Fastest Way To Start an Online Business In Nigeria - KitCart

1. Pick a Niche

Finding the ideal eCommerce niche amongst dozens of available options might be time-consuming and somewhat overwhelming.

An eCommerce niche is a specialized subset of a bigger market. When you are in a niche you choose to sell a particular set of related goods or services that fall into a single category.

Kitcart report shows that the best eCommerce niches are usually undeveloped that caters for a very specific consumer demographic, and have a considerably smaller audience with a higher profit margin.

Handmade items, pet food, stylish t-shirts, eco-friendly products, cosmetic products, gadgets, personal care goods, organic skincare, supplements for women are just a few examples of eCommerce niches.

By focusing on a market, you will identify underserved areas and segments. Profitable eCommerce niches are highly specific and include an inherent distinction.

2. Source For Products

Product sourcing is the phase after picking a niche. It determines how you’ll acquire the products you want to sell. You can find a manufacturer for custom products, a wholesale supplier for third-party goods, or you partner with a dropshipper.

Manufacturers

If you have cash at hand to stock products this is a good way to source products. Market research is important here because manufacturing requires the most upfront investment.

You can source two types of products through manufacturers:

• Private label. With this model, the manufacturer will design private label products only for your business. You have complete control over what goes into the product, how it is packaged, and how the labels look. It’s best if you’re making one-of-a-kind things.
• White label. These are generic products that are sold to a variety of merchants. They are more suitable for larger customer segments.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a business model that allows you to run your store without ever having to stock the products beforehand. Sounds like a miracle? it’s not rocket science, here’s how it work.

A customer places an order for the product you uploaded on your store, your supplier will automatically receive the order and then deliver your products directly to your customer’s doorstep from their warehouse. You won’t have to worry about storing, packaging, or delivering your products.

Before now, dropshipping is only possible with Chinese products from Ali express, DH Gate etc. However, the good news is, Droppa helps you find Nigerian suppliers and the perfect products to dropship in minutes.

Once a customer places an order on your online store and makes payments, Droppa automatically syncs the order to your supplier’s store. You let the business do the hard work of delivery and customer support, while you take your profits per order.

3. Create an Online Store

Creating an online store is the most crucial Once you have chosen your products and done your competitor research, the next thing to do is build your store.

Do words like “coding,” “design,” and “application integrations” sound technical and boring to you? I feel the same way. That’s why I’ll recommend you use a platform like KitCart that.

KitCart automates everything so you can start selling right away — no coding, zero deployments, installation, and integration delays and to top it all it’s free!

4. Buy a Domain Name

Registering a domain name does not have to be complicated; you only need to pick one that not only fits your business but is also easy to remember.

This guide helps you cut the crap, and provides you with domain name examples from the best eCommerce websites and tools to generate business name ideas you can start an online store right away and get selling fast.

Domain names sell quickly. Thankfully, many domain names are also inexpensive, so register your favourite domain names as soon as possible. If you’re having trouble finding an available name, domain registrars like Identity will suggest alternate names during your domain search to help you find the perfect domain name

Here’s a full guide on how to choose the best domain name for your brand.

5. Pick a Payment Gateway

Setting up your payment gateway is an important step toward getting paid by your customers. When a customer checks out, they can choose to pay for their order using any of the methods that you’ve enabled in the Payment providers area of your online store’s admin.

When choosing a payment gateway, remember you are most interested in landing your first sale online than any other thing. So choosing a payment gateway that will decline your client's cards is never a good strategy.

Although, flutter wave and paystack are good and recommendable, especially for local transactions. However, if you’re interested in a frictionless payment method that doesn’t wait on needless OTP codes that will deliver long after your buyer has left your online store ‘’to cook dinner’’ or testing out the product she got from your competitor, use Kitpay.

KitPay is the simplest way to accept payments online. It eliminates the hassle of setting up a third-party payment provider or merchant account and having to enter the credentials into KitCart. With Kitpay, you’re automatically set up to accept payments both local and international payments without OTP codes.

The choice is yours….

6. Promote

Even though it seems like a fancy idea to have your eCommerce store look like ‘’Tajmahal” before launch, the truth is, nothing happens until a sale is made. You can get perfection, only if you get feedback from real customers buying products.

(i). Identify Your Audience

Before even thinking about how to sell your skincare product, wigs, shapewear, luxury clothes, jewellery, or whatever it is, you have to understand where the consumer is.

Where do people spend their time? Is it Instagram? Email? Twitter? Is it at an event? On YouTube? A sports game? Figure out where they actually are and more importantly, where do their eyes and ears go?

Having these figured out goes a long way to determine how you target and convert the audience to make your first sale. It will determine which channel is the most effective way of reaching them.

(ii). Offer Freebies

Offering freebies like free shipping and coupons for discounts are the most underrated ways to motivate customers to make purchases. This can be done by offering completely free shipping, free above a certain minimum, or free ground shipping (pay extra to get it there faster). Free shipping seems to be one of those golden tickets to getting customers to commit, and when you make it free above a certain minimum, it can have the bonus of making that first sale a sale of multiple products.

(iii). Run Ads

Show up right Infront of customers with Instagram, Facebook and Google ads as fast as possible. Put up a trendy nice creative, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It can even be a hilarious Tiktok video.

As funny as it may sound, our best performing ad so far is a short comedic rant about having an online store by our CEO. It blew up everything and single-handedly converted over 5000 businesses to sign up for Kitcart.

7. Watch The Orders Roll In

There are plenty of online shoppers ready to spend cash online by following the strategy listed above, you are all set to let the rain of orders start raining. Get the umbrella ready!!1

Bottom Line

Well, that’s it.

Getting your first sale online can happen the same minute you come up with the idea.

Kitcart helps you makes this possible. Start selling today, It’s free.