online selling business plan example

How to Write an Ecommerce Business Plan [Examples & Template]

Published: April 03, 2024

If you have a promising idea for an online e-commerce business , it’s important to create an e-commerce business plan to ensure your vision has enough stock to be profitable.

Having a business plan for your online store will help you define your target market, establish your monthly and quarterly sales goals, and increase the likelihood of long-term e-commerce success.

In this post, we’ll go over an online store business plan and how you can create one for your e-commerce startup. Let’s get started.

What is an e-commerce business plan?

An e-commerce business plan is a document that outlines your business and its goals, analyzes your industry and competitors, and identifies the resources needed to execute your plan. It also lists the e-commerce retailers you’ll use to distribute your products and the marketing strategies you’ll use to drive sales.

Whether a company operates as a startup or has years of operations and growth under its belt, an e-commerce business plan is essential for evaluating a business and determining areas of improvement.

An e-commerce business plan is essential, with increasing numbers of shoppers conducting business online. It's estimated this number has reached over 2 billion . An e-commerce business plan keeps you organized and is useful when seeking investors who need to understand your company.

So, let’s dive into some examples of e-commerce business plans and what goes into writing one using our free template .

Free Business Plan Template

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Ecommerce Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 10,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their ecommerce businesses. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of business planning. We will then go through an ecommerce business plan template step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

Download our Ultimate Ecommerce Business Plan Template here >

What is an eCommerce Business Plan?

An ecommerce business plan is a detailed and comprehensive document that outlines the strategies, objectives, and operational blueprint of an online business. It serves as a roadmap guiding the company’s operations and growth within the dynamic and competitive digital marketplace. The plan typically covers various aspects, including market analysis, target audience identification, product or service offerings, marketing and sales strategies, competitive analysis, financial projections, and risk assessments.

Why You Need a Business Plan for an eCommerce Business

If you’re looking to start an ecommerce business or grow your existing ecommerce business you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your ecommerce business in order to improve your chances of success. Your ecommerce business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Source of Funding for Ecommerce Businesses

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for an ecommerce business are bank loans and angel investors. With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable. But they will want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business.

The second most common form of funding for an ecommerce business is angel investors. Angel investors are wealthy individuals who will write you a check. They will either take equity in return for their funding, or, like a bank, they will give you a loan.

Venture capitalists will fund an ecommerce business but not in its infancy. You will need to first achieve sales traction. Once you do that venture capitalists might invest $2 million to $100 million into your business over time.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

Below are the 10 sections a sample ecommerce business plan should include:

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of ecommerce business you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup or do you have an ecommerce business that you would like to grow further.

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the ecommerce business industry. Discuss the type of ecommerce business you are operating. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers. Provide a snapshot of your marketing plan. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.

Company Analysis

In your company analysis, you will detail the type of ecommerce business you are operating.

For example, you might operate one of the following types of ecommerce businesses.

Ecommerce businesses based on businesses model:

• Drop Shipping: you sell the product on your website and the product’s supplier fulfills it
• Wholesaling And Warehousing: you sell the product on your website and the fulfill it yourself (through your own warehouse and systems)
• Private Labeling And Manufacturing: you sell the product on your website and you manufacture it yourself or have someone manufacture it for you
• White Labeling: you sell the product on your website and have someone manufacture it for you (but unlike private label, your product is not unique; the manufacturer is also creating the product under other brand names)
• Subscription: you sell the product or service on your website on a subscription basis (customer pays you every week/month/year)

Ecommerce businesses based on customer model:

• Business-to-Business (B2B): your business is selling to other businesses
• Business-to-Consumer (B2C): your business is selling to consumers
• Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C): your business provides a platform for consumers to sell to other consumers (e.g., ebay)
• Consumer-to-Business (C2B): your business provides a platform for consumers to sell to businesses
• Business-to-Government/Administration (B2A): your business is selling to governments or administrative agencies
• Consumer-to-Government/Administration (C2A): your business provides a platform for consumers to sell or communicate with governments or administrative agencies

In addition to explaining the type of ecommerce business you operate, the Company Analysis section of your business plan needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to question such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include sales goals you’ve reached, customer milestones, etc.
• Your legal structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of the ecommerce business.

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the ecommerce business industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your strategy particularly if your research identifies market trends. For example, if there was a trend towards subscription businesses, it would be helpful to ensure your plan calls for offering subscription options.

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your ecommerce business plan:

• How big is the ecommerce business (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your ecommerce business. You can figure out your relevant market size by multiplying the amount of target customers by the amount they might spend on a product or service like yours each year.

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your ecommerce business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: college students, sports enthusiasts, soccer moms, techies, teens, baby boomers, manufacturing plants, state government agencies, etc.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of ecommerce business you operate. Clearly baby boomers would want a different offering and branding than teens or government agencies.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, include a discussion of the ages, genders, locations and income levels of the customers you seek to serve.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

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Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other ecommerce businesses.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from you that aren’t direct competitors. This includes offline stores or other ecommerce companies that offer similar products or services. You need to mention such competition to show you understand that not everyone who needs the products or services you provide will frequent a business like yours.

With regards to direct competition, you want to detail the other ecommerce businesses with which you compete. For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:

• What types of customers do they serve?
• What products do they offer?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And check product review websites to learn what your competitors’ customers like most and least about them.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you provide superior ecommerce services?
• Will you provide ecommerce business products/services that your competitors don’t offer?
• Will you make it easier or faster for customers to acquire your products/services?
• Will you provide better customer service?
• Will you offer better pricing?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For an ecommerce business plan, your marketing plan should include the following:

Product/Service : in the product section you should reiterate the type of ecommerce business that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific products and/or services you will be offering.

Price : Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your marketing plan, you are presenting the menu of items you offer/will offer and their prices.

Place : Place refers to the location of your ecommerce business. In general, the place for an online business is well, online. But if there is a physical component to your business, document that here.

Promotions : the final part of your ecommerce business marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Search engine optimization
• Search engine marketing
• Traditional public relations
• Reaching out to local bloggers and websites
• Advertising in physical newspapers, magazines, radio and television
• Partnerships with other websites and/or organizations

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your ecommerce business such as warehousing, invoicing, serving customers, procuring supplies, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to serve your 10,000th customer, or when you hope to reach $X in sales. It could also be when you expect to hire your Xth employee or launch a new product or service.

Management Team

To demonstrate your ecommerce business’s ability to succeed as a business, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally you and/or your team members have direct experience in the ecommerce business. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act like mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in ecommerce businesses and/or successfully running retail businesses.

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements.

Income Statement : an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you serve 100 customers per day or 200? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets : While balance sheets include much information, to simplify them to the key items you need to know about, balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. For instance, if you spend $100,000 on building out your ecommerce business, that will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $100.000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement : Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt. For example, let’s say a company approached you with a massive $100,000 contract, that would cost you $50,000 to fulfill. Well, in most cases, you would have to pay that $50,000 now to fulfill the contract. But let’s say the company didn’t pay you for 180 days. During that 180 day period, you could run out of money.

In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing an ecommerce business:

• Website and technology buildout
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff
• Business insurance
• Taxes and permits
• Legal expenses

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include agreements you’ve negotiated with developers, manufacturers and/or employees.

Ecommerce Business Plan Summary

Putting together a business plan for your ecommerce business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the online store business plan template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert. You will really understand the ecommerce business, your competition and your customers. You will have developed a marketing plan and will really understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful ecommerce business.

Download Our Ecommerce Business Plan PDF

You can download our ecommerce business plan PDF here . This is a business plan template you can use in PDF format.

Ecommerce Business Plan FAQs

What is the easiest way to complete my ecommerce business plan.

Growthink's Ultimate Ecommerce Business Plan Template allows you to quickly and easily complete your Ecommerce Business Plan.

Where Can I Download a Free Ecommerce Business Plan PDF?

You can download our ecommerce business plan PDF template here . This is a business plan template you can use in PDF format.

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Other Helpful Business Plan Articles & Templates

• eCommerce Marketing

Free eCommerce Business Plan Template & Guide

Abigail Bosze

Content Writer

Are you thinking about creating an online shop? If you think it is as simple as setting it up and starting to wait for clients to come, you are quite wrong.  You need a business plan for your online store. 

Even if you are not a startup and you don’t need to get people to invest thousands of dollars in your project, the business plan is still essential to put your best foot forward.

Having a business plan for your online shop will save you a lot of headaches,  such as finding out that your online shop doesn’t sell as you expected.

In today’s article, we will show you the main points that your eCommerce business plan must include so you can start working on it today.

Are you ready to jumpstart your online shop? Download our FREE business plan template to help you get started with your eCommerce!

Let’s get to it!

Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary

2. description of the company, 3. environment analysis, 4. products and services, 5. marketing plan, 6. operational planning, 7. financial projections, 8. funding application, business plan examples, 2. how much money do i need to start an ecommerce business, 3. how to start an ecommerce business, 4. is online ecommerce business profitable, start writing your online store business plan today, why do you need an ecommerce business plan.

There are two types of actions in life:

• Those that bring gratification first and pain later.
• Those that bring pain first and gratification later.

When we have an idea, what we want is to get it off the ground as quickly as possible. We can picture ourselves killing it with our e-commerce shop and what we don’t feel like is wasting time on writing down a business plan.

“Everything is in my head!” you’ll hear.

Creating a good eCommerce business plan is one of those actions that bring pain first, but that leads to huge rewards afterwards.

An online store business plan can help you earn lots of money, or save it, if while creating it you realize that your project wasn’t as perfect as you thought.

Another reason to do it is that you may need to show it to someone: investors, banks, or even friends.

In any case, let’s take a look at the key points that it has to cover.

It is the first thing your supposed investors would read if you were looking for funding since  it is the synopsis of your eCommerce business plan.  This summary creates a first impression for your project and this is why many entrepreneurs make the mistake of making it too long or overwriting it with extravagant words. Experts actually recommend consolidating it. Just  one sheet of paper summarizing every section of the business plan  for your online store should be enough. Although it is typically placed at the beginning, it should be  the last section to be written .

What the executive summary should include:

• Idea presentation: In one or two sentences it has to define your project, the value proposal, and the main competitive advantage.
• Who is behind the idea: A good idea needs the support of a good entrepreneur. It is time to introduce yourself, but don’t overuse the standard CV formula. Be honest, creative, and original.
• Basic information: This is your planned name, the legal status it will acquire, location, and foreseen scope. You can show this as a chart to make it easier to read .

One of the issues that are not always analyzed in depth is the matter of the legal requirements. It shows that you have read them and that you can resolve them easily. Include them briefly, and then you can go into more details if necessary.

The goal of this section is to identify the competitive advantage of your online shop so that you can make use of it in the future. You must reflect the company’s identity by defining:

• Mission:  the reason behind your shop’s existence, the role it plays in the market, who is it directed toward, and what its differential factor is.
• Vision:  the objectives that you want to achieve long term, which must be both realistic and ambitious so they can be motivating.
• Values:  the universal ethical principles that you want your shop to be identified with. Only choose those values that you will be committed to upholding with every action you take.

At this point it will be helpful if you do a SWOT analysis.

We’re going to take a quick look at what’s behind those letters.

A SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) allows you to carry out an external and internal assessment of both positive and negative points of your project.

It is a matrix where each quadrant includes one of the letters.

On one side, the external factors are analyzed:

• Threats: These represent what could happen or what already exists in the market that may be a trouble for the project.
• Opportunities: These could be change of legislation or any other favorable situation, whatever the reason may be.

These are factors that don’t depend on the business itself, but rather that the business either exploits them or foresees the risks.

The internal aspects:

• Weaknesses: These are our weakest points. We may not master the technical part or we may have a lack of resources.
• Strengths: What are we good at and how does that give us an advantage over competitors?

If we had to define the relation between the SWOT analysis and the eCommerce business plan in a sentence, it would be this:

The online shop business plan should show that the strengths outweigh the weaknesses and that, at the same time, they are strong enough to combat the threats and exploit the opportunities.

Now let’s jump into the next point.

Once you have completed the SWOT analysis it will be really easy to complete this one.

A business plan for an online shop should include an analysis of the environment, which we are going to divide into three types:

A. Competition

If you are thinking that the existence of competitors is a negative point, you are wrong.

A lack of competitors would be even worse since it would mean that there is not enough demand.

Your online store business plan should show that there are competitors, but not enough as to be a threat: turn it into an opportunity!

Analyze the main competitors and repeat the strengths and weaknesses process which each of them. This will give you a very clear scenario to see where exactly you can surpass them.

Finding out who your competitors are is very easy with the Internet. Have a look on Google at the best-positioned pages and the ones with the most authority for your main keywords. In addition, analyze the behavior of your ideal client and find out what they visit and what they buy.

At this point you have to dig deep into the legal aspects within your market.

B. Legislation

A modification to the law may mean both a risk and an opportunity.

C. Technology

For some sectors, it would be essential to stay up to date regarding the technological level of the market.

Summarize the main tools that you need:

• Do they require investment? Will it be just one or will it be recurrent?
• Do you have the necessary knowledge to use them?
• Will you need to hire a third party?

The business plan for your online shop should answer those questions.

If you want to further develop this point, you can include a sociological or cultural analysis, but be careful not to include too much irrelevant information because it won’t help you achieve your goals.

Download Your FREE eCommerce Business Plan Template Here

What is my product going to offer to clients? This is the fundamental question you need to ask yourself at this stage of your business plan for your online shop. Your target clients and the problems you are going to solve for them must be crystal clear. If there are similar products in the market, clearly  establish what your added value is  compared to the other options.

Again, you can use a table. The table will show your products, their price, and the estimated profits.

If you are looking for funding, what matters to the risk analyst regarding your eCommerce business plan is not the price. What really matter is why users will be willing to purchase and how much you’ll be getting from it.

Talk about pricing strategies and expenses. A company that has 100% control over where its money goes is already on the right path.

We have already shown how and what we offer to our webpage visitors.  This section includes every action planned in order to get sales.

Another common mistake, both online and offline, is to put too much effort into getting it ready and then just “opening the door” and waiting.

In a physical shop, at least passersby will see you, but for an online one that is just starting up, there is not even a street.

Bear in mind that a website, at the beginning, is located in a desert with nobody around. Telling your friends and family to visit you will make it look better at the beginning, but the real struggle is to make strangers come and make a purchase.

