Is your Ecommerce trade standing on the right pillars?

With increased pressure on retail outlets to expand their online presence and for existing ecommerce companies to step up and compete, the focus on what constitutes the pillars on which retail businesses can establish their ecommerce business successfully needs to be focused upon.

The 5Ps of ecommerce, as we call it, revolves around identifying the right opportunity, coupled with merchandising, technology, operations, marketing and logistics. Each of these pillars can further be demarcated into smaller divisions. Each of these sub-sections must tick in rhythm and combine together to form a successful ecommerce venture.

Through a series of 5 articles, it would be my effort to shed some light on this alignment process to enable successful ecommerce ventures.

Before we get to the pillars you will first need to identify the right opportunity.

Following the three steps given below, will help you identify and spot an opportunity that can then be aligned to ones’ knowledge or skill and converted into marketable new products or services.

1. Observe upcoming trends. Study how customers interact with products.
2. Recognize problems and develop innovative ways to solve them.
3. Identify ‘Gaps’ in the Marketplace.

The best business ideas are often right in front of you. One just needs to feel a pressing need and then work up a solution to address that need.

One of the most important pillars of all the five, “Right Merchandising” makes the whole difference between “Stuck Up” or “Stock Lots” or a fast moving inventory.

Merchandising comes with its own 6R’s which is defined as the “Right Product” at the “Right Place” at the “Right Time” at the “Right Price” and in the “Right Quantity”. Getting the above component right is absolutely necessary and builds the base of any ecommerce business. 

Along with cataloguing, product shoots, content management, inventory management; merchandising crosses over to numerous divisions to arrive at the right combinations in sync with the defined 6R’s. In my endeavour to shed more light on this complex framework of ecommerce, we shall go into more depths of merchandising in the next issue.

For now, as we continue on with the year let’s gear ourselves to rise above the brickbats and look for brilliant breaks instead. Adaptability certainly is the key to survival and success.