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arket conditions over recent years created a perfect storm for an already growing eCommerce industry to tighten its grip on retail market share. While physical sales from bricks and mortar stores showed a steady decline, eCommerce peaked at more than $5 trillion in 2021, a 16% increase from $4.2 trillion in 2020.

As more businesses discover they can no longer ignore the lucrative online marketplace, they are more than eager to take advantage of established platforms like Wish, Shein, eBay, Etsy, and Amazon for getting their products in front of more customers. 

However, established marketplaces are not the only way to get your goods in front of an online audience. Custom marketplace development offers many opportunities for you to create your eCommerce multi-vendor platform that you control.

This multi-vendor marketplace guide will discuss why you should consider developing a Custom eCommerce Marketplace, the available development options, and how to get started.

What is a Multi-Vendor Marketplace?

A multi-vendor eCommerce marketplace is the online equivalent of a physical mall where multiple vendors can sell products and services from a single website. A marketplace operator does not own any stock. Instead, they bring vendors together and act as the middleman by connecting buyers with sellers.

In return for bringing buyers and sellers together, the marketplace owner receives a commission from every sale. Sellers gain extra exposure for their brand and access to more online traffic than they could achieve on their own.

Multi-Vendor Marketplace Advantages

How customers shop is evolving, and online purchases feature more and more in consumer spending habits. A multi-vendor eCommerce marketplace creates more options for consumers while also giving them more control over their shopping experience. Here are just a few of the ways an online marketplace can benefit consumers and your business.

Diversify your income strategy: A variety of income strategies become available with a multi-vendor marketplace. For example, you could charge a small commission for every third-party sale, and you can create an extra income stream by charging for a premium listing or for appearing in related products or also bought sections.

Get more and higher-quality customer data: The data collected from every interaction is valuable for determining customer behaviors and identifying trends. High-quality data helps you segment customers more efficiently and improve conversions by delivering a more personalized experience.

Test new products and services: Bringing new brands and products onto the platform offers more opportunities for testing without investing in your own inventory.

Easier to scale: A multi-vendor marketplace is much easier to scale than a single-vendor eCommerce platform, as the need for inventory investment is significantly reduced.

Offer more variety: Today’s consumers crave more options and control over their shopping experience. By bringing on multiple vendors you can increase the amount of variety your marketplace can offer, which will help you reach a wider audience.

Types of eCommerce Marketplaces

An eCommerce marketplace will fit within one of three different models:

• Global Marketplaces
• Horizontal Marketplaces
• Vertical marketplaces

Global Marketplace

A global marketplace caters to an international demographic and sells products from every niche and industry. Amazon is an excellent example of a global marketplace, as it is famous for selling everything to everyone.

Horizontal Marketplace

A horizontal marketplace is more focused on its product range. While it does cater to many different industries, the products on offer all share some common characteristics. For example, every industry needs office furniture or Amazon’s retail products that ship to your home. 

Vertical Marketplace

Vertical marketplaces offer specific products to a specialized demographic. There can be many different sources in a vertical marketplace, but only one type of product. Etsy is a good example of a vertical marketplace that caters to the arts and crafts community. UNI Diamonds is another vertical marketplace that sells just one type of product, diamonds, but customers have a  wide selection of vendors from which to choose. Also Uber is an example of vertical marketplace, since it only sell ride share.

eCommerce Marketplace Business Models

When you know you are ready to grab your share of the growing eCommerce trade, you will still need to settle on a business model, of which there are three main options:

• Dropshipping
• Franchisee
• Retailer

Dropshipping Marketplace

A dropshipping retailer has an online portal that lists products from many different vendors but does not carry any physical stock. Rather than storing inventory, the order is shipped from another warehouse using the 3rd party seller’s branding.

Dropshipping works through split orders. Third-party sellers purchase in bulk from a manufacturer, but instead of shipping the entire inventory to the third-party seller, a manufacturer will split the order and deliver products directly to a third-party seller’s customers.

Franchisee Marketplace

A franchisee marketplace model works well for localized selling. Franchisees can come together in a single marketplace to offer goods and services online to a local community. The marketplace owner drives sales and traffic through localized advertising, local SEO, and content creation.

Retailer Marketplace

In the retailer marketplace, the operator delivers an online platform where third-party sellers can offer their goods and services. A third-party seller makes the sale, but the product is delivered by another manufacturer, wholesaler, or retailer.

Traditional CMS, Hybrid, or Headless Marketplace? Which is Better for Custom Marketplace Development

Once you have settled on a business model and chosen whether you want to go global or stay local, your next goal will be to select an eCommerce platform that will suit your goals.

Online businesses are tasked with managing a huge volume of content creation and changes daily. Content-driven experiences are increasingly critical for attracting new leads and prospects to your marketplace.

In a traditional CMS, the frontend, where customers do all their browsing and purchasing, are inextricably entwined with the backend where all the data is processed. 

A regular CMS is much easier to set up and deploy than headless or hybrid options. However, they are more complex when scaling the business, or migrating to a different platform. They are also limited in features for integrating third-party content from many different vendors.

What is a Hybrid Marketplace?

A hybrid marketplace includes support for multiple content delivery systems. Your content creation team is free to use whatever CMS they are comfortable with, while developers have the capacity to deliver the content across many different channels.

What is a Headless Marketplace?

The headless marketplace decouples the frontend CMS without limiting your ability to publish new content. You can easily reuse content on multiple channels, use any front-end framework to tailor the customer experience, and accept content from multiple vendors without compatibility issues. A headless CMS means you can work your business from a content-first approach because you can use the RESTful API to display it in any way you need.

Advantages of a Headless Marketplace

The eCommerce landscape is always evolving, so having a flexible platform is critical to the survival of a multi-vendor marketplace. Here are just a few advantages you will appreciate when working with a headless marketplace. 

Reduced Development and Maintenance

You can use whatever programming language you need for the backend and create your presentation layer for the front end without having to worry about compatibility issues. Developers can work faster because they aren’t confined to the typical limitations of a traditional CMS.

It’s a Low-Cost Future Proofing Solution

A development team can quickly create new functionality on an existing website. For example, let’s say you have created a marketing campaign that uses many different microsites to feature new products or services. 

The marketing team can produce and format the content without having to wait for a bunch of new content templates from developers. You are free to manage and change your content at any time across multiple channels.

Flexible Frontend Development

A headless CMS removes the limits for creating an exceptional customer experience because you no longer have design constraints. Unlike a traditional CMS, where tinkering on the frontend can impact the backend processes, the back end of a headless CMS is not impacted by frontend development. Because they are kept separate, your website visitors will enjoy faster loading times for web pages.

Profiting from the rising popularity of eCommerce will mean you need to carefully consider your approach. Our multi-vendor marketplace guide should help you make an informed choice. The products you sell, the vendors you will partner with, and the demographic you serve will all have an influence on custom marketplace development. If you are ready to get more products in front of more customers, call Towa Software today to learn how to get started.

Towa’s Tech Team will turn your marketplace and e-commerce ideas into reality

Towa’s Tech Team provides Nearshore software development services. We’ll streamline the process of developing advanced and customized marketplace solutions for customers. Our top objective is to provide our customers with the means to develop dynamic and user-friendly online marketplaces rapidly. 

