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How to Build Your Ecommerce Project in 14 Days: Our Experience and TipsBack

How to Build Your Ecommerce Project in 14 Days: Our Experience and Tips

Creating a fully-functional eCommerce business in just two weeks may seem impossible, but if you believe in your idea, have a trusted team, and enough money, you can move mountains.

In March 2020, Vladyslav Savchenko, the founder and owner of Powercode, decided to start an ambitious project – building an online supermarket within two weeks and succeeded in it. You can read more about how we created this online supermarket, Foodex24, in the Case Study section, and here we will focus on things you need to prepare yourself when creating your own eCommerce product.

 

Things You Need to Handle Before Starting an Ecommerce Business

Ecommerce websites examples

You should have a developed business model. Since it is vital for your future business, you may use the one that has already proven its effectiveness or create a unique and viable one. The previously mentioned Foodex24 is based on the Amazon business model as it has already proven its efficiency and was perfect for our 14-day deadline.

Additionally, you need to gather a team of professionals who are motivated to create a new business from scratch within two weeks and can do it. Sole motivation is not enough, and it must be supported by a good set of experience and skills, at least for those team members who deal with problem-solving and decision-making tasks. You and your team members must be ready to work long hours and weekends to create something truly worthy, profitable, and functioning.

Money is one of the keys to starting a profitable business smoothly. Thus, your eCommerce project budget should be capable of covering all your needs on building a business, such as finding the office, buying equipment, software, hardware, creating a webstore, mobile application, and/or another digital product. If you’re short on the budget – creating an MVP is your most convenient option. 

Preparing yourself for facing difficulties is vital because opening a business within two weeks is very stressful. You can hope for everything to go smoothly, but the reality may differ from your expectations. In our case, there were multiple difficulties because we were starting an eCommerce business during the Covid-19 lockdown while many businesses weren’t ready for the new reality, and some government agencies couldn’t function at their full capacity. Fourteen days is a very ambitious deadline for building an eCommerce ecosystem from scratch, and if we weren’t emotionally prepared for the possible challenges, we might not have finished it on time.

Market research will give you an understanding of whether it is a good idea to start a business in a chosen field, or it will be just a waste of time and resources. When creating Foodex24, we knew that this online supermarket would be the first one in the country, and we also knew that similar platforms successfully function in other countries for years. Before starting your eCommerce project, do your research and analysis on your and other areas' market.

Having previous experience in starting a business is a plus, even if it was in an entirely different industry. However, if you have zero experience in building any business, our eCommerce consulting services will help you to make it real and omit multiple challenges standing in your way to success and good profit.

 

Things You Need to Do While Starting a New Ecommerce Business

Things you need to start new ecommerce project

It will be more efficient if you see starting an eCommerce platform as a big task that should be split into smaller tasks with deadlines. Also, each task you set for your team must have clear and understandable requirements. Have two obligatory meetings with your team each day. During the first one in the morning, you set tasks for the day, and during the second one in the evening, let your team report to you on the progress and challenges. This meeting schedule helped us keep the team organized, solve problems timely, and don’t waste time on unnecessary meetings. 

Delegate responsibility for accomplishing tasks to the team leads or the members of your team (if it is small). One person can control many things, but it doesn’t mean that they should, especially when we’re talking about such an ambitious idea as creating a business from scratch within two weeks. Making specialists understand that they are responsible for their work would additionally motivate them to deliver high-quality results.

Don’t be too proud to ask for help and/or outsource when needed. Two weeks is a very short deadline, so any help and support you receive from the others will make the process go easier for the entire team. Outsourcing some parts of your project development is a rational move. For example, why seek and hire engineers and UX specialists if you can outsource it to a custom software solutions company, including project management. While the software development team is working on your project's tech side and reports you on the progress, you can focus on other vital things like logistics, marketing strategy, etc.

Keep in mind that your main goal is to start a business, not to make it flawless. Many people who want to start an eCommerce project fail to do it because they want to make everything perfect from the beginning and forget that time is a vital factor. Start with creating an MVP (minimum viable product), and after your product is launched and you have first customers, you can begin working on improvements. When developing Foodex24, we built and launched its MVP version. And after the product was released, we started to continuously improve the platform by adding useful functionalities and features like recent integration with the governmental Diia application. When a customer buys products that cannot be sold to underage individuals, the courier can scan the QR-code of a customer’s Diia application (which is a citizen’s digital ID) and get information whether they are 18+ or not. The system saves this age validation, and the next time this customer purchases similar products, they won’t have to show their passport or ID again.

Remain passionate about what you’re doing, continue to motivate your team. Remember that the more challenges you’ll face, the more proud you’ll be of yourself, your business product, and your team when you reach the goal. Yet, if you decide to consult with the eCommerce platform-building experts, the number of challenges on your way will be close to the minimum. 

Creating the digital platform for your eCommerce business may not be the most challenging part. When working on the offline part of your eCommerce product, you should think of all the available options and choose the best one. For example, if you need storage equipment or refrigeration units, you have three choices – purchase the brand new one, buy the used one, or rent it.

Be flexible. Since you cannot control absolutely everything, you must be ready to change the plan. In case one of your business starting processes has some challenges and is slowing down, make sure that at least one other process is accomplished ahead of its schedule.

Have active marketing processes since day one because an eCommerce business without clients or customers is more of a hobby that won’t bring you money. Without a developed marketing and promotion strategy, your target audience won't even know about your platform's existence, so make sure you spread the word, and the word catches the eye of your future customers.

 

And Last But Not Least

After these two weeks full of work, communication, and stress, it is still not a good time to relax because very likely there are some flaws left that should be fixed as soon as possible. If you want this business to succeed and bring you good income, you need to analyze its strengths and weaknesses continuously. Based on the analysis, you'll be able to develop the most influential business and marketing strategies. 

Starting a business within 14 days is challenging, but we proved it possible. We did it for multiple reasons, like understanding what our team is capable of. Working on the project was physically and emotionally exhausting, and if you want to repeat this success, you need to prepare yourself and your team for the long hours of hard work that won't stop right after the product release. Having a more extended deadline will make the process of your eCommerce platform creation less stressful, costly and generally make it more pleasant. 

We built an effectively-working online supermarket within only two weeks. Imagine how our team can help you with creating your own successful and profitable eCommerce project. Should you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us!

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