The marketing plan within the online shop business plan should answer the following question:

How are we going to get constant visits to the shop?

Indeed, if this is not the most important part, it’s close. Gaining visibility is a slow process that must be planned.

A good marketing plan  starts with a thorough analysis of the market  . Identifying your direct competitors and deciding which strategies you will implement to try to overcome them will be essential. In addition, this section will include  which channels you will use to convey your message  and to get leads that will become clients.

• Email marketing
• Social networks
• Videomarketing and YouTube.
• Content marketing
• Ecommerce marketing
• Paid traffic with AdWords or Facebook Ads.

Don’t forget to clearly state how you’ll use each of them.

The operational planning includes your  daily tasks as a entrepreneur.  You must establish basic things such as your work schedule, your location, your daily tasks timetable, and your product stock.

If reflects the task-flow from your e-commerce shop and how they’ll be divided.

If you are the only person in charge, you need to show what your routine will be.

Bear in mind that at the beginning you will have more tasks related to promoting and growing, but after some time you will have others to do:

• Manage returns
• Offer support
• Deal with unforeseen events
• Manage the stock
• Negotiate with suppliers

Surely you will have to go through it again in the future , but  it is important to have an initial idea on paper,  and then make small modifications down the line.

By doing this you, will show that everything is under control in your online store business plan. 😉

Once you’ve gotten to this point, you will have to think about  where you want to see your shop in 1, 3, and 5 years time .

For those who don’t know where they are going, no wind is favorable.

That’s even truer for an e-commerce or an online business.

The reason for doing this is to give you a direction for moving towards your goals and, most importantly, to ask yourself how are you planning on achieving them. Based on this fact and when you start getting your first sales, you should  establish which percentage of the profits you are going to reinvest  into making your business grow.

Making an accurate prediction about your profits is difficult—and the person reading your report will know this—but at least you are showing that you have worked on it. Just don’t write figures without a rhyme or reason.

This is the last step of your eCommerce business plan, in the case that you need external funding. It should include the amount of money you need and the exact ways that you plan on making use of it.

Put yourself in the investor’s shoes. Imagine that you are the one who is going to invest your money and think about what information you will like to read.

You may know the idea, the risks, the opportunity, and how to exploit it, but the other person doesn’t.

Be careful with the language you use—be precise and specific, and avoid vague expressions like:

“My experience and my multifaceted profile give me everything I need to comprehensively manage the business that I need your money to start.”

If you are only specific about the amount of money that you need, forget about the funding.

Use a chronogram in order to show your online store business plan visually. It is easier to understand it if it comes with a graphic instead of just having a bare text.

This may not be necessary since you can start with a budget based on the popular  family and friends funding  in addition to your own funds.

Remember that the three Fs (Friends, Fools, and Family) will help you get started, but they can’t be the foundation of your strategy.

How to present your online store business plan

You already know how to  create your eCommerce business plan step by step  and now it’s time to take action. Remember that it is just a document and that you can write yourself with just a bit of time. As you can see, you don’t need to have studied business administration at university to be able to write your own online shop business plan.

You don’t need to be a graphic designer. The important part is the content—don’t steal its thunder with an opulent presentation.

Once you have a rough draft with all of the information, bring into a Google Doc or Word document and save it as a PDF.

Just like with other aspects, less is more.

To wrap things up, here you can download lots of examples of business plan templates.

Use the examples carefully. Each project is different and if you just copy-paste it, the result will be a boring, non-informative text.

Get inspired by the business plan templates and this post, then create your own version and make people fall in love of your idea.

eCommerce Business Plan FAQs 1. What should be included in an eCommerce business plan?

An eCommerce business plan should encompass key elements such as a detailed market analysis, competitive landscape assessment, financial projections, marketing strategies, and a comprehensive operational plan.

The required capital to initiate an eCommerce business varies, but it generally involves expenses for product sourcing, website development, marketing, and initial operational costs. A detailed financial plan can provide a clearer estimate based on your business model and scale.

Initiating an eCommerce business involves several steps. Begin by conducting market research, selecting a niche, creating a business plan, registering your business, setting up an online store, sourcing or creating products, implementing secure payment options, and establishing a marketing strategy. Consistent effort in each step is crucial for a successful start.

The profitability of an online eCommerce business depends on various factors, including the chosen niche, market demand, competition, and effective management. A well-planned business strategy, quality products or services, and efficient marketing can contribute significantly to the profitability of your online venture.

Do you remember what we starting off talking about?

The things bring in the most profits are the ones that require effort before you see any rewards.

Don’t forget that when creating your eCommerce business plan. That way, you’ll do it with the love and attention it deserves.

Also think about the fact that the main beneficiary is you. It is also true that it will open the doors to funding, but you don’t want funding for a project that isn’t viable.

An online shop business plan will help you in two ways: to get to know your project more deeply and, if it is viable, to gain the resources to make it work.

And don’t worry about the difficulty of writing it. It doesn’t matter whether it is about a clothes shop, a shoe shop, or a shop that sells fishing equipment. You are the person who best knows the project and that is you need to have is knowledge about your project and your sector, as well as a  general strategic vision . 

This is the first step towards creating the online shop you dream of, so what are you waiting for? Download our FREE business plan template to help you get started with your eCommerce! Good luck!

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As the saying goes, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” So, if you wish to build your own eCommerce empire, having an eCommerce business plan is crucial to your success.

Why Should You Continue Reading This Article?

But maybe you have no idea where to start. Of course, you don’t want to leave out something important. In this article, we’ll show you how to build an eCommerce business plan and discuss how to write it in a well-crafted, simple way from scratch, for your eCommerce small business and what are the key elements that should be included in it.

Let’s get started!

Why You Need an eCommerce Business Plan

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe” So, planning is almost everything you should start with.

Although it can be hard work to put together a comprehensive eCommerce business plan, it’s such an important step for the below-mentioned four reasons:

• Establishing a Clear Roadmap:  Well-written strategic planning will help you set clear goals and set an action plan to reach them. It will also help you to set priorities and realistically estimate the time and effort needed to achieve them.
• Being Ready for Any Sudden Changes:  Change in the eCommerce business world is happening quicker than ever before. And this increases the value of planning. Having a data-driven business plan gave managers a dashboard to work with navigated sudden change.
• Securing Funding: If you are looking for a loan or an equity investment for your startup, getting a business plan document right is essential because an organization that will provide the money wants to make sure that you know what you are doing and have a clear path to profit.
• Avoiding Costly Mistakes: If you are considering setting up a small business with limited resources, having a startup business plan helps you know exactly what resources are needed to avoid wasting resources down the drain and to make the most of them.

Before You Start Planning: 3 Key Questions to Answer

To build a well-written online business plan sample, you need to answer the following questions:

• What Are You Selling?  Are you selling physical products (i.e apparel, home appliances, etc.), digital products (i.e online courses, ebooks, software, etc.), or services (i.e marketing services, consulting, car repair, etc.)?
• For Whom?  Do you sell to individuals (B2C) or organizations, corporations, and non-profits (B2B) or are you are a part of a marketplace acting as a broker just like affiliate marketing?.
• Who Are Your Suppliers? Do you manufacture your products in-house, or outsource a third-party manufacturer? Do you partner with a dropshipping manufacturer or do you depend on wholesale?

With great data comes a great business plan. Answering this line of questioning will give you an initial overview of what your business is and it’ll be like a starting point.

How to Structure a Business Plan for Your Online Store

Let’s agree from the start that the business plan will not be perfectly completed on the first try. It will continue to evolve as you create each of the planning stages and you’ll be making edits along the way.

For an eCommerce business plan example, there are six basic sections it should include, Let’s delve deeper…

Let’s delve deeper…

1. Executive Summary

Any e-Commerce business plan should start with an executive summary of just one sheet summarizing each section of your business plan. Although it is placed at the beginning, it should be the last section to be written.

The executive summary is the first thing your prospect investors would read, and it creates the first impression of your project. So, make it simple, easy to understand, and attractive.

The executive summary should include:

• Business ideas presentation
• Business model
• Products and services
• Target audience and target market
• Management team
• Success factors or the points that differentiate your company
• Financial strategy

2.  Company Overview

This is the next section that includes detailed information about your business and identified the competitive advantage of your online store. It covers some features such as:

• Brand Name and Founder’s Name: Your online store name and who is behind it.
• Brand Traits: List just 3 to 5 words that describe the brand that you want your online store to be identified with.
• Domain Name: It’s the URL. It should be short, simple, memorable, and doesn’t include numbers.
• Company Type: How your business operates.
• Value Proposition: It’s a brief statement that shows how clear your idea is.
• Mission Statement: The reasons behind your business’ existence.
• Vision: The goals that you want to reach long term. They must be realistic and ambitious so they can be motivating.

3. Market  Analysis

Conducting market research around your eCommerce small business idea is essential. It tells you whether or not people will buy what you’re selling.

Market analysis is broken down into 3 main sections:

A. industry analysis:.

Industry analysis outlines the industry size facts and statistics bode well for your eCommerce business. It answers questions like:

• What does the market look like for your industry overall?
• Has it grown or changed over the years?
• Are there any expectations of growing up or slipping down in the future?
• Are there factors that could impact its growth?

Industry analysis is likely to be one of the toughest parts of your eCommerce business plan, but fortunately, research and white papers are abundant in almost all industries, besides free tools like Google Trends .

B . Market Segment:

The market segment or audience segmentation helps you to create your “Buyer Persona” which represents your target audiences’ various demographic sets (gender, age, geography, education, income level, ethnicity, etc.). The market segment includes both your target market and niche selection.

It’s important to provide an overview of your niche, whether there’s a micro-niche included, and why you chose it.

C. Competitive Analysis:

Competitive Analysis provides an overview of who is your market leaders are and direct, indirect, and potential competitors. It also identifies your competitors’ key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, focusing particularly on where you can defeat the competition or add unique value to your business.

Creating a comprehensive competitive analysis includes 4 key phrases that are:

• Identify Your Competitors
• Select a Competitive Analysis Framework
• Collect Data on Your Competitors
• Write Your Competitive Analysis Report

4.  Marketing Plan

By now, you’ve covered almost all your company-related aspects, your customers, and your competitors as well. It’s time to talk about how you’re going to reach your customers and drive traffic to your eCommerce website.

The marketing plan describes the planned promotion strategies, business growth strategies, pricing strategies , sales strategies, and how much can you afford to spend on your marketing efforts. To come up with a well-defined marketing strategy, you need to deeply know your customer inside out.

It’s important to keep in mind that every potential customer is different, and there are many organic and paid marketing techniques that you can use to reach each of them. From SEO, social media, content marketing, and email marketing to influencers, these proven techniques will surely  acquire customers and drive traffic to your online store .

So, this stage is all about defining:

• Which marketing channels are best for you to reach your customer?
• How much can you afford to acquire customers to your online store?

5. Operations Plan

Operational planning reflects the task flow of your eCommerce store and how they’ll be divided. It includes your daily tasks as an online store owner. Some basic things should be established, such as your work schedule, your daily tasks timetable, your location, and your product stock.

Your tasks will include:

• Offering support
• Managing the stock
• Managing returns
• Negotiating with suppliers
• Dealing with unforeseen events
• Promoting your store
• And much more

List all of your daily tasks and how your routine will be to make sure that everything in your business plan will be under control. If you are a startup and you’re the only person in charge, it’d be hard to manage all tasks. So, it’s important to have initial planning on paper, and then make small modifications down the line to hire a staff and management team.

6. Financial Plan

For many people, this is the most difficult part of a business plan. However, it’s extremely important. It outlines the major costs for an eCommerce business that include the cost of goods, internet connection fees, salaries of the staff, etc.

If you’re seeking to get outside funding, your financial statement should contain the following documents:

• Summary of Funding Requirement: It’s an outline showing why you are applying for a loan, the cost for raw materials and operational machines, and how much money you need.
• Use of Funds Statement / Income Statement: It shows how profitable your business would be during a given period and describes how you plan to use the funds you’ll get.
• Business Budget: This displays cash inflow and outflow statements over a specific period of time.
• 3-Year Profit and Loss Projection: It’s assumptions that are stated clearly and in detail to communicate your vision of the company’s future and how you anticipate achieving that vision.

5 eCommerce Business Plans’ Mistakes to Avoid in 2022

As for eCommerce owners ( whether it was for fashion, services, etc.), there are some methodologies they use to approximately estimate future turnover, profitability, and more.  But unfortunately, most of these estimations and expectations are frequently distant from market reality.

ExpandCart gathers the most common mistakes that usually happen when you put an eCommerce marketing plan into work, Let’s show you around! 

Mistake #1  |  Selecting the Improper eCommerce Platform

Whether you’re just getting started with your eCommerce shop or have been running one for a while, a not-suitable eCommerce platform can boost your eCommerce business plan or awfully put it to an end! 

After you’ve created a sample business plan for an eCommerce startup, you’ll need to think about several things when selecting an eCommerce platform, including:

• Your financial situation
• Whether you prefer a template or bespoke design, we can help.
• What type of experience do your consumers want?
• What items do you intend to sell?
• How do you intend to grow your company?
• What tools your platform needs to integrate with?
• How much control do you desire over your website?

The last thing you want is to pick a platform that restricts your company’s development, doesn’t interact with your existing systems, or doesn’t provide the amount of control and flexibility you want.

An improper eCommerce platform can result in a variety of problems, including income loss, decreased conversions, less traffic, security difficulties, bad design, and more. This major error might force you to spend even more time, money, and effort modernizing your platform or moving to a new one entirely.

Take your time while deciding on the best eCommerce platform for your online eCommerce as this will affect the whole performance of your eCommerce business plan. 

Mistake #2  |Skipping Environment Check

Before drafting an eCommerce business plan to launch or boost your e-commerce website, it’s a crucial step to start assessing the viability of your ideas before anything!

And here, we don’t mean broad market studies, but rather a comprehensive test using a limited version of your site, that will assist in ensuring in the field that you are gaining traction in your market. You must be able to tie your business strategy to the fact that you have already made your first sales even before you daft your eCommerce business plan. 

Aside from the checking and validation component, an initial test will help you to get useful feedback from your consumers and discover for yourself the major roadblocks or places for progress in your business.

You’ll be in a better position to carry out your company plan and generate realistic and plausible financial projections once you’ve completed it.