All of which aids our clientele in attracting more potential customers and converting them into paying customers.

Towa’s Tech Team allows for simplified talent augmentation procedures. Through our Nearshore service, we can connect you with a technical crew that is only a short plane ride away, is in the same time zone as you are, and can communicate with you in your native language.

Talent augmentation for remote engineers allows businesses to realize better economies of scale and, most importantly, greater specialization. With this strategy, companies can focus on what they do best.

Contact us to talk about how Towa can help you. 

About Towa

Towa is a leading firm across the United States and Mexico for software engineering and outsourcing, including QA and testing. We offer from Mexico our over +300 engineers capabilities as nearshore delivery model service offerings.

Towa Software has over 20 years of experience to guarantee the quality of every line of code, we are proud of our products and services delivered. We recommend starting small and building trust with your provider before scaling. 

As a leading software development outsourcing company in the USA and Mexico, we have extensive experience in many fields including fintech, banking, payments gateways, e-commerce, retail, marketplaces, health care, Omnichannel, and many more.

You can contact us at support@towasoftware.com or give us a call at +1 (210) 787-4525 for more information.

S

o, let’s say you’ve settled on creating an online market. You might have the following questions in mind: How to Make an Online Market App Like Etsy, Amazon, or Airbnb a Reality? The next question is, how much does it take to build a thriving online market? What technology stack components should you prioritize when creating your retail platform? Alternatively, what characteristics do your virtual marketplaces require?

Increased usage has led to the rapid expansion of the online marketplace platform. In the United States, internet retail sales reached $504.6 billion in 2018, and they are expected to rise to over $735 billion by 2023. There is no denying the success of the P2P business. As a result, launching one’s online store is gaining popularity.

The typical cost of creating an online marketplace is indeed variable. The entire estimated cost of developing a marketplace website that is likely to generate income is laid out in this article. Identifying the appropriate technology stack is the first step toward creating a successful online marketplace.

A technology stack for business growth

Think about the development environments you’ll be working in when planning a marketplace. To what end is this valuable information for business owners? The performance and maintainability of the application will be affected by the technology stack you choose to use. In a nutshell, slow page loads, scalability issues, and update failures can result from using the incorrect tools.

The price tag for building a marketplace website can fluctuate widely based on the technologies you choose to implement. You should select a framework that will facilitate a rapid app development cycle and release.

The requirements for a given marketplace determine which technologies we employ to develop its website. But, the following technologies are commonly used in our marketplaces:

Frontend

• JavaScript
• Angular
• ReactJS
• PHP
• Amplience CMS

Backend

• PHP
• MongoDB
• API Rest
• Node.js

Integrations

• Customer.io, Klaviyo
• Stripe, Paypal, USAePay, Gravity Payments, OpenPay, Mercado Pago
• ShipEngine
• Avalara
• Twilio
• Legacy
• Amazon EC2

Remember that we only covered the most important frameworks and integrations; in reality, the stack will include even more technologies. If we explore alternative front-end frameworks, we may need to revise the entire technology stack if we explore alternative front-end frameworks (Vue.js, Headless, Amplience CMS).

When a company does talent augmentation, it can focus its efforts on what it does best. That eliminates the need for businesses to spend resources on finding and training in-house software engineers. It is preferable to hire a consulting firm to handle the work. The result is streamlined processes and better financials.

Core features for a multi-vendor marketplace

It isn’t easy to put a price on creating an online marketplace without first defining the features that must be included in the final product.

We always advise our clients to maintain a minimum viable product (MVP) in the market first. That way, you can put your theory to the test with little cash outlay. You can expand your platform’s capabilities in the future.

Creating an online marketplace for your goods and services can help you focus your efforts. Keep in mind, too, that first impressions count for a lot. Essential features of a marketplace are presented to aid in developing a functional marketplace.

1. Simple registration procedure

All participants in an online marketplace must register with identifying information (name, gender, date of birth, email, phone number, etc.) if one is to be established.

Also, allowing consumers to join via social platforms is a convenient way to sign up. Facebook, Linkedin, Google logins auth are also crucial.

Make registration as simple as possible to retain visitors who may become paying clients.

2. User profile

The most valuable users in the marketplace serve in two distinct capacities: as buyers and as sellers. Therefore, accounts must be as complete as possible. Admin should be able to add custom fields as required. For example, users can quickly sign up and view the service provider’s details. Vendors should maintain transparent control over all inventory and listings, stock data and adjust visibility controls as needed.

3. Homepage

Making your homepage unique is usually a good idea. Customers universally like a straightforward menu structure. User interface and experience design (UX/UI) should not be neglected. To save you time, here are some pointers for improving the visual appeal of your minimum viable product in online marketplaces:

• Web design that is easy to navigate, customizable search fields, and aesthetically pleasing
• Incorporate previously viewed items to increase conversion rates.
• Insert list of best-sellers
• Including a section with testimonials might help build credibility with site visitors.

4. Manage my listings (for Merchants)

Adding a listing with more detail is a crucial feature for vendors. Customers will have a better overall experience once they arrive at your website, thanks to the curated product catalog you’ve created.

Easily manage to create and update your pricing, product details or service details from a Vendor Portal for an operating seller, having the listings updated is key for success and lot of sales.

5. Flexible payment options

The total amount due is calculated mechanically by the payment system with tax calculation and shipment fees. Customers must be able to view their order summary and payment history. Offering many payment methods is convenient for potential customers. Users of your online marketplace must be able to make purchases using credit cards, Klarna PayPal, Stripe, any other payment processor, or even crypto.

6. Wishlist or favorites

A wishlist where clients can save items they consider buying is a powerful marketing tool. That’s another strategy for making a marketplace website that draws in more visitors. When customers communicate their wish lists to their friends and family, it generates free exposure for your marketplace.

What factors affect the budget in creating a new market?

The amount of money put into a marketplace is proportional to the problems it addresses. The amount of money needed to fund its creation depends on several factors. So, let’s examine the components that go into the final price tag of a marketplace website.

Ready-made (Template-based) vs. custom development (API or scratch)

At first look, it may seem that once you’ve purchased pre-built software (Sass/Paas), you won’t have to make any further adjustments to your website or spend additional money. But if far from reality, in order to maintain and customize to your business needs you will need to hire someone. 

Extra staff members must be hired to implement this program. The cost may also increase as a result of necessary improvements. Not to mention the cost of acquiring the cloud servers required to ensure consistent performance. In addition, customizing a template to fit the logic of your organization can be challenging.

Therefore, making your online marketplace website customizable will take much more time and energy. This could result in a significant increase in both development time and cost.

Set of features

The cost to develop a marketplace website is proportional to the complexity of the underlying platform. When you present your ideas to a software agency, they will break down the cost of each feature for you.

To launch a thriving marketplace, it is sufficient to implement only the most essential features at the outset. However, don’t forget to factor in all the “extras,” as they will determine how much money it will cost to maintain the website. Be sure to weigh all the options that could lead to more costs down the road. Lastly, be sure that you and your consumers will profit from each feature you intend to implement in your marketplace.

Towa’s Tech Team will turn your marketplace and e-commerce ideas into reality

Towa’s Tech Team provides Nearshore software development services. We’ll streamline the process of developing advanced and customized marketplace solutions for customers. Our top objective is to provide our customers with the means to develop dynamic and user-friendly online marketplaces rapidly. 

