The Ecommerce Business Plan

Written by Ray Yee


Simply put, business plans can make or break your business. Starting a Drop Ship business online is no different from starting a traditional non-online business. Withrepparttar strong emphasis individuals place on writing business plans for starting up non-internet-based companies, it is equally crucial to prepare a business plan for your online business.

A business plan serves many important purposes forrepparttar 138339 online business. First, becauserepparttar 138340 business plan has a detailed list ofrepparttar 138341 tasks to undertake, it is a call to action for you to promote your business actively and not procrastinate on your marketing efforts. Second, it provides a blueprint that describes your company effectively:repparttar 138342 market,repparttar 138343 products andrepparttar 138344 steps you need for effective marketing. This serves to guide your business throughrepparttar 138345 months ahead.

Business plans normally comprise of five sections:

1) The Objectives. This section will describerepparttar 138346 objectives forrepparttar 138347 venture, andrepparttar 138348 mission statement that definesrepparttar 138349 online business. It states bothrepparttar 138350 financial and strategic objectives and is normally about one page long. There should be a concise description ofrepparttar 138351 Drop Ship business atrepparttar 138352 start. A brief example:

‘Magical Stores Online is an internet company that provides quality tools and resources for magic tricks. We aim to consistently provide magicians with reliable tools for conducting magic tricks, and also accurate information and guides on how to properly performrepparttar 138353 magic tricks with our tools. In our first year online, our target is to have U.S. $400,000 in revenues and $100,000 in profits. This can be achieved by attracting an average of about 5000 visitors to our website every month through effective internet marketing. Our strategy is to attract recurring traffic to our website by continually updatingrepparttar 138354 useful resources and information on our website. Magicians will constantly return for more useful tips on magic tricks. This cuts our marketing costs drastically and adds to our profit margin.’

2) The Executive summary. The executive summary should contain a few important details. It should outlinerepparttar 138355 basic model ofrepparttar 138356 company, howrepparttar 138357 business functions,repparttar 138358 market environment, and alsorepparttar 138359 business opportunity inrepparttar 138360 market. A continuation fromrepparttar 138361 previous example:

‘Magical Stores Online is a retailer of magic products onrepparttar 138362 internet. We specialize in card and coin tricks and stage magic, and classify our products according to age group, skill level, features, andrepparttar 138363 occasion they are used for. Magicians can browserepparttar 138364 product catalogue on our website and buy their products with a shopping cart software. They can choose to pay either by credit cards or by checks. We use a third party credit card merchant to process our payments, hence eliminatingrepparttar 138365 need to have a merchant account ourselves. A profit is realized whenever a sale is made, because we obtain our products at a wholesale price and we sell them at a retail price. Since our supplier, Company XYZ, drop shipsrepparttar 138366 products directly torepparttar 138367 customers’ address, we do not need to hold any inventory. Our market comprises of magicians of any age group who specialize in card and coin tricks and stage magic. The opportunity lies inrepparttar 138368 internet as a marketing medium for magic products. Sincerepparttar 138369 rise ofrepparttar 138370 internet inrepparttar 138371 mid 1990s, we find thatrepparttar 138372 major magic product retailers do not userepparttar 138373 internet effectively to market their products. With effective internet marketing skills, we believe that we can reach a wider audience thanrepparttar 138374 other major players, thus claiming a large market share.’

*Note that in a real business plan,repparttar 138375 business owner should aim to provide a more detailed version thanrepparttar 138376 examples given above. The examples here only serve to illustrate an overview of whatrepparttar 138377 basic business plan should encompass.

3) Marketing Strategies. In this section, you will describerepparttar 138378 steps you intend to take in order to market your business effectively onrepparttar 138379 internet. There are a few basic marketing methods available onrepparttar 138380 internet. Mentioned below are three ofrepparttar 138381 most popular methods.

- Email Marketing. Ezines and newsletters are powerful tools. It is simplyrepparttar 138382 most cost-effective form of marketing onrepparttar 138383 internet. Sending out email promotions or newsletters to your subscriber base costs virtually nothing, except forrepparttar 138384 time you spend on writing your newsletter. Withrepparttar 138385 web form on your website, you can capturerepparttar 138386 names and email addresses ofrepparttar 138387 customers who subscribed to your newsletter. I do not recommend that you send your subscribers with product promotions regularly, but you should continually provide them with useful tips and information. In this way, you establish your credibility as an expert and maintain a strong relationship with your customers, instead of appearing as someone just out to make money. Promotions for your products should only be sent out about once or twice a month.

Basic Rules For Effective Email Marketing

Written by Ronald Gibson


Copyright 2005 Ronald Gibson

If you want an email campaign to succeed, you don`t want to offend anyone when sending your messages. Turn off a consumer with your email and you can be sure they`ll tune out your message. Don`t let that happen to you

A message that earns respect has a better chance to make sales. That`s why our topic for discussion is email etiquette.

Train yourself to always -- and I mean always -- stick torepparttar rules below when crafting your email messages.

RULE #1 - ALWAYS WRAP YOUR LINES AT 65 CHARACTERS OR LESS

Whenever you write an email, always formatrepparttar 138338 lines so that they`re 65 characters, or less, across. To do this, you may need to do a "hard return" by hitting "Enter" atrepparttar 138339 end ofrepparttar 138340 line.

Wondering why you should limit your lines to just 65 characters? Good question! There are two reasons why "less is more":

The first thing to remember is that looking at a computer screen for a long time causes "eye fatigue" for many readers. The shorter span of characters acrossrepparttar 138341 screen makes reading easier and more appealing torepparttar 138342 recipient of your email message.

The other reason to go short instead of long is this: some email clients automatically enforce line-wrapping at 60-65 characters on received messages. If your email is wrapped at 70,repparttar 138343 content will arrive all "chopped up." This makes it unattractive...and worse -- unappealing.

How do you get your lines to wrap at 65 characters? Some email clients, such as Outlook Express, allow you to setrepparttar 138344 line-wrap to any character-width that you choose. That means you won`t have to hit Enter each time after typing 65 characters. Makes life easier. You can also type 65 asterisks or dashes in a Notepad file to create a template. Then paste your email below it to see if any lines extend too far torepparttar 138345 right.

RULE # 2 - BE CAREFUL USING ALL CAPS

Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
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