Mistake #3 | No Clear Brand Message or Identity

A good product alone won’t perform as good branding! 

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that your things will sell themselves. To build a successful business, you’ll need to develop a strong brand identity that is both approachable to your target audience and favorable to viral brand awareness. If you’ve done your research, you should have a good notion of what your target audience wants and how to communicate with them. Then it’s only a matter of maintaining a consistent and firm message.

A strong brand identity boosts client loyalty and your chances of gaining global brand recognition.

Mistake #4 | Shallow Website Content 

If your eCommerce business relies on organic traffic to attract clients, then the material on your website should be crafted with the user and SEO in mind.

Many organizations make the mistake of considering content as an afterthought, failing to see that each piece of content represents a chance to increase traffic and convert clients.

You need to provide content that is relevant to your target audience, optimized for search engine traffic, and entices consumers to buy your items, from your homepage to your product descriptions.

Investing in SEO and CRO-friendly content is worthwhile, whether you engage with an SEO service or do it yourself. This entails using the correct high-quality keywords for your niche and crafting material that is designed to convert.

Mistake #5 | Mistargeted Audience 

What else could you possibly require? You have items, a company strategy, and a website. Unfortunately, having an offer and a venue to pitch it isn’t enough to be a true eCommerce success.

One of the most common blunders a business owner can make is failing to precisely define their target demographic and spend time learning what makes them tick. You’ll need to do some serious market research to make sure that:

• Your target audience has a genuine necessity for your product. 
• You know how to express your offer in a way that they will comprehend. 
• You may create a marketing plan that prioritizes your target audience.

Identifying and specifying your target audience can help you develop an atmosphere that they will remember and a brand message that will tempt them to buy and re-buy, and hence, a successful eCommerce business plan! 

Final Notes

We are living in a world of fast-paced digital transformation. Almost all businesses are thinking of building a strong online presence. Being prepared and having a well-crafted business plan for your dream eCommerce website helps you focus on what exactly you want your business to be in the future and provides a map of how to get there in no time.

Remember! Creating your own eCommerce business plan won’t be that easy, but success comes to those willing to put in the work and if you did it right, you will witness a great increase in sales and revenue . You can seek help from experts who can help you plan your business effectively.

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Home » Building Online Stores » Ecommerce Business Plan Template: How to Make a Business Plan

Ecommerce Business Plan Template: How to Make a Business Plan

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As the Benjamin Franklin quote goes, “by failing to plan, you’re planning to fail” – and it’s a sentiment that’s just as relevant today just as it was in the 1700s.

Particularly if you’re an ecommerce business.

After all, one research project (a collaboration between Forbes, Huffington Post, and Marketing Signals) suggests that a whopping 90% of ecommerce businesses fail in the first 120 days of their existence. So how can yours avoid being part of that short-lived majority?

With an ecommerce business plan, that’s how.

So read on – we’re walking you through what ecommerce business plans are, and why you need one. You’ll find a complete ecommerce business plan template below, too – so you can start planning for your own online enterprise’s future, today.

What is an Ecommerce Business Plan?

An ecommerce business plan is a document that outlines your online business’s objectives and strategy. That’s a summary of both your goals and how you plan to achieve them.

A good ecommerce business plan should identify all the potential challenges your online enterprise will face as you chase profitability, scalability, or simply sustainability. They’ll lay out the groundwork, too: including an analysis of the market you’re planning to enter, and the customers you’re intending to target.

And, of course, an ecommerce business plan should get specific. How will you source your products? Which tactics will you use to market them? How will you fund your fledgling business, and maintain cash flow when times get tough?

Though they’re also useful for keeping you on track with your goals, ecommerce business plans are vital for attracting and securing outside investment, too – so it’s important you get yours right.

Food products are an excellent option for selling online, and you find a list of examples here . But remember, you need to factor regulations and food safety requirements into your business plan.

Why Create an Ecommerce Business Plan?

There are plenty of benefits to creating a comprehensive business plan for your online store:

• Gaining a deeper understanding of your business – your blockers, biggest assets, and most lucrative opportunities.
• Understanding the state of the market, and where you want to position your ecommerce store within it.
• Planning for what’s ahead – getting to grips with industry trends, and how they might affect your burgeoning business.
• Testing how viable your ecommerce store’s idea and concept is, and any weak points inherent in the premise.
• Assessing the outlay required – be it time, effort, or money, this is useful for understanding the scope of the work that lies ahead.
• Obtaining funding – business plans are, after all, super useful for selling the idea of your online store to potential investors.
• Clarifying your strategies for marketing, logistics, and finance, as well as exactly who your target audience is. Making your business idea a little more tangible – it’s starting to feel real now!

Ecommerce Business Plan Template

Ready to start penning your plan?

Read on – the ecommerce business plan template below offers a handy framework to get you started.

Executive Summary

Like a blurb on the back of a book or an abstract at the start of an academic article, an executive summary is designed to give time-poor readers a concise, compelling overview of your ecommerce business plan’s contents.

While your executive summary should take pride of place at the top of your business plan, you shouldn’t write it until the end. That’s because you’ll figure out more about your ecommerce store’s plans, ambitions, audience, and strategies as you flesh out your plan – and you’ll want these to be reflected in that punchy, persuasive first statement.

So what should an executive summary include for an ecommerce business, exactly?

Here’s a quick (non-executive) summary:

• What your business does
• What goals you want to achieve
• What product or service you’re selling
• Where you’re selling
• Who you’re targeting
• Who your competitors are
• How you plan to make money
• How you’ll implement the business plan that follows

Remember, an executive summary needs to be crisp, clear, and to the point. Don’t waffle on with overlong or unnecessary analysis – you’ll lose your reader’s interest!

Company Overview

With your reader now hooked, it’s time to explain exactly who you are, what you do, and why you do it.

A company overview should include:

• Details of your products/services – what are you planning to sell?
• Your company’s key details – your name, tagline, logo, and any top-level branding information.
• Your key individuals – your founder(s), CEO, and COOs.
• Its legal structure: have you set up as a partnership, or a Limited Liability Company (LLC)?
• Your vision, mission , and values. Beyond making money, what does your ecommerce store stand for? What do you believe in – and what higher purpose gets your staff up and out of bed in the morning?

Market Analysis

Next up in your ecommerce business plan, you’ll need to provide a detailed analysis of the market you’re entering into. This is crucial – after all, if there aren’t any existing market gaps for your business to service, it’ll struggle to make an impact.

Your market analysis should include an exploration of:

• Market size
• Current competitors
• Any gaps, opportunities, and threats

To do all this, a SWOT analysis is a pretty good place to start. It stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It’s a form of situational analysis that can help you understand the nature of your business vis a vis the competition.

Customer Research

Who are you planning to sell to? It’s a key question you’ll need to know – and that any potential investors will demand to know – before your ecommerce business gets off the ground.

So, your ecommerce business plan needs to get specific about that sweet slice of the pie you’re targeting. That includes a deep dive into the demographics – specifically, your prospective customers’:

To gain this info, you can conduct market research into the portion of the market most interested in – or most likely to buy – your products or services. That could involve running focus groups, or sending out incentivized surveys.

Advice from the Experts

Top tip: for an even more granular way of conceptualizing your potential customers, create buyer personas . these are fictional depictions or real consumers, with pain points, goals, likes, dislikes, and demographic info all fleshed out..

By tailoring all your messaging to one or more of these personas, you can increase the effectiveness of your comms.

Marketing Plan

Next up? Details about how you plan to spread the word of your business.

This will include which communication channels you intend to prioritize, which marketing strategies you’ll implement, and which milestones and metrics you’ll use to measure it all.

Your marketing plan should make clear:

• Your marketing goals
• KPIs: such as engagement rates, traffic, conversion rate
• Key channels: email, SEO content, paid SEM marketing
• Your key marketing tactics: will you focus on social media, or plow your resources into influencer marketing? Perhaps a blend of both?

Need some digital marketing tips to add clarity and clout to your marketing plan? Our comprehensive guide has you covered.

Logistics Plan

You know how you’re going to entice your customers to buy from you – but how will you actually get your products to their doorstep once they do?

This is what your ecommerce business plan’s logistics section aims to explain. It’ll include:

• Where you’ll source your products
• How (and where) you’ll store those products
• How you’ll deal with orders
• How you’ll fulfill orders – in-house, or via a 3PL (third-party logistics) supplier?
• How you’ll handle deliveries, and which shipping provider you’ll partner with
• How you’ll deal with returns

3PL suppliers like ShipBob store, sort, pick, pack, and ship your goods – so they can be a fantastic option if you’re a growing business, and outsourcing the fulfillment process makes sense.

Financial Plan

As it so often does in the world of commerce, your business plan all boils down to this –  the money .

Your financial plan describes how you’ll first fund your business, then keep it afloat. Here, you’ll set out your fiscal stall with a series of projections around cash flow and income. The goal? To convince investors (and, on some level, yourself!) that your business has legs.

Your ecommerce business plan’s financial chapter should include:

• How you’ll fund your store’s start-up costs
• How you’ll price your products
• How much profit you’ll make on each product sold
• Financial projections
• Income statement
• Balance sheet

Do I Need a Business Plan?

Yes. Yes, you do.

It can be easy, as a business that only exists online, to get complacent – to assume that you don’t need a business plan.

‘Business plans are a traditional document,’ you think. ‘They don’t have a place in the world of modern ecommerce businesses.’

Well, guess what? They do – regardless of what you call, or how you classify, your business. But there are certain types of ventures where a comprehensive business plan will be especially useful. Among these are:

• New ecommerce stores
• Businesses seeking investment
• Businesses looking to expand into new markets
• Ventures attempting to increase their share of an existing market

Even if your ecommerce store falls into none of these categories, a business plan is always a good idea. It’ll clarify and crystallize your professional goals, hold you accountable to your ambitions, and keep you on track to making your dreams a reality.

In this article, you’ve learned exactly what a business plan is, and why it’s vital for commercial success – particularly for brands of the ecommerce persuasion.

You’re also well-versed in the structure and contents of an ecommerce business plan:

• Executive summary
• Company overview
• Market analysis
• Customer research
• Marketing plan
• Logistics plan
• Financial plan

What now? Well, it’s time to get researching and writing. So remember – keep it simple, keep it tight, and make sure it reflects the heart and soul of your business (and all that passion you feel for it, too!).

Putting together a business plan is exciting. It’s that tangible, real expression of your goals and vision for your ecommerce store – so it shouldn’t be a chore. Go enjoy it!

How can I write an ecommerce business plan?

Can i hire someone to write my ecommerce business plan for me.

Hiring someone to pen your ecommerce business plan for you will cost anywhere between $5,000 and $25,000. You can recruit them from most of the platforms where creatives dwell: such as Airtasker, Fiverr, and Freelancer.com.

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Creating a Stellar Ecommerce Business Plan for Your Online Store

Choose the Right Ecommerce Platform

For years, you’ve purchased items from online businesses or marketplaces like Etsy, eBay and Amazon and thought to yourself, “I could do something like this, too.”

Starting your own ecommerce business may seem intimidating — writing a business plan, even more so.

However, a business plan allows you to validate your business idea, assess your financial position and create a concrete action plan for how you’ll deliver a product from the original source to the end consumer.

In other words, while the business plan might seem like it’s ultimately meant for other people’s benefit — potential investors, business partners or well-meaning family members who keep pestering you to write one — in reality, the business plan benefits you, the business owner, the most.

You’ll shape the vision and mission for your business and map out how you’ll get there. One study by Harvard Business Review found that entrepreneurs who write a formal business plan are 16% more likely to achieve viability than those who don’t.

An ecommerce business plan is a document that outlines your business purpose and goals, analyzes your industry and competitors and identifies the resources needed to execute your plan.

For example, which suppliers will you work with? What types of products will you stock? Who is your ideal buyer? How will you advertise your business? Can you afford to provide free shipping and still make a profit?

Here’s a step-by-step primer on how to write a business plan for your ecommerce store, what elements to include and how to use your own business plan to increase your chance of success.

How to Create An Ecommerce Business Plan

Business plans help entrepreneurs maintain focus on their goals and shape the day-to-day running of a new business. The key elements of an ecommerce business plan template describe blueprints for growth, projected timelines and financial goals — clarifying topics like cash flow, expenses, marketing tools and distribution channels.

Draft an executive summary.

An executive summary provides a concise rundown of the key points in your business plan. In short, it should summarize your chosen industry, business purpose, competitors, business goals and financial position. Executive summaries average 1-3 pages and are ideally under two pages.

What does your business do?

Explain the raison d’être for your startup. What problem will you solve for your customers? Who is the target audience? Where do you want your business to be in one, five, or 10 years?

Here are the main elements of an executive summary:

The problem statement or business opportunity : Describe a pain point or gap in the market that you are uniquely qualified to fill. (“As someone who used to own a convenience store, I heard many of my customers complain about the lack of healthy food options while traveling domestically.”)

Your business idea : State how you plan to approach the problem (“XYZ is a ready-to-eat meal company that lets travelers order and pack healthy meals ahead of trips so they can avoid eating fast food.”)

Company history : Describe what milestones you have achieved. Are you already working with suppliers? What is your current revenue? (“In 2021, XYZ fulfilled over 10,000 orders, generating $150,000 in revenue.”)

Industry and market analysis : Outline the trends in the market that affect your business, market size, and demand for your product. (“In 2022, the global health and wellness food market was valued at $841 billion and is projected to increase to one trillion by 2026.”)

Competition : Explain who your competitors are, outline their strengths and weaknesses, and make it clear how you will differentiate.

Timeline for key milestones : Project when you plan to achieve goals like breaking even, launching an IPO, or other key milestones.

Financial plan (if you are seeking funding from investors or banks).

What goals does your business want to achieve?

Set short- and long-term goals for your business, such as achieving a certain amount of revenue or testing a new product idea. Business goals can be general and high-level or they can focus on specific, measurable actions (SMART goals).

The most realistic goal-setting approach is to set short-term goals as stepping stones to your long-term goals. For example, your short-term goal to decrease website bounce rate by 25% within 12 weeks might help you reach the long-term goal of growing conversions by 50% within one year.

Timeframes for short-term goals can range from a few hours to a year, while long-term goals generally take 1-5 years to achieve.

What products do you sell?