All of which aids our clientele in attracting more potential customers and converting them into paying customers.

Towa’s Tech Team allows for simplified talent augmentation procedures. Through our Nearshore service, we can connect you with a technical crew that is only a short plane ride away, is in the same time zone as you are, and can communicate with you in your native language.

Talent augmentation for remote engineers allows businesses to realize better economies of scale and, most importantly, greater specialization. With this strategy, companies can focus on what they do best.

Contact us to talk about how Towa can help you. 

About Towa

Towa is a leading firm across the United States and Mexico for software engineering and outsourcing, including QA and testing. We offer from Mexico our over +300 engineers capabilities as nearshore delivery model service offerings.

Towa Software has over 20 years of experience to guarantee the quality of every line of code, we are proud of our products and services delivered. We recommend starting small and building trust with your provider before scaling. 

As a leading software development outsourcing company in the USA and Mexico, we have extensive experience in many fields including fintech, banking, payments gateways, e-commerce, retail, marketplaces, health care, Omnichannel, and many more.

You can contact us at support@towasoftware.com or give us a call at +1 (210) 787-4525 for more information.

Time and Material contract for Agile Software Development

When outsourcing software development, it’s natural to want to control costs as much as possible. Fixed price contracts and budgets set in stone might seem like the best ways to do that. 

However, software development is most often an evolutionary process. Without a working crystal ball to accurately predict the project scope and duration of a project, a fixed-price contract is rarely your best option.

Even if you do think you know enough about the project, building an app from scratch means you will be devoting a lot of time to hammering out every detail at the beginning of a project. As such, companies attempting to cut their time to market with a minimum viable product (MVP) are penalizing themselves early on with an overly detailed scope of work. 

Plus, once the plan is in motion, it’s very difficult to change direction without upsetting the strict pricing model. Deviating from the original scope of the fixed price model usually requires scrapping everything and starting back at square one. In short, every change in the development process will cost the company dearly, while also giving competitors a significant opportunity to beat them to the punch. 

Time and materials contracts increase the flexibility of a project while ensuring development teams are paid fairly for their work. This article will go over why Time and Materials (T&M) contracts are the best way to keep development projects viable and relevant in changing market conditions.

Why Not Use a Fixed Price Contract?

Fixed price contracts are as inflexible as T&M contracts are flexible. Investing heavily in a detailed scope will delay your time to market, and any changes will mean revisiting the drawing board with more meetings, wasted documentation, and redrawing of contracts. 

Team augmentation under a fixed-price contract introduces further challenges. The software vendor wants to maximize profits by using as few man-hours as possible. 

On the other hand, the vendor is not as concerned about time to completion because they want the best quality product. Man-hours do not add to the project’s costs, so it’s difficult for developers and vendors to get on the same page under these conditions. 

What are Time and Materials Contracts?

A time and materials contract is the opposite of the traditional fixed price contract. It’s based on the need for software projects to remain flexible. The volume of work, design changes, and implementation of new features are all within the realms of possibility with T&M contracts. 

Developers are paid for the time in hours they spend on a project, negating the need to go back to the drawing board when the scope changes or new features need to be added. Strategies are free to evolve, and decisions can be made on the fly. These features make a T&M contract the perfect match for quickly getting a minimum viable product to market.

Time and Materials Contracts Increase Flexibility (Agile Development)

Time and materials contracts partner well with an agile process model. Agile development approaches break projects into iterations using small, autonomous teams not involved in long-term planning. Project scopes and requirements are determined at the start of the project, and each iteration is a “frame” of time, usually between one and four weeks. 

The agile model in conjunction with a time and materials contract gives development teams the advantage of flexibility because it’s based on the premise that project requirements almost always change and evolve. 

Agile development makes it relatively straightforward to add, remove, or improve features even in the more advanced stages of the project. 

You can start with the basic core, or MVP, of the project. When you get the core components of a working product to market early and start earning revenue, you can adjust the requirements and key features as more information about what the market needs become available. 

Naturally, agile projects are created in short sprints, starting with the MVP and then testing to ensure all business requirements are being met. Detailed progress reports and analyses verify the development team’s work.  

Tracking outcomes at every stage enables development teams to add improvements and adjust their approach on the fly.

Time and Materials Contract: Getting it Right

A T&M contract will not eliminate all the risks and challenges you will face. Here’s how to make sure your project will stay on track when using a time and materials contract. 

Choosing a Development Partner

Time and materials contracts using agile development processes require constant vigilance on workflow. When selecting remote engineers, you want expertise that matches the skills required for the project. 

You should also know something about the team’s history in handling budgets, project scopes, communication channels, and how they track the progress and effectiveness of the project. 

Selecting the right partner will be a key factor in the success of your project, so make sure you thoroughly review their track record, so you know you are working with a trustworthy team. 

Create the Best Team for the Job

Whether your company possesses all the skills under one roof or offshore team augmentation hiring remote engineers is a component of your development strategy, building the best team for the job is critical to the success of the project. 

Agile development projects work best with small teams because it helps to eliminate communication issues and documentation bottlenecks. 

Develop Project Frames and Estimate Costs

Agile and time and materials contracts are the most efficient methods for software development, but you still need some idea of the scope and budget of the project. Frames provide project scope that remote engineers can use to estimate the number of sprints required and calculate an estimated cost. 

Engage Regularly with Your Remote Engineers

Even with the best onsite developers and remote engineers, you will need to be involved with the project. Lack of communication has been the demise of many software projects, so regular meetings are critical. 

Team augmentation using a remote workforce often means some of your development team will be offshore or live in different time zones. You will need to plan your communication strategy to accommodate the difference in working hours.

Manage Your Project with The Flexibility of T&M

Time and materials contracts allow developers and remote engineers to quickly get on the same page, with both parties working towards a quality product rather than a limited time and budget.

The increased requirement for detailed management may be time-consuming, but the development of a product that meets all expectations of the end users guarantees the continued viability of the project.

Are You Ready to Start Building your Project? 

Are you searching for a reliable development partner who can augment your team with highly qualified remote engineers? Towa Software has tailored, affordable solutions and the right skills to get your software project off to a flying start.

About Towa

Towa is a leading firm across the United States and Mexico for software engineering and outsourcing, including QA and testing. We offer from Mexico our over +300 engineers capabilities as nearshore delivery model service offerings.

Towa Software has over 20 years of experience to guarantee the quality of every line of code, we are proud of our products and services delivered.

As a leading software development outsourcing company in the USA and Mexico, we have extensive experience in many fields including fintech, banking, payments gateways, e-commerce, retail, marketplaces, health care, Omnichannel, and many more.

You can contact us at support@towasoftware.com or give us a call via (+1) 210-787-4525 for more information.

Starting small and build trust with your provider before scaling. 

You can Book a 15-min call call with one of our Customer Success Managers for a conversation.

O

ver the past few decades, there has been a rise in the popularity of outsourcing as a management strategy. Outsourcing remote engineers have become increasingly common due to globalization and digitalization, allowing American businesses to send work to other countries. In recent years, the nearshore outsourcing model has become one of the most well-liked types of outsourcing.

