5 Things To Do Before Launching Your Online Apparel Brand

Launching an eCommerce store may seem like a cakewalk. But there’s a whole lot more than just putting up the hi-res product pictures and enticing descriptions on an aesthetically appealing web template. The National Retail Federation forecasts online retail sales to grow up to 8 to 12 percent in 2017. This proves that the eCommerce industry is a lucrative business space for highly ambitious entrepreneurs.

However, without proper planning, your online store is likely to be one of the many unsuccessful stores on the web. So to ensure the success of your eCommerce brand, consider the following things you must do prior to launching your online fashion store. Read on.

Choose the right development platform:

Once you have the gist of what you want to offer through an e-retail store, you must start strategizing how to want to offer it. We would recommend you to choose Magento online store development as it is the most acclaimed open source web development platform in the eCommerce space. It lets you build, host and launch a robust web store while offering a huge variety of plugins to boost your store functionality.

Magento further integrates with numerous other platforms to ease your retail advertising, marketing, and management activities. It comes with default web catalogs and SEO abilities that get your store up and running in no time. With Magento by your side, you couldn’t have expected more for your store to be high-converting and successful.

Anticipate and prepare for the costs:

Low cost of entry is one of the major benefits of eCommerce web development. However, the low-cost entry doesn’t necessarily mean "free". You will be bearing costs for manufacturing or sourcing and packaging the goods you want to sell online as well as for putting them up online. The online selling expenses will include fees for buying a domain, commissions or subscriptions for selling on third-party marketplaces, hosting your website and buying necessary plugins to enhance web features and functionalities. Supplement them with a plethora of other marketing, advertising and operational costs of your business. However, the cost of running a business online will be one-tenth of what it costs offline.

Consider shipping costs:

Consumers love free shipping and it’s something that lures them to purchase your products instantly. Some retailers choose the keep the cost of their products high or keep a cut in the profit margin while eliminating shipping costs out their pricing strategy in order to attract and increase traffic on their site.

Note that you must invest in things that matter to your customers. If yours is a global brand, you will be required to handle custom forms, exchange rates as well as hefty shipping charges. Hence, consider all the costs - from creating and promoting to selling and delivering the product in your pricing strategize before your launch so as to avoid struggling with fulfilling and processing orders.

The above-mentioned tips will help you launch your store rather strategically and successfully. In the end, it is crucial for the store owner to review the existing business model and make necessary amendments as and when applicable. What other factors do you think should be taken into account before launching a successful clothing store online? Share your tips with us through the comments area below.

Olivia Johnson is a technical writer, love to share stuffs related to technology & development.