, let’s delve straight into the subject on how to start a successful eCommerce marketplace in India. 

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Exhaustive Market Research

 

 

Prior to anything else conducting thorough research about the market trends and competitors is what you should do. You can ask your friends and colleagues as well. Try lobbing your product idea to various people. 

 

It will predict your chances of survival in that particular field but also it helps you to come up with adroit ideas for your own business that can make you stand out in the same field. It will also help you expand your vision and you may find your niche instead of walking on someone else’s footsteps. 

 

Set your budget

 

 

 

It is always a wise step to round out your budget and set a blueprint of investment regarding which part of your business needs how much capital investment.

 

If your capital is not immense, try exploiting the resources to the fullest to get the most out of your ante.

 

E.g. if you have a defined budget for advertisement use all the platforms wisely to milk your advertisements for getting relevant traffic in every way possible. There are many ways to optimize your ads on every platform.

 

Choose Your Target Audience Wisely

 

 

 

 

The thorough research that you conducted will come in handy while deciding your target audience. It is very important to know which group of the crowd can relate to your products and your means of publicity plus your ads should aim them.

 

Plan How to Reach Your Target Audience

 

 

 

While launching your eCommerce business, it is necessary to choose a sharp medium for pitching your product to your target audience. For penetrating the market to make your place it is necessary to choose a proper medium.

 

Domain and Name 

 

 

 

 

Your domain and the Domain name matters a lot if you choose to operate within your own country, then there is no point in choosing a .com domain, even if you choose to operate globally .co.(your country) will prove to be more relevant suffix because .co has lesser competition as it is still new.

Your domain name should be simple yet striking for people to remember easily.

 

Focus on improving and promoting your brand

 

 

 

Don’t get money-centric at the beginning of your business. Focus on waxing the reach of your brand name first. If your brand is able to latch itself to people’s mind and they become eager to try it at least for once, the rest of the work will become a glib. 

 

Improving your brand more and more should be your focus to retain those customers. A cycle of attraction and retention runs throughout from the very beginning and it is necessary to maintain the cycle for the growth of your business.  

 

Business Frame

 

 

 

 

Choosing a platform for your business is as necessary as breathing is to live. If you don’t want your website to ever crash down choose your frame after researching thoroughly.

 

A strong frame that is infinitely scalable and flexible is a one-time investment for the core. Rest of the changes that will take over time, will be on the upper crust.  

 

A strong frame like Magento is suitable for any kind of eCommerce platform that you want to spawn.

 

Legalities

 

 

 

Take care of all the legal procedures related to your business. The paperwork in every country differ.

 

If you are starting an eCommerce business in India and spreading yourself globally, you will have to take care of all the business rules and regulations, customs, import and export regulations etc. for the countries you will operate in.  

 

It is always wise to take care of all these for a hitch-free beginning and functioning.

 

Taxation   

 

 

 

Another important thing to take care of is taxation. It varies from country to country. Your footholds in different countries clearly mean that you will have to pay taxes in those countries as well. Be clear on your accounts so that your business is not seized. 

 

All these steps cover the query of how to start a successful eCommerce marketplace in India. Though you will have to keep in mind the success will come gradually with a steady effort, remember it even took Amazon almost 10 years to get in full bloom.

 

You must not hurry and should aim for strengthening your brand name instead of making money at first. People never visit a site with poor services and products the second time which means your priority must be keeping a check to all these things and paying attention to the reviews of the customers on the products and services.

 

 

You might also like to read: 

 

How to create an online marketplace?

Which is the best B2B marketplace in India? How to build one?

 

About CedCommerce 

 

For a remarkable amount of time, CedCommerce has been offering the necessary technical solutions specifically made for building one such platform.

No matter what kind of eCommerce business you want to start in India CedCommerce has the solution for whatever you are looking for. We have a dedicated solution for Indian Multivendor Marketplace which can be tailored according to your specific ideas and needs because we know that every marketplace is unique. that will give the entrepreneurs a fair chance of making a stronghold on the market.