Nearshore outsourcing has many advantages which are used by many businesses. That has allowed them to cut back on overhead and streamline existing procedures, allowing them to devote more time and energy to their most essential tasks.

It entails sending specific tasks to a third-party provider in a country close to the home office. Companies in the United States often outsource work to other countries in Mexico and Latin America.

Nearshore outsourcing has several benefits, like being more convenient due to its proximity, sharing similar culture, sharing the same time zone, etc. In further depth, allow us to investigate these benefits of staff augmentation for remote engineers.

Advantages of Nearshore Outsourcing

Businesses can gain a lot by staff augmentation of software development work in countries with a developed information technology industry. The following are a few of the main advantages of this type of outsourcing:

Streamlined Operations

When a company does talent augmentation, it can focus its efforts on what it does best. That eliminates the need for businesses to spend resources on finding and training in-house software engineers. It is preferable to hire a consulting firm to handle the work. The result is streamlined processes and better financials.

Improved Collaboration

Nearshore outsourcing improves teamwork in which two companies are located in the same time zone. In this situation, the working hours of different parties often overlap significantly. It facilitates efficient communication without requiring people to work at inconvenient hours.

Optimized Operating Timelines

Businesses can save time and money by outsourcing to nearshore contractors. Outsourcing allows companies to save time by delegating specific tasks to outside contractors. Time to market for products and services is reduced, which is vital for the success of any organization.

Focus on Core Competencies

To recap, nearshore outsourcing allows businesses to devote more resources to what they do best. What this means for companies is that they concentrate their limited resources on the things that matter the most. Employees are not overworked, and so spared burnout. In a sense, outsourcing frees up time and resources for companies to focus on what matters.

Extended Talent Pool

When you nearshore your software development, you can locate a more qualified and committed crew for your projects. The region of Latin America has established itself as a technological powerhouse. It’s risen to prominence as a prime location for nearshore software development. Rather than relying on in-house teams, many American companies have turned to top developers in Latin America.

The Mexican labor force is also notable for its high education, expertise, and experience. Outsourcing software development to our southern neighbor has been synonymous with guaranteed excellence.

Using nearshore outsourcing, companies can use other countries’ infrastructure and technological prowess in addition to the right talent. In this way, American businesses may create high-quality, necessary IT services and products.

Lower Engagement Costs

When it comes to developing software, high-quality resources are in short supply. The price tag ends up being rather high. But the nearshore outsourcing strategy allows businesses to tap into the extensive worldwide pool of resources and hire at a lesser cost. As a result, companies can more effectively cut their engagement expenses, allowing them to reduce development costs and sell their products to clients at affordable prices.

Cultural and Geographical Closeness

Nearshore outsourcing centers close to the headquarters of the actual company. That translates to less of a gap between the teams’ schedules due to time zone differences. It allows for simple cooperation between team members and, if necessary, travel.

Nearshore outsourcing’s other major perk is fostering a sense of cultural familiarity between your business and the outsourcing firm. Because of this, communication and collaboration are facilitated by shared linguistic, behavioral, and cultural norms.

Improved Communication Channels

Since the time zones are so close together and the languages are so similar, the company and its suppliers can quickly and effectively communicate. The ability to communicate effectively is critical for fostering productive partnerships and increasing the rate of product development.

Businesses that use the offshore model to send work to another country frequently face linguistic and cultural difficulties. The nearshore outsourcing strategy eliminates these distractions and creates a more harmonious office setting.

Consistency in Law and Governmental Order

Canada and the United States have much, not just a common language and culture. Many similarities exist between regional and federal regulations. In this way, trade secrets are easier to safeguard. When politics are stable, businesses can rest easy knowing their investments are safer for the long haul. It will also aid in keeping projects on track and under budget.

Improved Productivity

The efficiency of your staff will increase thanks to nearshoring. You can, for instance, outsource the management of your back-end development to a team of experts so that you can focus solely on the most critical aspects of the project.

Constant midnight shifts can also lead to burnout for your staff. By using nearshoring, you can increase productivity and employee satisfaction by eliminating or reducing the number of night shifts.

Lower Costs

The outsourcing business model is conceived as a means to achieve that end. While it isn’t the driving force behind offshoring or new approaches any longer, it nonetheless carries considerable weight.

The exchange rate is particularly favorable for American enterprises that outsource project development to Latin American countries. The lower value of the local currency relative to the US dollar can translate into less expensive development costs. 

Wrapping Up

Talent augmentation for remote engineers allows businesses to realize better economies of scale and, most importantly, greater specialization. With this strategy, companies can focus on what they do best.

Nearshoring software development is a rapidly growing form of outsourcing due to its many benefits to the software development industry. Nearshoring can be a great option to traditional outsourcing due to its many benefits, including ease of access, greater process control, and fewer linguistic and cultural hurdles.

Every company has different needs and expectations, at Towa, we have been working with Small and Medium size companies providing expert software design and development services so you can create world-class products.

Our nearshore development teams deliver the benefits of tech expertise, bilingual collaboration, time zone alignment, and competitive costs.

Fuel your business with IT experts to speed innovation and increase ROI.

Contact us to talk about how Towa can help you. 

Grow or establish your IT teams knowing you’ll achieve your objectives and save money. Towa’s Tech Team helps businesses like yours find qualified bilingual engineers so you may expand your operations. You may not realize how close your software development team of engineers and designers is. Our Nearshore service puts you in touch with a tech team that is only a short flight away, shares your time zone, speaks your language, etc.

It takes a lot of effort and money to hire employees. But, with Towa’s Tech Team, you can streamline the process of talent augmentation. If you want to expand your business, you’ve come to the right place. We charge a blended rate and don’t require any long-term contracts.

About Towa

Towa is a leading firm across the United States and Mexico for software engineering and outsourcing, including QA and testing. We offer from Mexico our over +300 engineers capabilities as nearshore delivery model service offerings.

Towa Software has over 20 years of experience to guarantee the quality of every line of code, we are proud of our products and services delivered. We recommend starting small and building trust with your provider before scaling. 

As a leading software development outsourcing company in the USA and Mexico, we have extensive experience in many fields including fintech, banking, payments gateways, e-commerce, retail, marketplaces, health care, Omnichannel, and many more.

You can contact us at support@towasoftware.com or give us a call at +1 (210) 787-4525 for more information.

Mexico is the best country for nearshore software outsourcing for many reasons. For one, Mexico has a robust educational system, which means that they can produce the same quality of work as anyone would find in any other country – but at a lower overall cost. This blog explores why Mexico is the leading country for nearshore software outsourcing and staff augmentation.

Mexico is Nearshore Outsourcing’s Top Choice

Mexico has a well-educated workforce, competitive price points for software development, and time zones that work well with USA and Canada. It is also a country that has experienced amazing growth in recent years in the IT sector.

Benefits of Mexico for Nearshore Outsourcing

When it comes to nearshore software outsourcing, Mexico is the chosen destination. The country’s proximity to the U.S., its knowledgeable workforce, and favorable government policies make it an ideal locale. It has a growing English-speaking population with good core values, strong work ethic, top talent, and eagerness to learn more technical skills, making it one of the most reliable outsourcing and team augmentation.

