To launch AliExpressa, an e-commerce platform dedicated to ethnic beauty products and curly hair, Hafoussoi Vandewalle, a forty-year-old of Comorian origin, opted for a low-cost solution: “I didn’t have a market budget, between 200,000 and 500,000 euros.” She won the French Tech Tremplin, was awarded a €20,000 scholarship allowing her to invest and was accompanied for six months by Scholab sitter and Céline Lazourthis (Mangopay and Resilience care). For €30 per month, it starts with the Sharetribe solution.
For Tony Carpentier, professor of e-commerce at Cnam and founder of the digital agency Enablers, the best is the enemy of the good: don’t wait until something is over to take the plunge: “You have to test your site very quickly to see how the market reacts, even if it means getting started. on a small scale.” Thus, with its first solution, Hafoussoi was able to register its first orders, adjust its offer, and understand how the market worked. Very quickly, I switched to Kreezalid’s solution, which offers more functionality, for €300 per month. It’s best to start with a limited range, consisting of bestsellers, even if it means stretching it out later.
But while some prefer to choose niche markets and go down very specific lines, others prefer completeness. Thus Hafoussoi Vandewalle chose a site of 500 references. “In this case, offer a variety of leadership brands and complement them with more discreet content creators,” comments Blandine Lack, a consultant on corporate e-commerce projects. “Positioning yourself as a hyper-specialist rather than a niche site makes it possible to attract a highly qualified target and get a better conversion rate,” asserts Gregory Perotti, founder of e-commerce solution WiziShop.
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No matter how large your scope, it’s essential to keep a large budget for your shots. The consumer cannot touch the products: it is therefore necessary to take care of displaying them with beautiful pictures and beautiful decorations. “The description, composition and manufacture of the products are essential,” explains Julien Lacoëntre, co-founder of the e-marketing agency Nextase.
To make your platform known, mention it on Google. For this, Julien LaCountry insists, “it must be irredeemable in terms of ergonomics, operation and marketing.” Consumers first reaction is to do a Google search and read the reviews posted, it is essential to get customer reviews that will be reassured.
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Finally, you should adopt an omnichannel strategy, which is also referred to in marketplaces like Amazon or Rakuten, offer ads on social networks and plan a budget for influencer marketing. It is also to your advantage to use a web analytics tool to monitor consumer behavior in your market.
Another question: should you build your own inventory or be content to act as middlemen between brands and customers? For “dropshipping” Tony Carpentier, the method of selling products using the services of a third party responsible for storing and managing your inventory and shipping your orders is becoming obsolete: “It’s better to build a small warehouse and master the logistics side and send orders.” Gregory Perotti advises outsourcing logistics once a company exceeds ten orders per day. This is the selection made by Agnès Crochemar-Galou, founder of Laboratoire Natiye.
With 300 applications to prepare after her second crowdfunding campaign, in 2021, this pharmacist from Guadeloupe, who produces her own creams for muscle and joint tension made from botanicals from the West Indies, has realized the difficulty of managing alone. this side. “It took me over a month to do invoicing, packaging, and shipments! As a designer, I couldn’t make much time for that.” So I hired a service provider. A choice you won’t regret: “You shouldn’t wait to be a big hulk. This gave me the opportunity to deliver to my clients within 48 hours.”
Finally, in terms of payments and delivery, it is best to offer several solutions. Give the choice between classic delivery, one by posting parcel and another express, by mail, to be able to compete with the e-commerce giants. “Announce your deadlines and offer traditional payment via a French bank and another system, such as Paypal,” recommends Julien Lacoëntre.
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Final points: after-sales service and customer complaints. Providing well-designed FAQs allows consumers to find answers to their questions without eating into your time. Be interactive, “friendly” and flexible. “Show that you are present and that you are reacting to positive or negative opinions,” advises Tony Carpentier. And Julien Lacoëntre adds: “For the market to be well perceived, it is necessary to make people feel that it exists humanly and that there are real people behind it.” Feel free to apologize to an unhappy customer and even offer them a discount on a future order. You are still a merchant first and foremost…
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Create a Sales Website: The Basics
- Evaluate your market And your product using a test site.
- imagine “character”a fictional character that is your ideal target, to describe your typical customers and their consumption habits.
- Select competition and good practices for companies of the same size as yours in France and the United States. The American market makes it possible to see if you will then be able to sell everywhere in the world. In this case, plan to translate your site into English.
- Define a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)or the benefits, results and solutions of your proposal and its advantages compared to the advantages, results and solutions of competition.
- Choose a simple art tool In Saas mode, such as Shopify or Wiix, rather than hosted solutions such as Prestashop, Woocomerce or Magento, which are very expensive (several thousand euros per month) and require the purchase of servers.
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