Ecommerce Launch Plan

This is an outline I developed for small businesses launching their first ecommerce operations.

Products

  • Category
  • Features
  • Benefits
  • Key Differentiators
  • Variations
  • Cost Information

Market Research

  • Customers / Buyers
    • Demographics
      • Age
      • Gender
      • Location
    • Consumer Behavior
      • Lifestyle
      • What they like about these products
      • What they don’t like about these products
      • Use cases / Why they purchase these products
    • Online Shopping Behavior
      • Where they shop for these products
      • Time to purchase
      • Quantities
      • Frequency
      • Seasonality
      • Pricing
      • Questions & Concerns
  • Competitors
    • Key brands
    • Pricing
    • Reviews / Rating
    • Product Listing Content
  • Search Terms & Keywords

Sales Channels

  • Direct-to-consumer
    • Branded ecommerce website
  • First-party vendor
    • Selling your products as a vendor for an ecommerce website
      • Amazon as Amazon.com in the buy box
      • Home Depot, etc.
  • Third-party marketplace seller
    • Selling your products as an alternate seller using an existing ecommerce marketplace
      • Amazon as Brand/Store in the buy box
      • Walmart as Brand/Store in the buy box

Fulfillment Channels

  • Operational needs
    • Warehousing
    • Order fulfillment: pick/pack/ship
    • Logistics/Shipping
    • Returns
  • Direct-to-consumer
    • Third-party logistics service
    • Self fulfillment
  • First-party vendor
    • Retailer’s fulfillment operations
    • Drop ship for them using your own fulfillment operations
  • Third-party marketplace seller
    • Marketplace’s fulfillment operations
      • Amazon FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon)
    • Own fulfillment operations (direct-to-consumer)

Product Listings

  • Imagery
    • 5-7+ images
    • Enhanced secondary images
  • Video
  • Title
  • Bullets
  • Description
  • Back-end keywords
  • Enhanced content section
    • Amazon A+
  • Variations
  • Review Generation

Customer Service

  • Question responses
  • Negative review responses

Marketing Plan

  • Advertising
  • Price promotions
  • Brand marketing

Profitability Plan

  • Timeframe to profitability
  • Cost of goods sold
  • Other costs
    • Fulfillment & logistics
    • Website
    • Ads, etc.

Action Plan

  • Monthly timeline
  • Ongoing procedures