Technology Hubs in Mexico

Mexico is a perfect place for nearshore software outsourcing. They have a ton of technology centers that are ready to take on any project. Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey are top destinations for landing a remote team. These delivery centers have a high level of expertise and can do anything from ideas to design to programming. 

They also have excellent infrastructure that includes reliable power, internet, transportation, and other essentials needed for a great office workspace. Most of the population speaks at least some level of English.

Top Talent Pool for Software Engineers

Mexico has a very talented pool of software engineers and is a highly competitive market. They have a lot of technical schools that graduate high-quality engineers and programmers to work for nearshore software development firms.

Nowadays, you can find top software engineers in any major city and other towns all around Mexico. With the right partner, you can land, build and scale a tech team in weeks, having 20 years in the market Towa is great sourcing of top software engineers.

More Facts About Mexico Tech Talent

There are many reasons why Mexico is the top country for nearshore software outsourcing. One of those reasons is the high level of talent and technical skills in the country. 

Another reason is that operations and IT expenses will be significantly lower than if outsourced to another region. Companies can also benefit from a broad array of tax incentives and an extremely favorable currency exchange rate.

Conclusion

Mexico is a great place to invest in nearshore software development. Find a tech partner that knows the market, and with extensive experience in building tech teams in your industry. Ask for use cases and don’t be afraid to ask for a blended rate for team augmentation. 

There are many opportunities and benefits that companies gain from nearshore outsourcing and staff augmentation for top software engineers. Compare rates and skills to validate your competitive advantage to deliver more products. 

About Towa

Towa is a leading firm across the United States and Mexico for software engineering and outsourcing, including QA and testing. We offer from Mexico our over +300 engineers capabilities as nearshore delivery model service offerings.

Towa Software has over 20 years of experience to guarantee the quality of every line of code, we are proud of our products and services delivered. We recommend starting small and building trust with your provider before scaling. 

As a leading software development outsourcing company in the USA and Mexico, we have extensive experience in many fields including fintech, banking, payments gateways, e-commerce, retail, marketplaces, health care, Omnichannel, and many more.

You can contact us at support@towasoftware.com or give us a call via (+1) 210-787-4525 for more information.

Starting small and build trust with your provider before scaling. 

You can Book a 15-min call call with one of our Customer Success Managers for a conversation.

Augment Reality for eCommerce 3.0

(4 min read)

Every new technology has it’s “A-Ha!” moment. Think of Edison’s light bulb, the Wright brothers’ biplane and 3-D glasses for moviegoers in the 60’s.

The watershed moment for augmented reality was the Pokémon Go phenomenon in 2016. In case you don’t recall, it was a video game played outside using smartphones to find little creatures. People were running around like crazy in public areas staring into their phones searching for animated creatures that they could only see with their phones.

AR continues to make headlines, and heads turn, watching products magically appear in smartphone apps. However, does it make sense for eCommerce to adopt this newcomer to the marketing arena?

Letting Customers Try Before They Buy Reduces Returns

According to a poll taken by Adobe, 54% of retailers said the customer experience is their most important area of focus. Of those retailers, 33% said “targeting and personalization” were in the top three marketing priorities. As a personalization tactic, AR has become the tool of choice.

Augmented reality has become a new and potent marketing strategy for personalizing products, both in-store and online. Customers can visualize furniture or wall colors while standing in their homes. It lets customers try on, experience or interact with products that they can’t physically touch. It is an interactive shopping experience topped only by physically handling the merchandise.

The National Retail Federation states that eCommerce retailers are stuck with 8% returns of all sales (2016). Clothing returns are as high as 40%. By offering AR apps that allow customers to visualize themselves wearing any item in the catalog, it eliminates the customer’s doubts and should reduce the number of returns.

Memorable and Unique Experiences Lead To Sales

BigCommerce says that 96% of Americans have made at least one purchase online in their life and 51% prefer online shopping to brick and mortar stores.

To keep customers glued to the site and coming back, retailers need to provide unique and personal experiences. It doesn’t get more unique than trying products through augmented reality. Retailers who have integrated AR to enhance their web development and design are automatically ahead of their competition. It provides an innovative way to interact with customers that will soon become the norm, like mobile-friendly pages.

Advantages of Leveraging Augmented Reality

Retailers who offer AR apps provide a better customer experience which leads to more sales. Here are four more reasons why customers are taking to AR like ducks to water:

Better Visualization of the Product
The online retail environment is mostly a two-dimensional world. That’s not good if you’re selling physical products. AR lets customers visualize the product from all angles. They can virtually try before they buy. Dresses, furniture and cars are a few ways customers can see how a product fits without having to visit a store.

Instantly Show Options
Merchants can include product details and specifications that the customer can absorb while simultaneously viewing the product. Customers can immediately change options such as colors, allowing for a faster buying decision. Better visualization creates ownership, moving the buyer closer to a sale.

Broaden Your Reach Globally

IKEA proved that AR works with their furniture catalog. Customers from around the world use the app to visualize IKEA’s products right in their homes. By merely moving their phone, customers can imagine what a bed or sofa will look like in a room.

Any retailer can have the same global potential and reach by adding AR to their marketing strategy.

Keep Them In Your Store Long

The AR experience keeps customers in the store longer, and The Wall Street Journal reports that engaged shoppers can spend up to 40% more.

A UK research company showed that new visitors to a retail site spend an average of 2 minutes and 31 seconds browsing, but sites with AR increased the browsing time by five times longer. Longer shopping times mean increased sales.

Is Augmented Reality Suitable For Every Business?

Online merchants, both B2C and B2B, who sell physical products will benefit by offering their customers an augmented reality experience. However, if your business sells digital products or is service oriented, AR may not be the best choice of marketing tactic since it is more about visualizing a 3-D product.

It lets shoppers interact with products online, at home or in the store. Wowing shoppers with a personalized experience is vital for the future of any retailer. AR does that while removing uncertainty from the shopper’s mind.

BigCommerce also reports that 67% of Millennial shoppers and 56% of Gen Xers would prefer to make purchases online than in a store. AR provides them with the interactive, gamified experience with which most of them grew up. U.S. 2018 sales revenue from AR was $1.26 billion. It’s estimated to grow to over $15.5 billion by 2020 (Statista).

You should seek a full-service eCommerce development outsourcing company to partner to help plan and implement AR, to stay ahead of your competition; contact us and we can help!

Conclusion 

Towa Software has over 20 years of experience as a leading software development outsourcing company in the USA and Mexico, we have extensive experience in many fields including fintech, banking, payments gateways, e-commerce, retail, marketplaces, health care, omnichannel, and many more.

We have eCommerce Specialists and Innovation Consultants along with top talented teams who have delivered awesome products to customers in U.S.A, Canada, Mexico, London, and Australia.

You can contact us at support@towasoftware.com or give us a call via (+1) 210-787-4525 for more information.

You can Book a 15-min call with one of our Customer Success Managers for a conversation.

Quality Assurance & Software Testing

Today digital transformation of businesses and lifestyle have an increased need for software products and services of outstanding quality. In combination with the current fast-paced world, companies expect faster time-to-market and continuous delivery of software solutions.

Which can be provided with effective quality and software testing service, the Nearshore offering of software testing services is a response to the increased demands of the local market. Nearshore software testing services can reduce operating expenses while increasing productivity and ensuring the quality of delivered services in the development lifecycle.