Outline your product offerings and specify where you’ll source each item. Some ecommerce businesses manufacture products in-house. Others work with wholesalers, manufacturers or print-on-demand businesses to resell their products.

Curate a tight product line that demonstrates your value proposition. Why should someone buy from your online store rather than another brand? Why would someone choose your products over a substitute if you don't produce goods in-house?

Ecommerce companies sell three types of products: goods, services and digital products. Tell your readers what you intend to sell and why. List each item and its purpose. For each, you want to answer the question “why?” Why are you choosing to offer these specific products and services? How do you plan on fulfilling orders?

If you’re offering a service, explain what you do and where. Are you local? Do you travel to your customers? Will you partner with similar service providers in other areas?

How will customers access the item if you're offering a digital product? Will they download software or education videos from your site? Will they pay a subscription or usage-based fee? What about licensing requirements? Mention intellectual property ownership (if applicable) including trademarks, patents and copyrights.

Who is your audience?

Describe your ideal customer. Define your product or service from their point of view. What problems does your product solve for them? What benefits or features do customers look for when shopping for that product type?

Create customer profiles that summarize your target audience in terms of demographics (age, location, gender, etc) and psychographics (pain points, interests, buying patterns). Consider creating customer segments based on shared characteristics if you cater to a wide audience.

Demographic data should include the following points:

Education level.

Relationship status.

Occupation.

Meanwhile, discover your target customer’s motivations, needs and wants as much as possible. Psychographic data should include the following points:

Where are you going to sell your products?

Outline your sales channels, both future and existing. For example, your main point-of-sale might be your ecommerce site. Be sure to include stats on site traffic and conversions so readers know how your site is performing.

Still, you might also offer your products online on marketplaces like eBay, Amazon and Etsy. Explain how each of these channels is performing and how you’re optimizing them for product discoverability and conversions (eg: following SEO best practices, using high-quality images, highlighting user-generated content).

Identify your company overview.

Tell your brand's story , its purpose, and how the company was founded. In addition to the company description, provide details on how you currently run the business. List your business partners and employees and describe the business's legal structure.

The best brand names are memorable and communicate the essence of your business. Brand names gain icon status because they represent an excellent product or service, so don’t obsess over it.

That said, the right brand name can be your brand’s most valuable asset, driving differentiation and speeding acceptance. In fact, 71% of consumers prefer to buy from brands they recognize.

If you’re struggling to come up with a name, try using an online brand name generator as a jumping-off point. Remember, you’re not locked into a single brand name forever.

Business structure

Describe the legal structure of your business. Is it a sole proprietorship, LLC, an S-Corp or a partnership? Consider speaking to an accountant if you’re not sure. Who is in charge of the business? List founders and officers and their contributions (both capital and expertise) to the company. Who works for the company? Include an org chart that illustrates who currently works for the business and the roles you plan to hire for . List their responsibilities, salaries and terms of employment (freelance, full-time, part-time).[

Your business structure]( https://bristax.com.au/business-articles/business-structures/ ) affects how much you pay in taxes, your ability to raise money, the paperwork you must file and your personal liability in the event of business bankruptcy, so this information is important to lenders. Also mention if you have filed or plan to file for any applicable licenses or permits.

Domain name

Register a unique domain name for your business. A catchy brand name is essential because the domain is less likely to have been claimed by another business. Keep your domain name as short as possible and ensure it includes your brand name for SEO purposes.

Your mission describes the fundamental purpose of your business. It should tell people why the business exists and how it benefits its customers. For example, LinkedIn’s mission statement is “connect the world’s professionals and make them more productive and successful.”

However, be careful not to exaggerate. An overly aspirational mission statement is disingenuous and wishy-washy — no single corporation or small business will single-handedly “change the world.”

A vision statement is a declaration of what you want your business to achieve in the future by fulfilling its purpose. It describes your company’s “why,” while the mission statement describes the “who” and “what” of the business.

Your vision statement should define your values as a business (eg: reducing waste generated by single-use toiletries) and future goals (achieving a zero-waste world by implementing a circular economy).

Background information

Tell the story of how you conceived your business idea. Say you’re a former school teacher who discovered your artistic flair from making handmade pottery in your garage on weekends. Describe how your business has grown and changed since you first started it.

Your team and key people

List the key personnel in your company. Aside from the founders and executive team, who keeps the business running each day? Here are a few examples:

Company owner — that’s probably you.

CEO — that’s probably also you.

Management team.

Customer service manager.

Logistics manager.

PR and social media specialist.

Advertising manager.

SEO manager.

Copywriters.

Conduct market research.

Ecommerce businesses face intense competition and are liable to market disruptions because they rely on third parties (suppliers, shipping companies, wholesalers) to deliver a product or service. Knowing the market in and out will help you build a more resilient business.

A market analysis considers your ideal customer (their purchase habits and behaviors), competitors (their strengths and weaknesses), market conditions (industry trends and long-term outlook), and how your business fits into this landscape.

The point of a target market analysis is to:

Identify the most and least valuable markets.

Develop buyer personas.

Find gaps in the market to fill.

Assess the viability of a product or service.

Improve business strategy .

Market opportunities

The first step to identifying your target market is determining your total addressable market (TAM) — the maximum market size for your product or service. Who are your customers? What are their demographic and psychographic traits? When and how often will they buy your product?

The best way to obtain a high-level overview of your customer base is to consult your social media and web analytics. These dashboards show where your customers live, their age, gender, general interests and more. You can also use U.S. Census Bureau data to pad up this information.

Competitive analysis

Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your current and potential competitors. First, find out who your direct and indirect competitors are. You can perform a Google search of businesses that sell similar products or scope out rivals in your local area.

Here’s what you need to know about your competitors:

What markets and segments they serve.

What benefits they offer.

Why their customers buy from them.

Details of products and services, including pricing and promotional strategies.

Search for publicly available information about your competitors. Aside from that, do some of your own primary research. Visit their website and complete an order or visit their physical outlet.

Next, analyze the information. Is there a segment of the market your competition has overlooked? Is there a product they don’t supply? Did you have a bad customer experience when you walked into the store?

Detail your competitive advantage in your business plan. Don’t just list things that your competitors do — that’s not analysis. The competitive analysis section aims to persuade the reader that you are knowledgeable about the competition and that your business idea has a significant advantage over the competition.

Products and services

List the products and services you provide and how customers will access them. If you’re selling digital products, will customers have to stream or download the content? Do they pay a subscription fee to access a content platform or do they pay for each individual content piece? If you’re providing a service, will you provide it on physical premises or will you travel to customers’ homes? Will you sell physical products in a physical store or online? What is your website like? List each product, including a short product description and pricing information.

Develop a marketing plan.

You need a go-to-market strategy if you haven’t already launched your business. How will you spread the word about your business? How and where will you advertise and what is your budget? If you run social media ads, for example, what platforms will you use and who is your target audience? Will you do content marketing and SEO? A thorough marketing plan answers all of these important questions.

Marketing channels

Define which channels match your consumer demographic. Do your potential customers spend time on Facebook or do they prefer YouTube? First, figure out where your potential customers are. Next, create attention-grabbing marketing strategies and use them to reach your customer base.

Paid marketing channels

PPC advertising : Advertise on Google’s search engine and pay only once someone clicks on your ad. You can bid for ad placement in the search engine’s sponsored links when someone searches a keyword related to your business offering.

Affiliate marketing : Embed links to another business’s products in your content and receive a commission when someone makes a purchase using your unique affiliate link.

Social media ads : Run paid ads on social media apps and platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to reach targeted audiences. Ads can use different creatives such as images, videos and GIFs.

Influencer marketing : Work with a popular influencer who will promote your products to their followers. Influencers are paid based on conversions or reach.

Organic marketing channels

Brands must use an organic marketing strategy to build brand awareness and engagement and drive website traffic.

Examples include:

Search engine optimization (SEO) : Optimize your website, web pages and blog posts for maximum discoverability on search engines. This involves doing keyword research for your industry, creating high-quality content that attracts and converts and using keywords in the right places.

Social media posts : Organic social media posts build brand awareness and humanize the brand by providing a behind-the-scenes look at the company and allowing you to share engaging visual content to inspire, educate and entertain.

Blogger networks : Collaborating with trusted bloggers on link exchanges can help you build website backlinks, improving your search engine ranking.

Content marketing : Organic content includes blog posts, white papers, SEO pages, and more. This gives you content to post on social media and improves the discoverability of your website. Websites that publish high-quality content consistently rank higher in search results.

Email marketing : Create email templates for new and potential customers, cart abandonment, promotions and announcements and more.

Logistics and Operations plan

This portion of the business plan covers what you physically need to run your ecommerce company. Basically, it outlines how you’ll manage the flow of goods from the supplier (you or a third party) to the consumer. You cannot start a business without an established supply chain.

Your logistics and operations plan should cover the following:

Suppliers : Where do your raw materials or products come from? Do you work with a manufacturer who produces your product idea or are you reselling products from a supplier, wholesaler or distributor? What is the minimum order value? Do they require payment upfront or after the sale? Do you have a backup supplier in case demand spikes or there is a problem with fulfillment?

Production : Will you create your own products or use a third-party manufacturer or dropshipping company? If you’re creating your own products, where will this be done? What assets and equipment do you need? What are your operating costs?

Shipping and fulfillment : Outline how the product will reach the end consumer. How long will it take you to pack and ship products to customers? Will you use a third-party shipper? Will you ship internationally?

Inventory : How much inventory will you keep on hand and where will you put it? How will you track incoming and outgoing inventory? Do you need warehouse storage space?

Establish a financial plan.

The financial section of your business plan is where you prove the feasibility of your business idea and calculate your startup costs. It includes financial projections and statements that show your business’s current financial position and project where you hope to be in the future. This is one of the essential components of the business plan, particularly if you are seeking investment funding, a bank loan or a business partner.

Income statement

In this document, you’ll forecast the company’s revenues and expenses during a particular period. Total revenue is the sum of both operating and non-operating revenues while total expenses include those incurred by primary and secondary activities.

If you subtract your expenses from your revenue sources, you’ll come up with your bottom line (profit or loss).

Balance sheet

A balance sheet helps you calculate how much equity you have in your business. It summarizes your company’s assets (what you own), your liabilities (what you owe) and equity (money invested into the business plus profits).

A balance sheet enables you to calculate your net worth. All of your assets (machinery, inventory, business premises, etc.) go in a column on the left and your liabilities (accounts and wages payable, business loan repayments, business credit card payments, taxes) go in a column on the right. If you subtract your liabilities from your assets, you get your business’ shareholder equity.

Cash-flow statement

This document shows how much cash is generated and spent over a time period. Cash flow determines whether your business is primarily gaining or losing money. Positive cash flow and profit margins are important because it enables your business to repay bank loans, purchase commodities and keep the lights on.

How to Increase Ecommerce Sales

Explore our collection of free resources designed to help you scale smarter and accelerate your online growth from $1 million to $100 million.

The Final Word

Writing a comprehensive business plan is crucial not only for staying on track in the first year or so after launching your business but also for securing funding, finding a business partner and evaluating the viability of your business idea.

FAQs About Ecommerce Business Plans

Who needs an ecommerce business plan, what are the benefits of creating a business plan, how do i start an ecommerce business with no money, browse additional resources.

How to Start an Online Business Profitably From Home In 90 Days

Darren DeMatas

November 27, 2023

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In addition to receiving commissions generated through affiliate marketing, we are able to fund our independent research and reviews at no extra cost to our readers. Learn more.

If you have ever thought about how to start an online business of your own, now is a great time to finally roll up your sleeves. In the wake of COVID-19, the ecommerce world was flooded with new activity from all sectors. Although growth has slowed since then, there’s still plenty of room in the market.

How To Start An Online Business

• Research Business Models
• Decide Your Niche
• Conduct Competitive Analysis
• Define Your Brand And Target Audience
• Set Up Business Logistics
• Build Your Website and Marketing Automation
• Promote Your Business

People can make money online in lots of different ways. They can open an online store, write a blog, or become popular on social media. In this post, we will dive into the different models and guide you step-by-step to launching your own online business.

Why Start An Online Business From Home

Online businesses can be profitable with low startup costs. The ecommerce market is growing, especially due to COVID-19, offering many opportunities.

Some of the richest people in the world got their start with online businesses. With the right business plan and commitment, you can reach customers worldwide .

Types of Online Business Models

Online businesses come in all shapes and sizes. You don’t have to be the next Amazon ecommerce marketplace or Netflix to be successful.

When it comes to online business models there are a few major buckets to consider.

• Physical Products: Selling products like t-shirts through online retail
• Digital Products : Like courses, ebooks, or software
• Media / Publisher: Selling ads, affiliate marketing, or sponsored content
• Services : Exchanging time for money by providing services like logo design or marketing

We have hundreds of online business ideas you can start , but I wanted to highlight a few ones in each of those buckets.

Physical Products

An ecommerce store is likely the first thing you think of when it comes to online businesses. Instead of shopping in person, customers make purchases over the internet.

In essence, your website replaces the store. Customers browse and buy your products or services online, and then you ship the order to them.

Online stores offer advantages over brick-and-mortar. Customers anywhere in the world can shop with you regardless of location. Plus, a virtual storefront means lower overhead.

Dropshipping

A dropshipping business is great for its simplicity . To the customer, they operate just like any other ecommerce store. But in actuality, your internet business is just the middleman. 

When a customer places an order, you send the order to the drop shipper . The drop shipper fulfills and ships the order to your customer.

Digital Products

Selling digital products online is very low overhead, but it’s highly competitive. If you have unique skills or knowledge, create digital products to monetize your expertise.

If you have experience in graphic design or web development, create and sell online courses. Or, maybe you’re a talented writer who could create and sell ebooks, audiobooks, or other digital content.

The possibilities for digital products are almost endless. All it takes is some creativity and hard work to get started.

Launch An App Or SaaS Startup

In today’s digital era, launching an app can be a viable business online.

With an innovative app idea, you could tap into a potentially huge market. If you have the technical skill to create it, or the resources to hire someone to do it for you, it could be lucrative.

To successfully launch an app, identify a problem or need your target audience has. Then, address it with your app. Invest time and resources into promoting your app to get it noticed. In a crowded marketplace, marketing can make or break you.

Remember, developing an app is only the first step – you still have to market it.

