The rise of eCommerce, AI-powered business tools, and cutting-edge fintech have made it easy to start an eCommerce store with few overheads. Today, anyone with an internet connection and a laptop can start an online business right from home.
While finding startup and growth capital was a major barrier to entry in the past, online lenders have marched on to close the financing gap. You can use a working capital loan from a reputable online lender to build a professional website, purchase inventory, and list your products to start selling right from your basement.
But the question is: how do you know that your online business idea will be profitable before going in? That’s the point of this article. We’ll give a list of strategies and tech tools to help you gauge the profitability of your business upfront.
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Strategies to manage and run a profitable online business
The aim of going into business is to make a profit. That’s how you get paid. While many things go into running a profitable online store, two things stand out from the rest. They include:
1-. Find low-cost suppliers
That’s what successful online merchants do. They source high-quality products for pennies on the dollar from Chinese or Asian suppliers and manufacturers and sell them online at considerable markups.
AliExpress is a great place to find suppliers for any product you can think of. You don’t have to fly to China. It’s a fully online wholesale marketplace where you can buy cargo from the comfort of your house.
Suppliers with great wholesale prices set minimum order requirements and may have to invest a considerable amount for your first inventory. If you don’t have enough cash on hand, you can meet that cost with a working capital loan.
2-. Sell on-demand products
Are your product ideas in line with what’s popular among online shoppers? To nail that, establish your product niche and then use online tech tools to find top-selling products in your niche that are increasing in popularity.
You’ll win the online game if you sell rare, low competition, and useful products that address your buyer’s pain points at affordable prices.
3-. Tech tools to know if a product is profitable
Tech has given the business world AI-enabled tools to help aspiring and existing eCommerce merchants remove the guesswork out of their product research. There’s a litany of online tools you can use to find bestselling, profitable items to sell online and launch your business idea with confidence.
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They include:-
Amazon bestseller page
A great way to discover profitable products to sell online is through the Amazon bestseller page. It lists best-selling items on Amazon, and you can browse products by category to find popular items in your niche. And the good thing is, the page is updated every hour, so you’re sure to find up to the hour information about Amazon bestsellers.
-eBay top seller page
eBay has a bestseller page too. Use this page to cross-check what’s selling on Amazon vs. what’s selling on eBay and gain more insight on the best profitable products to sell on your website. If a product is in high demand on both sites, it’s more likely to do well in your e-store.
-Google trends
Millions of people take to Google every day to search for products of choice. Thus, Google trends provide a lot of insight into identifying products that are trending worldwide. Products that are on an upward trend on Google trends tend to perform well online.
So after finding bestsellers on eBay and Amazon, use Google trends to identify whether an item is on an upward or downward trend. If a product is selling well online, but it’s trending downwards, it means that the hype around it is dying out. But top sellers on an upward trend are great for building a sustainable brand online.
-SaleHoo
SaleHoo Market Research Lab is a great online tool to help you find trending, bestselling, and low competition items to sell online. This tech tool pulls market data from Amazon, AliExpress, and eBay and analyzes it to find the best-performing products based on sales numbers, popularity, product category, price, and competition.
It then gives you a list of suppliers who will supply your niche products at the best price for wider profit margins.
-AliExpress
AliExpress has a section called Hot products, where you can find a list of its best sellers. The tool compares the product’s average retail price and the wholesale price to help you find profitable, on-demand products in your niche. You’ll then see a list of the best suppliers for the product on AliExpress.
-Social platforms
Social Media platforms have evolved from being places where people go to unwind to robust marketing and product research channels. Most people now share their favorite brands on social networks with hashtags and hyperlinks.
Leverage social media to learn your prospects’ likes and dislikes, find popular products in your niche and pinpoint market gaps you can march into. Use platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to discover trending items using hyperlinks, hashtags, and social media groups.
Fund your online business with a working capital loan
The bottom line is, you’ll need funds to obtain the tools of the game like building a business website, buying the right tech devices, purchasing inventory, and covering everyday expenses on running an eCommerce business.
You can easily access working capital loans from fintech lenders to meet the upfront costs of setting up a website. Visit the link in the intro to learn more about a working capital loan.
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