Agile Software Testing Services

What is Nearshore Agile Software Testing Services?

Software testing services refer to the process of verifying a system to identify any errors or gaps in a software application or program so that it functions according to the client and end-user requirements. 

Every product deserves to be delivered to the full specifications required by the client, which means quality assurance needs to be thorough, deliberate, and efficient. The traditional means of software development is known as the Waterfall method, which splits the build process into a series of steps. This linear design provides a clear course of action, but sacrifices versatility and seamless delivery.

Agile Software Testing can be implemented at the start of the project with continuous integration between development and testing, something the Waterfall method cannot deliver. Rather than being sequential, Agile software development is continuous.

And, nearshore refers to the geographical location used for outsourcing projects and services to partnered companies. Most business-minded people are already familiar with offshore and onshore outsourcing, which leverage overseas partners and in-country third-party companies respectively to supplement your software development teams.

Nearshore, by comparison, is used for outsourcing companies that are situated within the same time zones used by your company but reside within the borders of a separate country. This allows you to have your quality assurance and software testing extended teams be in a location that is close to the country of your headquarters. A great nearshore location for companies in the U.S. would be Mexico.

What is Nearshore Agile Software Testing Services?

Nearshore is a form of outsourcing that refers to services delivered from an adjacent or nearby location.
Any outsourcing location “near” to its primary market (i.e. Eastern European countries to Western European Countries). Some analysts describe it as services delivered from an adjacent or nearby country.

Manual and Automated Testing

Testing can be done both manually and automated. Manual testing utilizes the input, inspection, and attention of human software testers. Automated testing, uses several tools and scripts to do the work.

Manual testing is done by a tester to make sure all use cases are working as expected and requires time to validate each case scenario. The software tester works with the application or software, clicking through it to find errors. Manual testing takes some time, but it provides the unique insight of a hands-on experience to help validate the product quality checks.

Automated testing is performed by a software tool that executes a test script written in advance. Since each test is pre-programmed, the quality of the tests depends on how well the scripts are written. It’s more reliable and robust than manual, but poor programming may lead to missed bugs in the product.

Benefits of Nearshore Agile Software Testing

Creating software products is a complex task, any project or product in the first iterations is difficult to make bug-free. Quality assurance and testing are crucial in solving these errors, preventing potential system failures that result in higher costs. Having the right nearshore software testing services will guarantee that a dedicated team will work from the beginning of the project on identifying and removing errors on time. This will increase software quality and reduce maintenance costs.

The initial development stage is critical for identifying errors, and issues before they become bigger problems. Quality should be one of the main concerns for all software projects from the early stages, ensuring that potential mistakes are minimized.

Principles of Agile Software Testing

Here is a list of some fundamentals of agile software testing. These principles should drive every team’s software development process, reporting, and determining the most effective team strategies.

Everyone Should Tests

There are no individuals within your software development teams that are exempt from testing the product. This means that all developers are tasked with interacting with the application and systems, putting more hands on deck to potentially pick out any vulnerabilities and weaknesses within the design of the program.

Continuous Testing

Agile development requires the team to test the software regularly, any product increment should demand running testing use cases again, and again. New issues could arise at any moment, so that is why testing help to reduce bugs quickly and effectively. Both manual and automated testing techniques are very useful for delivering continuous releases of the software product. 

Testing Improves the Team and Project

The feedback generated through the continuous testing process repeatedly informs how you can meet the requirements of a software product. Each time you test, you learn more about what needs to be done to improve the project. The more testing is done, the better the team becomes in all the specifications of a given project.

Faster Feedback Response

Continuous feedback translates to more immediate response times. With every project iteration that comes across, testing reveals more feedback about what needs to be improved. Constant attention to product incremental during each sprint will increase the team’s capability to address any issues, creating a faster cycle of development with greater quality.

Good Coding Practices

Each time the project moves through on a continuous testing cycle, your team of developers fixes any new defects. Every iteration delivers a better, improved version, effectively improving, and optimizing the final code. Adding up new features and having a continuous testing practice will help the end product and end-user have a better user experience.

Minimmum Documentation

Creating documentation for every phase, iteration, or testing cycle is extremely time-consuming. The agile manifesto states that people, interactions, and working software over comprehensive documentation, there is no real need to document every single step. Agile software development and testing promote the use of checklists rather than filling documentation templates per cycle. These checklists focus on the essence of the test and results.

Test-Driven

The agile process for software development is executed with the corresponding testing before releasing functionality. Agile in comparison with waterfall does not wait for the whole project to be finished in order to do testing cycles to see if it functions properly. Every product incremental during the agile building process is done through testing, ensuring continuous participation in the quality of the product.

Nearshore IT solution provider

At Towa, we are certain that these elements serve as a great foundation to build a powerful value proposition for users of IT services.

The Nearshore model is much more efficient in achieving higher percentages of work performed at a lower-cost location than offshore.

Value propositions

• Leverage proximity 
  • Proximity and time zone
  • Cultural affinity and ease of doing business
  • Cost savings
• The total cost of engagement

Although nearshore rates tend to be higher, the overall cost of nearshore engagements is equivalent to or less than offshore, because of the efficiency gains that working in close proximity to the US and in the same time zones can bring.

Productivity gains

• Global nearshore 
  • World-class cost-efficient services
  • Fill the gap left by India centric global sourcing
  • Outstanding customer services
  • Reduce the complexity of IT services management
  • Globalize IT operations
  • Optimize costs
  • Support the evolution of the business

Nearshore software testing 

Increase software quality, reduce costs

Today’s software applications are increasingly intricate, often operating within multi-layer, multi-platform environments, and shaped in rapid and agile conditions, with increasingly ambitious requirements.
In this complex scenario, software testing becomes even more critical as a means to assure quality and minimize risk, while meeting the market and organization’s needs.

Towa provides a robust and comprehensive testing practice that identifies the correctness, completeness, and quality level of software products. Towa enhances productivity and increases communication with the development teams while helping clients achieve significant cost savings.

Services 

• Quality assurance
• Software testing
• Test automation
• Performance testing
• Mobile testing
• Security and penetration testing

IT Services Nearshoring 

Towa´s goal is to improve the efficiency of all processes throughout the application lifecycle from vision and development to implementation and continuous maintenance.

Services 

• Application development services 
  • Application modernization
  • Business intelligence
  • Custom application development
  • System integration
  • Ecommerce services
  • Open source
  • Mobile

• Application value management 
  • SLA Management and monitoring
  • Requirements management
  • Configuration management
  • Transition management
  • Communication management
  • QA management
  • Risk management
  • Change management

• IT infrastructure services 
  • End-user support services
  • Server and datacom support
  • IT business process support

Nearshore cloud solutions

Cloud technology maximized

Leading organization are controlling their futures by using the cloud to drive change and innovation, build new business models, and follow new opportunities. 

Towa takes a holistic approach to leveraging the cloud with our architecture and advisory Services, Cloud Migration and Application Development Services, Managed Services for Cloud Hosting, and Cloud Application Support Services. We combine all these services into one package and deliver a solution that allows you to phase your implementation of the cloud relative to the business requirements you have. Our approach to the cloud combines both business and technology, ensuring a positive result.