Ebooks or Courses

Have a passion for sharing what you know with others? Create and sell ebooks or online courses. It can be a long-term viable business since you can create content on almost any topic. Ideas include cooking and fitness, entrepreneurship, and personal development.

For success, pinpoint your target audience. Create content that speaks to their needs and preferences. Spend time building your brand and promoting your products. Use social media, email marketing, and other channels.

Media Publishing Company

You can start a media company with almost no resources other than yourself. Again, a low barrier to entry means tight competition.

Starting a media publishing company involves creating content for your target audience. You can create written, video, or audio content. Then, you monetize it with advertising or other methods.

This business model is highly scalable. Healthline is a publishing company that generates $100M+ per year.

To compete in this space, focus on consistently producing high-quality engaging content. It will help you build a loyal audience. Learn about online advertising and marketing strategies to maximize revenue potential.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing allows you to promote and sell without handling products. Your job is to promote affiliate products and drive traffic to the partner’s website.

You earn a commission when customers use your affiliate link to make a purchase . The company selling the product handles processing and shipping the order. You are responsible for encouraging the sale and directing traffic with referral links.

Blogging is a large and varied category for online businesses. There is a wide range of blogs and many ways to monetize them. For example, some people make blogs as a hobby, while others use them for affiliate programs.

Blogs can make money selling ad space, sponsored posts, or ecommerce. You can even work as a blogger by creating content for other companies’ blogs. Blogging can be great as a part-time job or full-time gig.

Launch A YouTube Channel

What are you passionate about? Create videos about what you love, and build a following of interested viewers. After you build a loyal audience, monetize your channel with:

• Advertising
• Product sales
• Sponsorships

Most full-time YouTubers make $60K per year. But people like Blippi make a ton more. In fact, his net worth is around his total YouTube subscribers.

Become an Instagram Influencer

These days anyone can become an influencer. That’s if you don’t mind being the “face” of your business. I prefer to pass on that. With that said, influencers can make a killing by putting themselves in the spotlight.

Trading hours for money is the basic idea behind selling services. If you have a particular skill set or expertise, you can offer your services online to those who need them. This includes things like:

• Social media management
• Content creation
• Virtual assistance

Use platforms like Fiverr or Upwork to find clients and build your reputation.

Web Design Services

If you have web design skills, leverage them to build websites for others . If you have software development experience, this is a lucrative business opportunity.

Many tools can help non-technical people build websites. But business owners don’t have the time to do it. Beyond websites, you can also create and manage social media accounts.

Marketing Agency

Have a background in marketing? Experience in social media, content marketing, or search engine optimization (SEO)? You can offer your expertise to help other businesses grow. These businesses tend to have a lot of overhead, but you can easily build and sell a marketing agency for seven figures.

Start With a Niche in Mind

Before starting your online business, you have to know what you will be selling . This could be a product, a service, or an idea.

For example, selling a cool t-shirt design differs from selling a website-building service. Once you know what you want to focus on (this can be many things), you can start developing your strategy.

Some questions you will want to ask yourself are:

• What am I selling?
• Do I need or want a website?
• What will my company (and website) name be?
• Will I have stock to manage?
• Do I need to hire anyone?

What you are selling will help answer most of these questions. And you’ll learn things along the way. But first, what are you selling, and how will you make money?

Conduct Competitive Research

Whatever it is you are selling, you will have competition. Before you get started, do some competitive analysis of the market as a whole.

Begin With Basic Keyword Research On Google

Start with basic keyword research on Google. Identify keywords that are relevant to what you’re selling and see who shows up in the search results. Note their website, pricing, products or services, and any unique selling propositions.

Next, delve deeper into their online presence. Visit their website, social media profiles, and any other online platforms they use. Pay attention to:

The design and user experience of their website

How they engage with their audience on social media

Any content they create

This will help you identify what’s trending and the competitive discovery process.

Conducting product research is important. Entering a highly competitive industry with established competitors makes a difficult battle. When it’s hard to carve out your market share, you stifle growth before you even start.

What is the competition doing well? Where could they make improvements? Exploit the areas of improvement for your own benefit.

Your market research could show competitors pricing products too high. It could show poor customer service. Ensuring you do better may determine product viability . If you cannot, it will point you to another business niche.

Define Your Brand and Target Audience

Think about what you want your brand to communities. Beyond the name, consider your color scheme, logo, and mission statement.

You might have an idea or starting point for defining your brand and company image, but you’re not stuck with it. Amazon grew from an online bookseller to a global marketplace. Your brand will likely evolve and settle into its niche.

Define Your Target Audience

What you are selling will also determine who your target audience is . Are you selling to other businesses or customers? Who are they? What social media platforms do they use?

Define and understand your target audience to shape your business and marketing strategy. Your target market will likely change over time. You may notice a difference between your ideal and actual customers, too.

Analytics tools help identify your audience and track what works and what doesn’t. Your customer demographics determine how you run your business (and make money.) It also impacts your social media marketing.

Trademark Your Brand Name

Once you have defined your brand name and image, it is important to protect them legally. Register a trademark for your brand name to ensure no one else can use it or create confusion in the market.

This important step helps establish your business and protects your intellectual property. It’s helpful to consult with an attorney to navigate the process. This ensures you don’t miss anything when securing your trademark,

Create Your Business

Creating your online presence isn’t enough to start your business. You must officially register your company . You can find original and distinctive names for your business with the use of a  business name generator .Generally, it’s okay to start working and make a few sales. But you’ll eventually need to make things official.

Take all Necessary Legal Steps

You will need to address some legal aspects when creating your company . A licensed and registered business provides personal legal protection.

First, make sure you choose the right business structure. Depending on your location, products, and services, you may need a business permit. You may also need a federal business license. In most cases, you will need a federal business license .

Here are the main legal hoops you will need to jump through:

Register Your Business

Don’t let the idea of registering a business scare you. It’s paperwork and paying fees.

You can expect to:

• Register your new business name and optional Doing Business As (DBA)
• Choose your business’s legal structure: limited liability company ( LLC ), partnership, etc.
• A Federal Tax ID (or EIN)
• Other licenses and permits

Opting for a sole proprietorship allows you to skip many steps. That’s why many people getting started take this route. However, this doesn’t legally separate you from your business. If something goes wrong, you put your personal assets at risk.

If you’re confident in your business, save time and register your business at the start. A DBA and Federal Tax ID can also provide other perks.

Get Tax IDs

After getting your federal tax ID and business license, get your state and local tax IDs. You may have more paperwork for taxes and permits.

Get All Necessary Licenses

Certain types of businesses have licensing requirements . Common business licenses you may encounter include:

• Federal business license
• Sales tax license
• Home occupation permit
• Specific industry licensing
• Permits for regulated products

Your needs depend on your business and the products or services you’ll sell. Your local government or the Small Business Administration can help you.

Remember that sole proprietorship can avoid a lot of these requirements.

You must abide by all regulations where you do business. This includes across state lines or international borders.

Open a Business Bank Account

A separate business bank account is crucial. It simplifies your accounting to keep your business revenue separate from personal income. You need a registered business tax ID to open a business checking account.

As a sole proprietor, you can still open a separate bank account to manage personal and company funds.

Choose a Payment Gateway

Whether you sell B2B or B2C, you need a system for handling payments. Popular ecommerce tools integrate with third-party services so you can collect customer payments.

You must connect your payment gateway to your business account to accept payments. Your location and the ecommerce tools you use determine available payment gateway options.

Set up Taxes 

As with any business, you must track your earnings and pay business taxes. Consider hiring an accountant to help you get started if you can afford one. Keep clear and accurate records to ensure you’re ready for tax time.

Build Your Website

Your website serves as your storefront and a direct representation of your company. Building an effective and attractive website is essential for a successful online business. Luckily, there are tools you can use to build a website without technical skill.

Choose the Website Platform

Thanks to many different ecommerce platforms , it’s easy to start an online business. If you’ve got general computer skills, you can build an ecommerce website yourself.

Popular codeless ecommerce platforms include:

There are others, though these make up the vast majority of websites that aren’t coded from scratch. In fact, WordPress powers roughly 40% of all websites on the internet!

The beauty of WordPress is it is free, open-source software . Developers can create custom plugins, so no matter what feature you need, you can find it. This makes it easy to build your website without technical knowledge.

With its popularity, you can find step-by-step guides for anything you may need.

Shopify is an easier website builder for creating a basic ecommerce store, though it will require a monthly fee. It uses simple templates for creating product pages to sell your goods online. This is a popular option among small business owners.    

WordPress may be free, but there are ongoing expenses , including:

• Domain name
• Web hosting plan
• Premium plugins

Find a balance between cost and service when you choose an ecommerce platform.

If you are selling digital products, consider using an online course platform.

If you’re not ready to build a website, use marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, or Etsy to sell your goods. The downside of this business plan is marketplace fees, which can eat into your profits.

Set Up Marketing Automation

Once you have your ecommerce platform set up, it’s time to start thinking about how to market your business. One of the most effective ways to do this is through marketing automation.

Marketing automation refers to software that automates repetitive tasks. This can include email marketing, social media posting, and advertising campaigns. This can save you a lot of time and effort while still achieving great results.

To start using marketing automation, create a customer database. Collect customer information through your website or social media accounts. Use the data to segment customers into different groups. From there, send them targeted messaging.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most important tools in your marketing arsenal. With it, you can reach customers directly in their inboxes. When done properly, it increases brand awareness and sales.

To start, build an email list. Offer something of value, such as a free book, discount code, or webinar. Subscribers get access to your offering in exchange for their email addresses.

After building your list, use an email marketing platform such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact to create and send emails.

Personalize and offer value to your subscribers with each email you send. Segment your list based on consumer behavior and interests to boost engagement.

Landing Pages

A landing page is a standalone page designed to convert visitors into customers or leads. Effective landing pages have:

• Clear and concise messaging
• A strong call-to-action
• A form for visitors to fill out to become a lead or make a purchase

When creating your landing page, keep in mind your target audience and what will appeal to them. Use eye-catching visuals and persuasive copy to convince visitors to take action. Tools like Unbounce or LeadPages make it easy to create landing pages without coding knowledge.

Funnel Set Up

To maximize your online business success, it’s important to set up a sales funnel. A sales funnel is a step-by-step process that guides potential customers toward buying.

Typically, it starts with the awareness stage. This is where visitors discover your brand. From there, you’ll move them to the interest and consideration stages. Here, they’ll learn more about your products or services. The end goal is to move them to the decision stage, where they make the decision to purchase.

Setting up your sales funnel involves:

• Identifying key steps customers take before they buy
• Creating content and offers to guide them through each stage

For example, you can offer a free trial or consultation.

Market Your Website

Marketing is crucial to help your business grow. To effectively market your online business, understand your target audience. Once you know who your ideal customer is, you can use various strategies to reach them.

Content Marketing and SEO

Using content marketing and SEO can attract potential customers and improve your search rankings. Creating high-quality, relevant content using keywords related to your niche can organic visibility.

Start by identifying topics and keywords relevant to your business. Then, create content around those phrases. You’re not limited to blog posts – you can also create infographics , videos, and more.

Optimize the content with proper headings and meta descriptions to improve ranking potential.

Facebook and Instagram Ads

To build a social media following and increase brand awareness, run ads. Facebook and Instagram make it easy to create targeted ads based on:

• Demographics

To get started, set up a Facebook Business Manager account and connect it to your website. Then, create your ad campaign with an objective that aligns with your business goals. You can choose from options such as brand awareness, website traffic, and conversions.

Create visually appealing graphics and compelling ad copy. Everything should speak directly to your target audience. Use A/B testing to refine your ads over time and achieve a return on ad spend.

Influencer Marketing and PR

Find influencers who have a following in your niche. Reach out about collaborations on content or promotions to tap into their audience.

Use PR tactics such as press releases and media outreach to gain exposure for your business. Focus on relevant journalists and publications because they’re more likely to feature your brand.

Building relationships with influencers and journalists takes time and effort. Don’t expect immediate results. With consistent outreach and quality content, you can establish yourself as an authority.

Retargeting

Retargeting involves showing ads to users who have already interacted with your brand. It reminds them of what they’ve viewed and encourages them to complete the purchase.

To set up retargeting, install a tracking pixel on your website. Then, you’ll create ads targeted at those who have interacted with your site. You can use platforms like Google AdWords or Facebook Ads to create and manage your retargeting campaigns.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

It’s not enough to drive traffic to your website. For success, that traffic needs to convert to customers. CRO is strategically editing your website design and content to increase conversions.

To leverage CRO, analyze your website data using tools such as Google Analytics. Find pages with high bounce rates or low conversion rates. Make adjustments to improve the user experience. For example, simplify navigation or make your calls-to-action clearer.

Use split testing to identify the changes that are most effective.

Successful Online Businesses You Can Learn From

While every online business is different, we can learn from those who paved the way. Here are some strong ecommerce examples :

We’ve already mentioned Amazon a few times, with good reason.

Why? Because Amazon is the be-all and end-all of ecommerce business . It started as a small operation selling used books out of a garage. It grew to control more than a third of all ecommerce in the United States. You can’t ignore Amazon.

Amazon followed many of the tips we’ve covered in this article. (You could argue that they wrote the book on successful online business).

But Amazon started with a focus on one product category: Books. Its target market was people who wanted to save money and enjoy the convenience of delivery.

They embraced their success and continued to grow the brand around those strengths. They expanded into other product categories and now offer countless products and services.

With them, we learn how to focus on our strengths and look for growth opportunities.

Etsy is another good example of a simple idea that turned into a huge success. Etsy started as a small online business that focused on the sale of homemade goods. This differed from marketplaces like Amazon, which sold mass-produced items.

Etsy stayed true to its concept. It is a popular platform for artists and crafters who don’t want to compete with factory-made goods. Their business model was a success, offering niche products you can’t find anywhere else.

EBay revolutionized ecommerce with its new business plan of online auctions. Rather than selling products, eBay built a business around allowing others to sell.

eBay inspired many other ecommerce websites to follow a similar approach.

Each of these ultra-popular websites started as a small ecommerce business before making it big. We can apply the same strategies to our own online business plans. 

Which business is best for online?

Some business concepts that benefit from being online are:

• Affiliate marketing
• Digital product sales
• Dropshipping (and Fulfillment by Amazon companies)
• Training and digital courses

What do these business models all have in common? You can start them with little to no money and with minimal overhead.

