eCommerce store
Selling physical products online, where fulfilment cost, ad cost and inventory cash sit between you and profit.
Six short steps. No email or account.
Family
Retail, eCommerce and marketplace
Stock to track, orders to fulfil, and customers who pay before they leave.
Also covers
- Direct-to-consumer brand
- Subscription commerce
- Print on demand
- Priority decisions
- 10
Operating reality
What makes this different
The realities that change which tools can actually work for you.
Contribution margin after shipping and advertising is the only number that matters, and the storefront dashboard will not show it.
Inventory ties up cash before revenue arrives, so cash flow planning is a survival skill rather than a nicety.
Economic-nexus sales tax rules mean you can acquire filing obligations in states you have never visited.
Chargebacks and payment holds are a real operational risk at scale.
Cost of goods accounting is where most self-taught eCommerce books go wrong.
Where to start
The decisions that matter here, in order
You do not have to take them in this order, and you do not have to take all of them. This is where most businesses like yours start.
- 1Accounting software
Track income and expenses so tax time is a report, not an archaeology dig.
- 2Inventory and materials
Know what stock and materials you hold, and what they cost.
- 3Card payments
Take a card in person, over the phone or through a link.
- 4Cash flow and budgeting
See what is coming in and going out before the account gets tight.
- 5Business banking
A business account, so personal and business money stop mixing.
- 6Email marketing
Stay in front of past customers so they call you again.
- 7Website
A site that makes you look real and tells people how to hire you.
- 8Tax preparation
File the business return, and stop guessing at quarterly payments.
- 9Business insurance
Cover the things that could end the business in one bad afternoon.
- 10Where customers come from
Connect enquiries and jobs back to the marketing that produced them.
Your next step
Answer six short questions about your ecommerce store business: your team, where the work happens and what you want to fix first. You get an operating plan in the order to tackle it, with the must-haves and comparison points for each area.
Answers
Common questions
- What software does a ecommerce store business need?
- Selling physical products online, where fulfilment cost, ad cost and inventory cash sit between you and profit. The decisions that matter most are 10 areas, starting with the ones tied to how the work actually gets done and paid for.
- What makes running a ecommerce store business different?
- Contribution margin after shipping and advertising is the only number that matters, and the storefront dashboard will not show it. Inventory ties up cash before revenue arrives, so cash flow planning is a survival skill rather than a nicety. Economic-nexus sales tax rules mean you can acquire filing obligations in states you have never visited. Chargebacks and payment holds are a real operational risk at scale. Cost of goods accounting is where most self-taught eCommerce books go wrong.