Services

• Cloud architecture and advisory services
• Inventory application portfolio
• Cloud roadmap and strategy
• Build business case
• Architect solution
• Cloud migration and application development
• Cloud application migration
• Cloud application development
• Managed services for cloud hosting
• Cloud hosting
• Software as a service
• Managed storage and database services

Conclusion

Agile development is a proactive strategy for delivering the highest quality assurance for every project. Constant assessment maintains a system that continuously improves the product, polishing its design until the code, functionality, and interface are performing as expected. Combining agile quality assurance with the convenience of a nearshore outsourcing team delivers premium digital products at an affordable cost with accessible collaboration.

Towa is a leading firm across the United States and Mexico for software engineering and outsourcing, including QA and testing. We offer from Mexico our over +300 engineers capabilities as nearshore delivery model service offerings. If you want to learn more about what we can do for your company, contact us here.

Towa Software has over 20 years of experience to guarantee the quality of every line of code, we are proud of our products and services delivered. We recommend starting small and build trust with your provider before scaling. 

We have expert Project Managers and Innovation Consultants along with top talented teams who have delivered awesome products to customers in U.S.A, Canada, Mexico, London, and Australia.

As a leading software development outsourcing company in the USA and Mexico, we have extensive experience in many fields including fintech, banking, payments gateways, e-commerce, retail, marketplaces, health care, Omnichannel, and many more.

You can contact us at support@towasoftware.com or give us a call via (+1) 210-787-4525 for more information.

(10 min reading)

So, you are thinking about building your own business, or maybe you and your partner are having a great idea and would like to find how to build a business from it?

How to launch your online business?

Data shows that, by 2023, e-commerce revenue is expected to reach $800 billion in the U.S. alone. Now is the best time to start your e-commerce business and build your own tribe.

There are many things to consider like the business plan, what is the product or service you like to sell, how would you deliver it, what technologies are there, what is the brand differentiator, when would you like to start selling? 

Read all 10 bullets to find many answers.

1. Choose your Tribe

To start a successful online business, you have to find the right tribe. What’s your area of expertise? What marketable knowledge or skill do you have? Where do those skills or products fit in the market? What type of products or services do you want to sell?

You must have an idea of what kind of business you want to build, start by researching the market. Look at other businesses in your area and see them as joint opportunities. When looking at an example of a successful e-commerce business in an industry, ask yourself:

• How are they reaching customers?
• What appeals to you about their website?
• What’s their business model?

Some logistical questions you’ll need to answer when finding your tribe includes:

• Is your product or service? 
• Is physical or digital? 
• Do you deliver local or international?

Will you base your business around one-time orders, bundles, or a subscription model?

Get as many business ideas as you can, the online business is super competitive. You’ll want to do some serious thinking about what sets you and your business apart before starting your own e-commerce business.

If you have expertise that’s in high demand, capitalize on that. If you have years of experience in music or baking, for example, start a blog to write about that skill and establish yourself as a knowledgeable person in the market. You can use your e-commerce store to offer your products or services, on-demand online courses, or local deliveries of experiences in your area.

2. Do your research

Find the top competitors in your space and do some research on their history and business model, and get products ideas by researching trending products. Ask yourself what they’re doing that you can follow. Find out what people are looking for in your business and figure out how you can provide it in your unique way.

You’ll also need to identify the barriers to entry in your field and how you can overcome them. Will you need to invest in paid ads?  What is the cost of an e-commerce platform? Need for expensive equipment? Where do you manufacture your products? What other challenges will you face when going to market? How much do you need to invest? Can you start small and then scale your e-commerce business?

Identify any opportunities in the market your product or service can fill. Even if it is something not new, try to deliver it in a way that is unique so you can add value.

Once you’ve identified your opportunity in the market and know what value you’ll bring to the customer, consider doing a SWOT analysis — which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, 

Opportunities, and Threats. This modeling technique can help to identify potential challenges so you can plan ahead your strategy for your e-commerce business.

Strengths and weaknesses are typically things you can control, like:

• Company culture
• Your reputation
• Your customer base
• Geography
• Partnerships
• Intellectual property
• Assets

Opportunities and threats, are things not in your control, but you can plan ahead, like:

• Regulation
• What suppliers are in your market
• Your competitors
• The economy
• Market size
• Market trends
• Gaps in financing

3. Choose your product and target market

There are several ways you can use to choose your e-commerce product or service. You can provide a solution for a problem in any marketplace, local or worldwide. Lean on your passion. Try these options for finding a product or service you can sell online.

Think about your personal experience. Have you worked in a certain industry that gives you insight others don’t have?

Is there an opening in the market for something that people will need soon based on trends in your industry? Recognizing a relevant trend can make you a leader in the market. Something that fulfills an existing need in a new way. 

You can spot trends in many ways:

• Social listening. Hang out on social media where others in your industry post or where your target customers spend time and see what they say. Browsing trending hashtags or using social listening tools to gather data over time can also provide valuable insights.
• Following search trends. Google Trends is a great place to see what trending products people are searching for. It can also tell you the keywords used most commonly in search, and what problems people are commonly trying to solve.
• Browsing e-commerce websites and aggregator sites. Pages like Trend Hunter or assorted subreddits for your niche can help you sight into developing trends before they get big.

Customer reviews also provide a wealth of data on what your prospective buyers expect from a product. Browse reviews of products similar to the one you have in mind and see what people say. They are a great resource to get new products ideas. Addressing an unsolved need is one way to differentiate your product in a market.

When researching keywords, make sure you look outside of Google. While Google is the search engine most people use, online marketplaces like Amazon, Wish, eBay, or Alibaba have their search functions.

If you’re thinking about selling a product, type in the product name on these sites and see what keywords come up. Say you’re selling guitars. Typing that into Amazon’s search bar turns up suggested search terms like “guitar lessons” and “guitar experiences”. Those results can give you more ideas of what you can do to differentiate.

Finding a market

As you’re gathering product information, study your target market. Who is your ideal customer? What characteristics do they have? This is where creating customer personas is useful.

Personas are fictionalized versions of your ideal customers that allow you to try and predict how they’ll behave. You can create a picture of the person you consider would be best served by your product or service, and figure out how to attract that person.

Answer questions like:

• How old is this person?
• Where do they live?
• What is his/her job? 
• What do they care for?
• What problems do they face?
• What is most important for them?

With all of this, you can find ways to reach them online and what messages they’re more likely to respond to. The information will help you market your product or services more effectively.

4. Validate your product

Now you have an idea for your product or service, and you know who you might sell it to, now you need to validate whether you are right and how to execute the business idea. You need to see whether your business idea is viable in real life. 

You can use several criteria to evaluate your product’s viability. Evaluation criteria can be split into two main categories: market-based and product-based criteria.

Market-based criteria

These are market factors that will influence your product and business model. You’ll want to look at:

• Market size and demand for your product/service
• Who your competitors are and where are they
• Is this a trend, fad, growing market, or flat market
• Whether customers will be able to get this product/service from other sources
• Who your target customers are

Product-based criteria

Once you have an idea of where the market is going and who you’re marketing to, you can move on to the next set of criteria:

• Your selling price
• The potential markup for your product or service
• How many products you’ll stock
• Will you offer a subscription
• The size, weight, and durability of your product, if you’re selling something physical
• Whether you’re likely to experience seasonal buying variations
• Whether your product or service solves a pain point or is more of a passion
• Whether your product is consumable, disposable, or perishable
• Whether your services are re-purchasable or 1 time only
• Regulations or restrictions around your business

Looking at the market and product-based criteria can give you an idea of how much it’ll cost you, how you can sell it, to whom and how many times. 