Basic ecommerce companies can be successful. But there is greater risk with physical inventory. You must rent warehouse space, buy the inventory, and pay other business expenses.

With the above examples, all you need to invest is your time, and you can start earning money online!

What is the most profitable item to sell online?

You can sell most things online, but digital goods have unique profitability. Unlike physical goods, you can create digital goods like games or online courses once and sell them forever. The same goes for ebooks, videos, and other digital content.

You must print, bind, sell, and ship a physical book. You can sell and download an ebook with no physical labor involved. This is what makes digital goods so profitable for online businesses.

What online services are in demand?

In-demand online services are those that help others get online. In the wake of the pandemic, companies rushed to build their online presence.

Service-based businesses related to website design and digital marketing are in demand. An example is email marketing software, especially email marketing automation.

What are the most successful small online businesses?

You can sell almost anything online, but fashion and beauty are among the most successful. Fashion was the largest ecommerce segment in 2022 . Countless boutiques , brands, and content creators are getting their slice of the pie.

Start Creating Your Online Business

Now you are ready to start planning your own online business endeavors. Chances are it won’t be quick, and it won’t be easy. With a bit of luck and persistence, you can launch a successful online business.

Before, it took specialized knowledge and big risks to make money online. N ow abundant opportunities for those looking to break into ecommerce . No matter your strengths or skill level, there is a solution for how to start an online business.

With a little bit of elbow grease, you can turn your side hustle into a profitable business.

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The 7 Best Business Plan Examples (2024)

As an aspiring entrepreneur gearing up to start your own business , you likely know the importance of drafting a business plan. However, you might not be entirely sure where to begin or what specific details to include. That’s where examining business plan examples can be beneficial. Sample business plans serve as real-world templates to help you craft your own plan with confidence. They also provide insight into the key sections that make up a business plan, as well as demonstrate how to structure and present your ideas effectively.

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Example business plan

To understand how to write a business plan, let’s study an example structured using a seven-part template. Here’s a quick overview of those parts:

• Executive summary: A quick overview of your business and the contents of your business plan.
• Company description: More info about your company, its goals and mission, and why you started it in the first place.
• Market analysis: Research about the market and industry your business will operate in, including a competitive analysis about the companies you’ll be up against.
• Products and services: A detailed description of what you’ll be selling to your customers.
• Marketing plan: A strategic outline of how you plan to market and promote your business before, during, and after your company launches into the market.
• Logistics and operations plan: An explanation of the systems, processes, and tools that are needed to run your business in the background.
• Financial plan: A map of your short-term (and even long-term) financial goals and the costs to run the business. If you’re looking for funding, this is the place to discuss your request and needs.

7 business plan examples (section by section)

In this section, you’ll find hypothetical and real-world examples of each aspect of a business plan to show you how the whole thing comes together. 

• Executive summary

Your executive summary offers a high-level overview of the rest of your business plan. You’ll want to include a brief description of your company, market research, competitor analysis, and financial information. 

In this free business plan template, the executive summary is three paragraphs and occupies nearly half the page:

• Company description

You might go more in-depth with your company description and include the following sections:

• Nature of the business. Mention the general category of business you fall under. Are you a manufacturer, wholesaler, or retailer of your products?
• Background information. Talk about your past experiences and skills, and how you’ve combined them to fill in the market. 
• Business structure. This section outlines how you registered your company —as a corporation, sole proprietorship, LLC, or other business type.
• Industry. Which business sector do you operate in? The answer might be technology, merchandising, or another industry.
• Team. Whether you’re the sole full-time employee of your business or you have contractors to support your daily workflow, this is your chance to put them under the spotlight.

You can also repurpose your company description elsewhere, like on your About page, Instagram page, or other properties that ask for a boilerplate description of your business. Hair extensions brand Luxy Hair has a blurb on it’s About page that could easily be repurposed as a company description for its business plan. 

• Market analysis

Market analysis comprises research on product supply and demand, your target market, the competitive landscape, and industry trends. You might do a SWOT analysis to learn where you stand and identify market gaps that you could exploit to establish your footing. Here’s an example of a SWOT analysis for a hypothetical ecommerce business: 

You’ll also want to run a competitive analysis as part of the market analysis component of your business plan. This will show you who you’re up against and give you ideas on how to gain an edge over the competition. 

• Products and services

This part of your business plan describes your product or service, how it will be priced, and the ways it will compete against similar offerings in the market. Don’t go into too much detail here—a few lines are enough to introduce your item to the reader.

• Marketing plan

Potential investors will want to know how you’ll get the word out about your business. So it’s essential to build a marketing plan that highlights the promotion and customer acquisition strategies you’re planning to adopt. 

Most marketing plans focus on the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. However, it’s easier when you break it down by the different marketing channels . Mention how you intend to promote your business using blogs, email, social media, and word-of-mouth marketing. 

Here’s an example of a hypothetical marketing plan for a real estate website:

Logistics and operations

This section of your business plan provides information about your production, facilities, equipment, shipping and fulfillment, and inventory.

Financial plan

The financial plan (a.k.a. financial statement) offers a breakdown of your sales, revenue, expenses, profit, and other financial metrics. You’ll want to include all the numbers and concrete data to project your current and projected financial state.

In this business plan example, the financial statement for ecommerce brand Nature’s Candy includes forecasted revenue, expenses, and net profit in graphs.

It then goes deeper into the financials, citing:

• Funding needs
• Project cash-flow statement
• Project profit-and-loss statement
• Projected balance sheet

You can use Shopify’s financial plan template to create your own income statement, cash-flow statement, and balance sheet. 

Types of business plans (and what to write for each)

A one-page business plan is a pared down version of a standard business plan that’s easy for potential investors and partners to understand. You’ll want to include all of these sections, but make sure they’re abbreviated and summarized:

• Logistics and operations plan
• Financials 

A startup business plan is meant to secure outside funding for a new business. Typically, there’s a big focus on the financials, as well as other sections that help determine the viability of your business idea—market analysis, for example. Shopify has a great business plan template for startups that include all the below points:

• Market research: in depth
• Financials: in depth

Internal 

Your internal business plan acts as the enforcer of your company’s vision. It reminds your team of the long-term objective and keeps them strategically aligned toward the same goal. Be sure to include:

• Market research

Feasibility 

A feasibility business plan is essentially a feasibility study that helps you evaluate whether your product or idea is worthy of a full business plan. Include the following sections:

A strategic (or growth) business plan lays out your long-term vision and goals. This means your predictions stretch further into the future, and you aim for greater growth and revenue. While crafting this document, you use all the parts of a usual business plan but add more to each one:

• Products and services: for launch and expansion
• Market analysis: detailed analysis
• Marketing plan: detailed strategy
• Logistics and operations plan: detailed plan
• Financials: detailed projections

Free business plan templates

Now that you’re familiar with what’s included and how to format a business plan, let’s go over a few templates you can fill out or draw inspiration from.

Bplans’ free business plan template

Bplans’ free business plan template focuses a lot on the financial side of running a business. It has many pages just for your financial plan and statements. Once you fill it out, you’ll see exactly where your business stands financially and what you need to do to keep it on track or make it better.

PandaDoc’s free business plan template

PandaDoc’s free business plan template is detailed and guides you through every section, so you don’t have to figure everything out on your own. Filling it out, you’ll grasp the ins and outs of your business and how each part fits together. It’s also handy because it connects to PandaDoc’s e-signature for easy signing, ideal for businesses with partners or a board.

Miro’s Business Model Canvas Template

Miro’s Business Model Canvas Template helps you map out the essentials of your business, like partnerships, core activities, and what makes you different. It’s a collaborative tool for you and your team to learn how everything in your business is linked.

Better business planning equals better business outcomes

Building a business plan is key to establishing a clear direction and strategy for your venture. With a solid plan in hand, you’ll know what steps to take for achieving each of your business goals. Kickstart your business planning and set yourself up for success with a defined roadmap—utilizing the sample business plans above to inform your approach.

Business plan FAQ

What are the 3 main points of a business plan.

• Concept. Explain what your business does and the main idea behind it. This is where you tell people what you plan to achieve with your business.
• Contents. Explain what you’re selling or offering. Point out who you’re selling to and who else is selling something similar. This part concerns your products or services, who will buy them, and who you’re up against.
• Cash flow. Explain how money will move in and out of your business. Discuss the money you need to start and keep the business going, the costs of running your business, and how much money you expect to make.

How do I write a simple business plan?

To create a simple business plan, start with an executive summary that details your business vision and objectives. Follow this with a concise description of your company’s structure, your market analysis, and information about your products or services. Conclude your plan with financial projections that outline your expected revenue, expenses, and profitability.

What is the best format to write a business plan?

The optimal format for a business plan arranges your plan in a clear and structured way, helping potential investors get a quick grasp of what your business is about and what you aim to achieve. Always start with a summary of your plan and finish with the financial details or any extra information at the end.

Want to learn more?

• Question: Are You a Business Owner or an Entrepreneur?
• Bootstrapping a Business: 10 Tips to Help You Succeed
• Entrepreneurial Mindset: 20 Ways to Think Like an Entrepreneur
• 101+ Best Small Business Software Programs 

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Starting a Business | 6 min read

How to write a business plan for your online business

Your business plan is vital to your success, and for more than one reason. First, your business plan provides a strong foundation from which to move forward without losing momentum by wondering what to do next. Second, a well-written business plan is required when presenting your business to potential investors.

Don't be intimidated by the idea of writing. You can start with an informal plan and clean it up later by fitting it into a business plan template when (or if) you're looking to secure a loan. Your starter plan doesn't need to have perfect grammar or really be in any shape to show to investors — that comes later. The most important thing is that you do it!

Below well show you how to write a business plan step-by-step, with 9 key sections that every business plan should include.

Point 1: Your Business Plan Executive Summary

The Executive Summary of your business plan covers the objectives of your business and lays out your mission. It's basically an overview of your business and the problems your business will seek to solve for your clients. Discuss your motivations and business goals. It's recommended to write the Executive Summary last, after you've outlined everything else.

Point 2: Your Business Description

Describe your business from your own point of view and discuss how you plan to grow. Explain where your profits will come from. Explain what kinds of customers you're going to target and how your products or services are going to help them specifically.

Point 3: Market Analysis and Competition

Show that you've thoroughly analyzed the market you're targeting and prove that there's a demand for the product or service you're offering. Include information about the size of your market and how many customers you expect to have, and how many will be repeat customers. Discuss your competition and how your business will stand out from the others.

Point 4: Your Product or Service

Here you explain in detail the product or service at the heart of your business. Remember to lay it out as if you're describing it to someone brand new to your idea (it can be easy to forget to do this and phrase things more for someone already "in-the-know" since that's where you're coming from when you write it).

Point 5: Marketing and Sales Plan

In this section, describe how you'll reach the marketplace you're aiming for. Are you going to create a website and social media profiles? Do you plan to attend trade shows? How about paid advertising? Don't limit yourself to what you'll do at the beginning — if you plan to hold off on paying for ads until later, make a note of that.

Point 6: Ownership, Management, and Personnel

This section includes a description of how you'll staff and manage your business, who the owners are (if more than you alone), and the types of personnel you'll need. Include team members you'll be looking to hire as well as those already working with you at this stage. Write a one-paragraph profile of each existing major team member, including yourself.

Point 7: Financial Plan and Projections

This is a very important section, both for your own planning and especially if you're going to seek investors. Create a cash flow projection to describe your monthly predicted revenue and expenses, a break-even analysis to show how many sales you need to make to cover your initial expenses and make a profit, a sample profit-and-loss statement using anticipated values, and a balance sheet describing your business's current assets, liabilities, and equity. These are the kinds of financial data you'll need to assemble every year at tax time, at which point you'll have real numbers to work with rather than projections.

Point 8: Investment

What will your investors receive, based on your cash flow? This doesn't just include outside investors who you might approach later (and with a more formal business plan). It should also include estimates for the return on investment for anyone who has put money into the formation of the business, like you and anyone you're already working with.

Point 9: Appendices

The appendices are a collection of any supporting data you have, such as testimonials, research excerpts, charts, and other information relevant to your business.

Informal vs. Formal Business Plans

Your informal business plan only needs to be around 10 pages , and you can leave the appendices out if you desire. As mentioned, the informal plan doesn't have to be perfect, but it should still be reasonably professional — you may want to recruit a trusted friend or editor to proofread, for example.

Your formal business plan, on the other hand, can be up to 40 pages and should be written to the best standards you can manage, since the formal plan is the one you'd bring with you to secure a business loan or court investors. The appendices will come in handy here to help convince them of the value of investing in your business. Remember, your formal business plan should be impressive but honest.

Business Plans Templates for Download

For additional information on how to start an online business  you can download our free ebook below.

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Online Shopping Store Business Plan

If you are planning to start a new online shopping website, the first thing you will need is a business plan. Use our online shopping website business plan example created using Upmetrics business plan software  to start writing your business plan in no time.

Before you start writing your business plan for your new online shopping website, spend as much time as you can reading through some examples of clothing, apparel, or online store business plans.

Reading some  sample business plans will give you a good idea of what you’re aiming for, and also it will show you the different sections that different entrepreneurs include and the language they use to write about themselves and their business plans.

We have created this sample online shopping website business plan for you to get a good idea about how a perfect online shopping store business plan should look like and what details you will need to include in your stunning business plan.

Online Shopping Store Business Plan Outline

This sample online shopping website business plan includes the following sections:

• The company
• The window of opportunity
• Size of Target Market
• Financial Performance and Business Feasibility
• Ownership and the Top Management Team (TMT)
• What we are asking (“they ask and the offer”)
• Company History
• Mission and objectives
• Solution Features
• Market size and growth
• Our projected market share
• Target market
• Contribution of each revenue stream to revenue
• Underlying trends
• Competitive analysis
• SWOT analysis
• Competitive Advantages
• Sustainable Competitive Advantages
• Product design strategy
• Pricing strategy
• Promotion strategy
• Distribution strategy
• Company Structure and Ownership
• The Top Management Team
• Other Key Employees, Associates, and Relationships
• Production Plan
• Logistics of raw materials supply and inventory
• Logistics of Distribution and Finished Product Inventory
• Future products and services
• Future Geographic Markets
• R&D Facilities and Personnel
• Risk reduction strategies
• Sales, Net income, Net Cash flow
• Profit and Loss Projection for the first year
• Profit and Loss Projection – First Year to Fifth Year
• Cash Flow Projections
• Balance Sheet

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After getting started with Upmetrics , you can copy this online shopping store business plan example into your business plan and modify the required information and download your online shopping store business plan pdf and doc file . It’s the fastest and easiest way to start writing your business plan.

