Business

Get Started on Your E-Commerce Business

As a beginner, the e-commerce business can be challenging to navigate. You can have a successful e-commerce business with the right business plan and platform. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers were searching for convenient ways to shop online causing the e-commerce industry to grow. In the next two years, e-commerce retail sales are predicted to grow from $4.9 trillion to $6.8 trillion in the next few years. This would be the ideal time for business owners to launch profitable and sustainable e-commerce businesses. Here are some tips on how to get your e-commerce business started. 

Let’s Get Started On How To Start Your E-Commerce Business 

Research Business Models

All businesses have their own structure, so take the time to research different business models and find the one that works best for your business. Some business models include software, physical product, service-based business, and digital product sales. 

Choose Your Products

Next, you should determine the niche market you want to sell in before you choose what you want to sell. Although, if you choose to sell products in a specific category instead of a larger one, there will be less competition. Once you narrow down where you are going to sell to, research products and find which ones will sell better. 

Define Your Target Market 

Find your ideal customer! You need to find your target market in order to come up with an effective and sustainable business plan. 

Register Your Business 

Registering your business has a lot of steps, such as obtaining licenses, picking the name for your business, getting an EIN (employer identification number), etc. Research your state to find what licenses you need to obtain. 

Finalize Your E-Commerce Business Plan

When creating your business plan, there are additional details to consider, such as tracking inventory, how to manage financial decisions, and maintaining your shop. You also need to figure out how to market your brand, the logo, and the aesthetic of your brand. 

Create Your E-Commerce Shop 

Choose a shopping platform that your ideal customers already use to begin acquiring new customers. Research to find what platform has the features you may need. 

Choosing the Best E-Commerce Platform 

In this generation, it is very hard to be a competitor in particular markets without an online store that is easily accessible to consumers. Keep in mind technological requirements and pricing when deciding what platform to use. 

Different platforms have different policies on maintenance and licensure. Some platforms have a monthly subscription fee and some have an initial fee that gets renewed annually. These prices are determined by the features the platform offers and who is in charge of the source code. As you achieve your goals and grow, you want a platform to support you. 

Types of E-Commerce Platforms 

Traditional E-Commerce Platform 

You need to purchase a license fee and get it renewed every year. Your IT and development team will have to build your online shop within the platform you choose and customize it. 

Open-source E-Commerce Platform 

This particular platform comes with the freedom to do whatever you want, as long as you are able to develop the codes to include the features you want and have access to the code. 

Cloud E-Commerce Platform

To gain access to larger storage space for new growing businesses, businesses can host their site on cloud servers to store applications, information, and other data. Luckily these platforms have a simpler interface and lower costs. 

SaaS E-Commerce Platform 

Saas (software-as-a-service) platforms need businesses to pay a fee per month that will cover the use of maintenance, servers, security, and upgrades. There are no customizations available, the host will take care of these things. 

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When to Use Non-Conformance vs. CAPA

Learning the difference between non-conformance (NCR) and corrective/preventive actions (CAPAs) is a very important part of your business structure. Let go over the basic understandings:

What’s the Progression of Action?

  • A nonconformity occurs when a task is not fulfilled and then does not meet operational requirements.

  • Correction is the next step after an unconformity has taken place. By placing a correction you are trying to stop another nonconformity from continuing to break your operations.

  • A corrective action request (CAR) is when an investigation is launched to find the root cause of these errors in hopes that they will stop happening.

How to Choose the Correct Plan of Action

In order to make the wisest decision with your corrective choice, you may want to ask yourself these questions:

  1. Can the problem be resolved actively without wasting time and resources or without disrupting the client’s expectations?— Is the problem not likely to happen again? If so, continue on without needing to record the incident.

  2. Did the problem waste time, resources or upset the client? If so, you should begin a nonconformity but if it can be resolved, use a correction instead.

  3. Is the problem an indication of a more systemic issue, and is it likely to reoccur? If so, then a corrective action needs to take place to discover a way to find the cause and solve it. 

Conclusion

When it comes to quality management it is crucial that your business sets up clear and consistent definitions. Without this, your business will run the risk of missing important elements and making mistakes in the operation of your business.

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4 Reasons Why A Project Manager In An IT Team Is Paramount

In a software development team, we can find different roles and responsibilities, from the business analyst to the developers, the testers, and the scrum master. They all work as a team to achieve the project objectives, but the person in charge of leading and managing the entire project is the Project Manager.

Let's take a look at some of the responsibilities of this role so that we can understand its relevance in a team of software developers.

What does a Project Manager do?

On a daily basis, a Project Manager's job would be to prioritize project tasks and emerging demands, compare the hours spent against the available budget, and ensure that the project is completed with the allocated resources.

In addition, the Project Manager would have to deal with customer expectations, guide the team in completing tasks, and troubleshoot emerging issues.

Why is the role of the Project Manager important?

This is an essential role for a couple of main reasons.

First of all, The Project Manager keeps the whole team and the project, in general, moving forward. The project manager's job allows other team members to focus on their tasks and therefore it is easier to obtain tangible progress within the time frame set at the beginning.

Second, having a defined project manager role is cost-effective. Each role on the development team is important and has specialized tasks that must be completed, developers must spend their time programming, and designers must focus on design options for the product.

Therefore, the project manager's role ensures that the administration workload does not fall on other team members. As a result, the project would have more efficient time management and clients will notice when the project is delivered faster.

Third, the panoramic perspective with which the Project Manager usually analyzes the project is priceless. Using tools like Jira or Trello, they can get an overview of the status of the project.

Consequently, this represents an advantage for the project manager in recognizing and mitigating risks. Whether tasks are late or not completed on time, the Project Manager can devise strategies to reduce the negative impact on the project.

Last but not least, projects come with various stakeholders, and the Project Manager has a special responsibility to act as a bridge of understanding between them. Whenever a member of the development team or the customer has a query, the Project Manager is the person to contact. This will result in a more defined flow of communication.

Project management is paramount to achieving project success. The Project Manager is the person who keeps the development team on track, analyzes the level of fulfillment of tasks, manages the workload, and solves emerging problems.

Without a doubt, a Project Manager is a role that every software development team should have.

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