These criteria can give you a good idea of your product or service’s potential, and help you avoid common mistakes. If you’ve determined that there’s enough market for your product and services, you can move on to other aspects of your business model.

5. How you will source your product or service

If you’re selling a physical product, you’ll need to figure out a model for obtaining it and shipping orders to your customers. There are a few models you can explore here:

Make it

You make the product yourself, by hand, and get it to the customer. This is a highly favorable option if your product is something you can get the ingredients for and make cheaply, like home-baked foods or hand-crafted gifts. You’d need to purchase ingredients in smaller batches to start, you can control the cost and the risk, then scale up when you have more sales.

Manufacture it

If your product is something you cannot make yourself, you could partner with a manufacturer. This alternative makes sense if you have a product you plan to sell in large numbers, as manufacturers normally require you to order in large batches. You’ll need to be able to cover the cost of those initial purchase orders.

Wholesale and resell

Buying your desired product and selling them through your store with a markup. You don’t have complete control over pricing, as the manufacturer sets the price of purchase. Margins for selling wholesale products are around 35%.

Dropship it

A good option if you don’t want to deal with inventory, dropshipping involves partnering with another company that would ship the product for you after purchase. There are no startup costs to make the product on your end, your margin is only about 15%. 

Digital

Guides, eBooks, Blog posts, templates, online video classes, selling your expertise. Anything people can download has the potential to be a product. Digital products can also be a service like consulting, coding, writing, therapy, social media management, or graphic design.

Digital downloads or services are suitable for customers and, depending on what you’re selling, they usually have a low overhead cost too. Experiment with different things until you hit on the product or service that’s right for your business and passion.

6. Do your business plan

You’ll need a road map to follow to keep your business on the right track. Once you’ve defined all the basics, writing a business plan will help you establish goals and get into the details of what you’ll need to run your business and sell to your customers.

If you’re going to get a business loan, lenders and investors will require you to have a business plan. Make sure you make your plan as detailed and professional as possible.

Your business plan should include:

• What your business is
• What you’re selling
• What is the market
• How your business model works
• SWOT analysis
• Company structure and roles
• Financing and capital
• Other resources

Keep your target market and buyer persona in mind as you develop your plan. 

The outline for your business plan will look something like this, from beginning to end:

1. Executive summary
2. Company overview
3. Market analysis
4. Products and services
5. Marketing plan
6. Logistics and operations plan
7. Financial plan

If you’d like something more detailed to start with, it’s easy to find free business plan templates online.

The most important thing is to know what your goal is when you write your business plan. It’ll look different if you’re writing one to obtain startup funds than if you’re outlining the business plan for yourself.

Make sure you keep your tone consistent throughout the document. The best way to ensure this is to have one person write and edit the whole document, completely edit the document before presenting it to anyone.

Finally, keep your business plan short and to the point. It should be 15 to 20 pages max. Make sure it’s long enough to communicate the relevant information.

7. Business name and legal structure

Naming your store is one of the creative aspects of starting an e-commerce business. You’ll need to come up with something that catches the eye, describes your brand, and hasn’t already been taken by somebody else.

You can typically search for domain name availability on Godaddy or CheapDomains. It’s also good to run a search with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to avoid future problems. 

A good business name will set the tone for your online store. The name plays into the company’s branding, and the product itself.

When it comes to making your business name, remember to:

• Keep it simple
• Differentiate yourself
• Get creative
• Be original

You’ll also use your business name when you register your business. How you choose to register will affect you legally and financially down the road, so it’s worth doing a little homework to determine which type of legal structure is right for you.

You’ll register your business as one of the following:

• Sole proprietorship
• General partnership
• Limited Liability Corp
• Corporation

Each one will have benefits and drawbacks. You should consult an attorney or other legal expert to determine which one you should choose.

8. Permits and licenses

Some business types need an employee identification number (EIN), it can help keep personal and business finances separate. It’s free to apply through the IRS, and the number is usually assigned right away. You can also apply for an EIN by mail or fax.

You’ll also want to apply for any permits or licenses your business will need to operate in your state. If you’re operating your e-commerce business entirely from home, you won’t need the same kind of permits as a traditional store.

You’ll want to make sure you’ve got it covered. Check your local government’s website or get professional advice for permits or licenses you might need to operate in your state.

Types of permits or licenses you might need for your business include:

• Sales tax permits 
• Professional and trade licenses for certain industries
• Health, safety, and environmental permits
• Signage permits

If you need permits or licenses, be aware you’ll have to pay a fee for them. Add those expenses into your business budget upfront so you don’t have to deal with any financial surprises.

9. Create your eCommerce

Now that you’re finally ready to launch, it’s time to choose technologies and build your online store. There are many e-commerce platforms out there to choose from like Arcadier, BigCommerce, VTex, Shopify, Wix, and many more, so you’ll want to research which fits your needs better.

Depending on your need for a custom unique experience, a headless API eCommerce SAAS is best suited for entrepreneurs and large companies who want to have full control over their online business and but also have everything to effectively market and sell products online.

Remember once your customer makes a purchase, keep them engaged with post-purchase follow-up. You can configure a campaign to users who visit your site, send them offers, specials, best deals, or recommend other products your customers might be interested in.

10. Marketing your new business

Now that your shop is planned out and set up, it’s time to tell your potential customers about the new business and start selling. The research of your target audience will suggest where you’ll run your ads and what content you’ll create to bring in customers.

Don’t be afraid to use multiple channels to market to your customers. If you’ve got a blog, promote it on multiple social media outlets. Put out content relevant to your niche on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Try out different tactics in your marketing strategy, like Facebook ads or partner up with affiliate marketers. Use landing pages that make it easy for customers to buy your products.

Be careful about your page copy, product description, and make sure it adheres to current SEO best practices. Make sure your site is simplistic and easy to navigate.

You should consider investing in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools for following up with customers, building email campaigns, and keeping them up-to-date with your business offerings, keep your tribe alive is a continuous delivery process.

Get started with Towa e-Business Services

Many things will happen when starting an online business. With the right team, proven process, agile practices, best technology you can make it a success! 

Towa integrates as part of your team to build awesome eCommerce Experiences.

We can build great ecommerce plataforms together

Towa Software has over 20 years of experience to guarantee the quality of every line of code, we are proud of our products and services delivered.

We have expert Project Managers and Innovation Consultants along with top talented teams who have delivered awesome products to customers in U.S.A, Canada, Mexico, London, and Australia.

As a leading software development outsourcing company in the USA and Mexico, we have extensive experience in many fields including fintech, banking, payments gateways, e-commerce, retail, marketplaces, health care, omnichannel, and many more.

You can contact us at support@towasoftware.com or give us a call via (+1) 210-787-4525 for more information.

You can Book a 15-min call call with one of our Customer Success Managers for a conversation.