Download a sample online shopping store business plan

Need help writing your business plan from scratch? Here you go;  download our free online shopping store business plan pdf  to start.

It’s a modern business plan template specifically designed for your online shopping store business. Use the example business plan as a guide for writing your own.

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Upmetrics is the #1 business planning software that helps entrepreneurs and business owners create investment-ready business plans using AI. We regularly share business planning insights on our blog. Check out the Upmetrics blog for such interesting reads. Read more

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Starting a Business | Templates

4 Free Retail & Online Store Business Plans

Published December 13, 2019

Published Dec 13, 2019

WRITTEN BY: Blake Stockton

This article is part of a larger series on Starting a Business .

A retail business plan can help entrepreneurs analyze their business concept and explain why it will be successful. Many banks and investors like to see companies’ strategic plans before agreeing to provide funding. All business plans for retail and online stores should showcase their products and services, financial projections, and marketing strategies.

Before starting your retail or online store, it’s important to register it as a legal entity with the state in which it’s doing business. A legal business entity would protect the business owner’s personal finances if a lawsuit were to ever occur against the business. Rocket Lawyer is an online legal service that assists small business owners with the paperwork needed for legal entity registration. Register your business with Rocket Lawyer for $99 plus state fees.

Visit Rocket Lawyer

Retail Business Plan Templates

We’ve included four retail business plan templates below and separated them into different types, including one for retail product-based storefronts, retail service-based storefronts, retail companies with a storefront and an online store, and retailers that run their business completely online. To understand each section of the business plan template better, we recommend you read our step-by-step business plan guide . All of the templates below include the necessary sections to obtaining funding from a bank or investor.

We’ve included template copies that are in both Microsoft Word and Google Docs. To save the Word document, click on your desired template’s link below. Once it downloads, click “File” within the document, then “Save As” to save the template to your computer.

To save the Google Doc, click your desired template’s link below. Copy all of the words in the document, open a new Google Doc on your account, and paste in the template. The new template will automatically save to your Google Doc account.

Product-based Retail Storefront

Word / Google Doc

Retailers with Storefront And Online Business

Service-based Retail Storefront

Online Only Retail Store

How Retail Business Plan Templates Work

These retail and online business plan templates walk you through how to create a plan for your business. They all come with questions in each section and subsection to spark creative thinking and provide direction.

It’s important to note that some businesses will have information that fits into all of the template categories. For example, a bakery can sell products in person and online in addition to providing a service with educational classes to aspiring chefs. If your business happens to have diverse revenue sources like this, choose the template that applies to how the majority of your revenue is earned. For example, if the online store will only earn 1% of overall sales, you should choose the storefront-based business plan template.

Product-based Retail Storefront Template

This template is for a retail business with a storefront that primarily sells products rather than services to customers. Typically, these types of businesses have a local marketing focus. Additionally, inventory and sales staff are important topics to discuss in the business plan. Examples that fall into this business category include clothing boutiques, food businesses, and jewelry companies―essentially, any store that buys and resells items in small quantities, not in bulk like wholesalers.

Download the product retail storefront business plan in Google Doc or Microsoft Word format. PDF isn’t available, because the Table of Contents’ page titles and numbers won’t update after you add new information to the template.

Service-based Retail Storefront Business Plan Template

The service-based retail storefront template is right for anyone who primarily provides a service to its customers. This type of business has a local marketing focus. Additionally, hiring and managing quality staff are discussed in this business plan. Examples of service-based retail storefronts include massage therapist companies, nail salons, product repair, shops, and rental-based businesses.

Download the service-based retail storefront business plan in Google Doc or Microsoft Word . PDF isn’t available because the Table of Contents’ page titles and numbers won’t update when you add new information to the template.

Business Plan for Brick-and-Mortar Retailers With Online Stores

This template is for any retail business that has a storefront and is selling a product online as well. The business plan discusses ecommerce and online marketing strategy in depth. Examples of brick-and-mortar retailers with online stores include memorabilia or comic book stores in addition to shops that sell clothing, outdoor goods, and spices.

Download the retail storefront and online business plan template in Google Doc or Microsoft Word . A PDF version isn’t available, because the page titles and numbers within the Table of Contents won’t update when you add new information to the template.

Online Retailer Business Template

The online store business plan template is for retailers that primarily sell products online. The template emphasizes ecommerce, online marketing, and shipping. It’s best for niche businesses that cannot fund a storefront, such as stores that sell artisan soaps or custom items. Dropshipping businesses will also find the template useful.

Download the online retail business plan in Google Doc or Microsoft Word . A PDF version isn’t available because the Table of Content page titles and numbers won’t update when you add new information to the template.

What All Retail Business Plans Should Include

If you’ve looked at the above templates, you may have noticed that several sections are similar on all four business plans. That’s because no matter your type of business, when writing your business plan , bankers are looking for certain sections, including the Executive Summary, Company Summary, Market & Industry Analysis, Marketing Strategy, Financial Projections, and Appendix.

Executive Summary

This section is an overview of the business plan and is typically one to two pages in length. We recommend completing the executive summary last so that you know which sections are most important to emphasize and expand upon.

It’s important to make the executive summary as persuasive and compelling as possible. Interested investors often request the executive summary first to determine if they should spend time reading the rest of the plan.

Company Summary

The company summary highlights the company’s successes if already in business or why it will be a success if you have a new business. In this section, include information about what you need to purchase to start your business and how much it will cost. Additionally, briefly discuss the company’s ownership structure and its competitive advantage, which is the one big feature that gives your business an edge over competitors.

Market & Industry Analysis

In the market and industry analysis section, make your case as to why your business will be a success. Market analysis is a deep dive into research that you can use to show that there are sufficient customers who need your business. You should research the need in your local area, especially if you’re not operating online, to help prove your business can be successful. Use software like ReferenceUSA to research for free at thousands of local libraries across the United States.

For industry analysis, you need to show evidence that the industry in which you’re starting a business is growing, not shrinking. You can use a paid service like IBIS World to pull industry data. IBIS World’s industry experts update industry forecasts and data around every four months.

The marketing section is where you outline the marketing strategy for your business. The information in this section will vary depending on the type of business you own. For example, some businesses may want to showcase the quality of their interior buildout while others expand into their online marketing strategy. You may even want to discuss the high-quality materials you’ll be creating to promote the business.

Regardless of the marketing strategies you mention, we recommend including as many visual examples as possible. You may want to include one or two visual marketing materials in this section. If you have more materials to showcase or large graphics―a menu or interior rendering―place them in the Appendix ( discussed below ).

Financial Projections

The financial projections are the most important part of any business plan. Unfortunately, they are also the most difficult for business owners to create. In the financial projection section, you should predict how much revenue and expenses will flow through the business during its first three years in operation.

Calculating financial projections can be time-consuming, especially if you have a physical location because you have to research specific costs such as construction, inventory, and utilities. Software can also be a big expense. For instance, payroll tools like Gusto , accounting software like Intuit QuickBooks , cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) systems like Vend , and so on.

Additionally, it can be difficult to predict how much each product or service line will sell month-by-month over the first three years in business. Use software like Biz Miner to obtain yearly startup financials for your industry.

To organize your financial projections, you can use a free Excel workbook from the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE). In the workbook, you’ll find tabs for financial statements that need to be completed, such as the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Profit and Loss Statement.

The appendix is optional but recommended for a business plan. This is where you will put supporting documentation for your business. Include items like marketing materials, licenses, permits, leases, purchase agreements, and illustrations.

When to Use a Template Alternative

An alternative to the more traditional retail business plan templates above is a more modern business plan called the Business Model Canvas (BMC) . The BMC is a visual business plan that can be used in a team-building exercise and completed by upper management. Additionally, you should note that if you’re pressed for time, you can complete the BMC in under an hour. The downside of the BMC is that most banks and investors won’t accept it as a business plan.

Many business owners find that creating a business plan is a daunting task. Staring at a blank screen can be intimidating. If you need an alternative to using the templates above, consider using a business plan software to walk you step-by-step through the planning process. LivePlan is an affordable and easy-to-use business plan software that provides more than 500 business plan examples from which to learn. Get started with LivePlan for only $11.66 per month.

Visit LivePlan

Bottom Line

Every retail business owner needs to go through the exercise of creating a business plan. The process helps the owner understand the strengths and potential weaknesses of their business. Use our business plan templates along with the SCORE financial projections workbook to obtain necessary funding for your retail business. You may find yourself struggling with portions of the financial projections. If so, contact an accountant for assistance or use a business plan software.

If you’re on a tight budget and need legal advice about your business, you can contact an online legal service. Rocket Lawyer provides affordable expert legal advice to business owners. Get started with a 30-minute consultation from a Rocket Lawyer attorney for $59.99.

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Blake Stockton

Blake Stockton is a staff writer at Fit Small Business focusing on how to start brick-and-mortar and online businesses. He is a frequent guest lecturer at several undergraduate business and MBA classes at University of North Florida . Prior to joining Fit Small Business, Blake consulted with over 700 small biz owners and assisted with starting and growing their businesses.

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Online Services Business Plan

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Web Applications, Inc.

Executive summary executive summary is a brief introduction to your business plan. it describes your business, the problem that it solves, your target market, and financial highlights.">.

Web Applications is a start-up company that is designed to offer Web-based business management applications. Web Applications has developed an Internet-based application called Online Office Manager, for which a patent is pending. Online Office Manager allows businesses and individuals to keep in touch even when working in different locations. Online Office Manager provides applications which replace the physical office. With Online Office Manager, your office moves with you at all times, and you have 24-hour access to it. Users can get Online Office Manager by subscribing to our server on the Internet.

As with any start-up company, Web Applications recognizes its risks. We are a new company and as such, we will need to meet market acceptance. To that end, the company is working to determine trends in the industry, the needs of the customer, and how best to address the needs of the customer.

We expect to compete as a thriving company in the computer applications software industry. The software market has long been one of the computer industry’s fastest growing segments. Revenues for the worldwide software market reached $122 billion two years ago, up 15% from the year before that, according to estimates by International Data Corporation (IDC), a market research firm in Framingham, Massachusetts. Revenues continued to show robust growth last year. IDC projects that revenues will grow at a compound annual rate of approximately 12% for the next several years, surpassing $220 billion three years from now.

The company is seeking a moderate start-up investment. The company’s revenue projections for year one are for a 10-fold growth. Web Applications expects to achieve profitability within six months of beginning operations.

1.1 Mission

At Web Applications, our mission is to provide an online office system that links workers in different locations to their mother company.

Company Summary company overview ) is an overview of the most important points about your company—your history, management team, location, mission statement and legal structure.">

Web Applications, Inc. was established in 1998 to provide a Web-based business application with features that give users the ability to remain in touch with operations at all times from anywhere in the world. The company was formed by Mr. Lester Andrews and is a Georgia incorporated S-Corporation.

2.1 Start-up Summary

Start-up costs, expenses and funding sources are laid out in the tables and chart below.

2.2 Financial Risks and Contingencies

The company recognizes that it is subject to both market and industry risks. We believe our risks are as follows, and we are addressing each as indicated.

• Start-up company . We face all the risks associated with being a start-up company. We feel that we can overcome these with our experience in the industry and by quickly establishing desired relationships.
• Security . Security is a major issue, but all features provide security options; documents and directories can be password-protected and have specific, user-only access rights.

Web Applications has developed an Internet-based application called Online Office Manager, for which a patent is pending. Online Office Manager allows businesses and individuals to keep in touch effectively even with a distance factor. Online Office Manager provides applications which replace the physical office. With Online Office Manager, your office moves with you at all times and you have 24-hour access to it. Users can get Online Office Manager by subscribing to our server on the Internet. There is no need to buy any software or upgraded versions of the software.

3.1 Service Description

Main Features

• Communication and productivity . This feature will allow you to see who is online within an organization. Our communication feature will enable the user to initiate and conduct a chat session, and will give them the means to initiate NetMeeting. Users can send and receive files directly through the Internet. Documents can also be stored in one central location.
• Email . Users will be able to send and receive emails and faxes in a personal mailbox. Within the email tool, users can create and use different folders to hold their private email. They will also have quick access to folders in an organization, and the ability to create and maintain an address book.
• Messaging . Users will be able to send text messages to others online. This feature will receive and log messages giving a “while you were out” type application.
• Schedules . Scheduling meetings can be done en-mass, i.e. users select a group of users and request a meeting. They can also specify which users must be present for the meeting to occur, and which are optional. When confirmations are received for all those required, a message is placed on everyone’s calendar. The user will also be able to set up scheduled reminders that fire off at a certain time. The system can maintain a database of resources. For the individual users, they can store their own personal schedule.
• Document Management . Users can store different documents on the system. Checked-in documents are saved in a manner which will allow for easy retrieval at a later time. Document searching can be done using a keyword, and the document can be viewed in a number of different formats without having to install any software.

Secondary Features

• Online bill payments . This service will be name branded from services like Checkfree. It will allow users to electronically pay bills all in one location. 
• Threaded bulletin board . This allows users to leave messages and multiple individuals to respond, leave their own message, and track the history.
• Package tracking . Users can view the status of packages that are being shipped with FedEx, UPS, etc.
• Travel planner . Will allow users to make travel arrangements and get discounts. Users can create travel profiles and itineraries online.
• Credit check services . This will allow users to check credit ratings of potential business partners or vendors.
• Conduct surveys . Users can create a survey and distribute it on the system. Responses can be given and returned to the system where they will be tabulated and maintained. 

Online Office Manager comes in three packages and customers can choose the one with the applications that best suit their needs.

3.2 Future Services

In the future, we will implement Phase 2 of our plan. Our research and development (R&D) will yield innovation with input from customers and the marketplace. Given below is a detailed look at the future applications that will be a part of the Phase 2 program. The biggest and most complex application of Phase 2 will be the telephone/fax service.

Telephone/Fax services .

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Other Future Applications

• Job postings–Enables people to browse various categories and sub-categories of ads and submit resumes.

Market Analysis Summary how to do a market analysis for your business plan.">

We expect to compete as a thriving company in the computer applications software industry. Applications software are computer programs designed to accomplish user tasks, such as word processing, graphic design, desktop publishing, inventory control, and more. The software industry consists of three general market segments: application solutions, application tools, and systems software. The software market has long been one of the computer industry’s fastest growing segments. Revenues for the worldwide software market reached $122 billion in 1997, up about 15% from 1996 according to estimates by IDC. Revenues continued to show robust growth in 1998. IDC projects that revenues will grow at a compound annual rate of approximately 12% for the next several years, surpassing $220 billion by 2002.

• System-level software comprises operating systems, operating systems enhancements, and data center management. The worldwide market for system-level software increased 13% in 1997, to $35.1 billion. This figure should exceed $53 billion by 2001, based on an 11% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

Applications software can be either developed by outside vendors and sold in packaged form, or custom-made by users themselves. Many computer users don’t have the time or desire to write their own computer programs or to hire a software developer; they can choose from thousands of quality packaged programs ready for use with little or no modification. The proliferation of computers has increased the number of people who use computers relative to those who can program them, increasing the packaged software’s importance. Custom software is tailored to the needs of a specific individual or organization.

4.1 A Brief Look at the Internet

In just five years, the Internet has undergone a major metamorphosis. From an obscure network used by a limited number of academics and researchers, the Internet has been transformed into a global Web of more than 100 million interconnected computers encompassing users from all walks of life. Described below are the various segments of the Internet:

• Hardware : networking equipment. This sector provides the primary infrastructure on which the Internet is built. Two prominent types of network equipment are routers and remote access concentrators. Cisco Systems Inc. with sales of approximately $9.9 billion and a market share of 67%, dominated the routers market in 1998. Ascend Communications, Inc. (1998 sales of $1.48 billion) and Cisco share leadership of the remote access concentrator market, with shares of approximately 28% and 27%, respectively.
• Software . Two of the main types of Internet software are browsers and security programs. Microsoft Corporation and Netscape Communications Corporation dominate the key software component of the World Wide Web. The security segments are needed to ensure the safety of networks and transactions. Security Dynamics Technology Inc. (1998 sales of $41 million) has taken the lead in providing authentication and encryption products.
• Services . Internet service providers (ISPs) offer a way for people to enter the Internet. According to IDC, America Online has approximately 43% share of the total subscribers in the ISP segment, followed by Microsoft’s MSN, and AT&T’s WorldNet.
• Destinations . Destinations are websites that people can go to for information, entertainment, or commerce.

4.2 Brief Look at the Computer Industry

In the first six months of 1997, a total of 37 million personal computers (PC) were shipped worldwide. That figure rose to 40 million during the same time period in 1998 and, according to IDC, this figure is expected to rise by 16% in 1999. PC growth in 1997 and 1998 was boosted by the introduction of the sub-$1,000 PC. This price point is due in large part to the sharp drop in prices of the major components that go into the PC. Another way PC makers have addressed lower price points is through cost-reduction efforts made possible by new manufacturing and distribution strategies. Two important initiatives are underway:

• Build to order (BTO). Under BTO, PC’s are assembled by the manufacturer.
• Channel assembly. Under channel assembly, distributors or resellers build and configure the machines.

In both cases, the building or configuring occurs when an order is received. By using these methods, indirect PC vendors hope to keep inventories lower and, through the cost savings achieved, offer more competitive prices to customers. Compaq, Dell, IBM, and Hewlett Packard dominate the computer industry.

4.3 Market Segmentation

A review of all of our markets is given below:

• Telecommuters . Telecommuting seems to be on a steady growth curve, with approximately 11 million telecommuters in the U.S. today, according to the latest survey from FIND/SVP, a research and consulting firm. Telecommuting will continue to grow because there are frequent references to productivity gains in the range of 15-25% for telecommuters.
• Service . Customers not only expect the best service but value for money, which is what we give them in our product.

4.4 The Y2K Issue

One of the more pressing issues facing the computer industry is the Year 2000 problem, also referred to as “Y2K” and “the millennium bug.” Unless addressed properly, this problem will cause many computers worldwide to stop functioning properly. Y2K arises from the fact that until the mid-1980s or so, programmers used two-digit numbers to represent years. For example, “97” was used to represent the year 1997. While this design saved computer storage space, which was expensive and in limited supply, it also produced the situation in which all dates input in these computers refer to the twentieth century. The Gartner Group, a Connecticut-based information technology (IT) consulting firm, estimates the worldwide repair bills in the $300 billion – $600 billion range, but this includes only the cost of fixing programs written in Cobol. Software Productivity Research, a Massachusetts based software-consulting firm, has made a broader estimate that includes repairs, damages, and litigation. This group estimates that the total cost from 1994 to 2005 will top $3.6 trillion.

Our products will not be affected by the Y2K problem.

4.5 Service Business Analysis

Competition There is one major company with whom we will be competing and that is HotOffice Technology. Its product, HotOffice, is a low-end business planner that focuses on the basic business structure. Other companies compete in the industry, but they only specialize on one of the many features we offer.

HotOffice Technology HotOffice Technologies, Inc. is a Web-based Intranet Service provider for small business, especially those with collaboration needs, multiple offices, mobile workers, telecommuters, and virtual offices. HotOffice offers small businesses an affordable, secure Intranet solution at a fraction of the cost of purchasing and maintaining a traditional Intranet or Extranet. This subscription service provides a large, powerful suite of collaboration and communication tools in one simple, easy-to-use interface accessible anytime, anywhere. From any PC with Internet access, HotOffice provides instant connection via the Web to email, calendar, documents, bulletin boards, online conference rooms, business centers, and more.

Strengths Large penetration to the main channels. At the time of this writing, they have the first entry to market. We plan on taking a significant part of that market share within a few months by providing additional features that will be more attractive for users.

• These companies form a large group of firms that offer one form of the many applications that we offer. They either specialize in selling hard drive space or email functions.

Barriers to Entry Web Applications will benefit from several significant barriers to entry which include:

• Market penetration. Once we are in the market and established, it will be difficult for someone to break into a market where someone is already operating successfully.

Strategy and Implementation Summary

We intend to become the leader and most creative provider of Web-based business management applications on the market. We aim to create a user-friendly application that will be an integral component in any personal or business environment. We will do this by developing an innovative and progressive development and management team. We will also accomplish our goal by using customer input to further develop our products and services.

We will leverage this new product in the computer software industry to dominate the growing Web-based applications market, especially the small businesses. We have a premium, value-added product with three different packages from which the user can choose the one that best suits their needs. These strategic product lines will enable domination of the target market. The products all share the core applications but differ in range of services.

As a company, we feel that there are a number of opportunities we can capitalize on and they include:

Small Businesses

• Better communication. Businesses will be able to set up meetings without incurring travel costs. Our products break down the walls that are created by the distance separating team or group members.
• Alternative for office network. With our product and its applications, there will be no need for businesses to set up office networks or purchase additional hardware.
• Cost effective. It is cost effective in that only a monthly fee is required, as opposed to huge amounts of money for set up costs and servers.
• Setting up on main branch office. We will help companies to set up the system and ease the transition with no delay in ordering equipment and daily operations.
• Control sales team activities. Our product will give those in the sales department the ability to get quick approvals and close deals faster. 
• No laptop needed. All user information will be placed online and kept in various departments. This will eliminate the need to carry laptops when traveling, thus reducing the chance of laptop theft, which is high in airports.

Individuals

• Eliminate need for multiple software packages. All applications needed are in one place and more can be added per user request, thus eliminating the need of purchasing individual software packages.
• Portable personal information manager (PIM). Even as you travel, your own PIM on the server will be at work taking messages and putting them in the desired folders. The PIM becomes a personal secretary keeping you informed of special events.
• No laptop needed. All user information will be placed online and kept in various departments. This will eliminate the need to carry laptops when traveling, thus reducing the chance of laptop theft, which is high in airports.

We will outsource all sales operations to a company to be named.

5.1 Sales Forecast

We are confident that our Online Office Manager will be eagerly embraced by mobile computer using businesses and e-commerce businesses.  We are forecasting a 10-fold revenue increase over the years covered in this plan, as shown in the table and charts below.

5.2 Marketing Strategy

The message associated with our product is value-added applications. Dynamic Communication Solutions has identified a brief promotional plan that is diverse and will include a range of marketing communications including the few listed below.

• Public relations.
• Trade shows.
• Industry conferences and seminars.
• Print advertising. Dynamic Communication Solutions will follow a print advertising program in publications such as Creative Loafing , Belleview Business Chronicle , and the Buckhead Local Paper . Shown below is a breakdown of the various publications.

5.3 Pricing Strategy

We plan to set our pricing based on competitors’ pricing. Prices will also be based on market prices for similar off-the-shelf products. The automatic upgrade and product enhancement features do not affect the price of any of the services. The figure below shows our tentative pricing schedule, these are monthly rates. We will work in conjunction with Dynamic Communication Solutions to come up with a working pricing schedule. Users will have three payment options:

• Six-month payment.

5.4 Value Proposition

Web Applications offers the following value propositions for customers.

• Collaboration . Users can work on the same document at the same time from different locations. Both will be able to edit the document and work on the cosmetics simultaneously. This collaboration ability eliminates the need to send the same document back and forth, saving time for both users.
• Communication . Applications allow all users to keep in touch in real time and make any necessary business decisions there and then without holding down the other party involved. Communication can be through several different applications that are offered. This allows for rapid decision-making, helping managers and sales teams make and close deals with greater ease. This will also help speed up the approval process when placing orders.
• Document management . This product allows documents to be stored, viewed, and searched at any given time. Users can create and arrange folders in a manner that will make it easy to retrieve documents. Basically, they have the ability to create their own filing system online.
• Information sharing . With features such as online chat, information can be shared quickly and easily. In the event that sensitive information is being shared, users do not have to worry because security measures have been taken to safeguard all information from outsiders.
• Personal virtual office . With each personal office space, users will have the ability to keep track of all daily tasks. Users have access to their office at anytime, from anywhere.

5.5 Strategic Alliances

The company plans to form strategic alliances with Dynamic Communication Solutions, For Sale By Internet, and a sales company to be announced. The company may develop research alliances to further refine the product and adapt it to new markets in different industries. Below is an explanation of key relationships:

• Dynamic Communication Solutions . This is a company with over ten years of experience in marketing and marketing management. We will outsource all marketing operations to Dynamic Communication Solutions because we feel that they have stability and marketing channels that will be effective for our product. This relationship will eliminate the need to develop our own marketing team. 
• For Sale By Internet . This company develops and manages company websites on a contract basis. The company is located in Kirkland, Washington and boasts a Webmaster with over seven years experience in the field. We will benefit from this relationship by having an experienced company handle all design and website management. Also, this will allow us to focus on developing applications for other industries.  
• Sales . We will outsource all sales operations to a company to be named later.

Management Summary management summary will include information about who's on your team and why they're the right people for the job, as well as your future hiring plans.">

Our management philosophy is based on responsibility and mutual respect. At Web Applications, we have an environment that encourages creativity and achievement. Web Applications management is highly experienced and qualified. Its key management team includes Mr. Lester Andrews and Mr. Dwight Austin. 

6.1 Management Team

Mr. Lester Andrews – President and CEO Lester Andrews has over 10 years in the Information System field. In 1987, he attended the DeVry Institute of Technology where he graduated with a degree in Electronics Engineering. He went on to work for Vanstar (formally Computerland) in the networking department handling accounts such as Compaq, Intel, APC, HP, and various others. After leaving Vanstar, he pursed a career that included consulting designing, installing and setting up networks, and network maintenance. Mr. Andrews also worked as a Manager of Information Systems for the Medicare SMART program. 

Mr. Dwight Austion – COO/CFO Mr. Austion graduated from Western Kentucky University with a degree in Sociology and has a vast amount of managerial experience. Between 1994 and 1995, he worked at Turner Broadcasting Systems (TBS) as a project manager. During this time, he was responsible for preparing and delivering presentations for proposals to sell new services. Mr. Austion also managed the daily operations with an annual budget of $320,000. Between 1995 and 1996, Mr. Austion was project manager at Taylor and Mathis/Beacon properties, a Belleview-based real estate company. He had the task of supervising a staff of 20 employees and 10 sub-contractors. He was also in charge of operations, which were run on an annual budget of $450,000. Mr. Austion also worked as project manager for Flower’s Baking Company, where he managed contract services and had an operating budget of $600,000. In December 1997, he took his managerial skills to Hospital Housekeeping Systems where he became operating manager for day staff. He worked closely with the chief operating officer and had an operating budget of $1.2 million.

6.2 Outside Support

For Sale By Internet – Website Developer For Sale By Internet is led by Webmaster, Mr. Brian Taylor. Having attended the University of Washington between 1983 and 1987, Mr. Taylor graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration & Philosophy in the honors program. Altogether, Mr. Taylor has eight years of experience in the planning, creation, and management of website development. He started his computer career as a Microsoft Contractor at ComputerLand in 1983. As a PC Repair Assistant Manager, he designed and instigated innovative techniques of operation that would further satisfy the customer. As a Software Install Manager for Entex, Mr. Taylor managed the New Software Installation Group that consisted of 12 install technicians. Responsibilities included writing and investigating new databases, and operating parameters to speed up install and delivery time of new PCs. Between July, 1994 and December, 1995, Mr. Taylor was a top salesman for Microrim Software, selling relational databases and accounting software. He then went on to work for CARA testing Microsoft’s IE30 Web browser for JavaScript and VBscript bugs. From October, 1996 to this present day, Mr. Taylor has be a Webmaster for For Sale By Internet. Through this company, Mr. Taylor develops and manages websites on a contract basis. 

Dynamic Communication Solutions – Marketing This is a company with over ten years of experience in marketing and marketing management. We will outsource all marketing operations to Dynamic Communication Solutions because we feel that they have stability and marketing channels that will be effective for our product.

To be announced – Sales   We will outsource all sales operations to a company to be named.

To be announced – Customer service We will outsource this department to an answering service.

Financial Plan investor-ready personnel plan .">

Funding Requirements and Uses Based on our projections, we feel an investment in our company is a sound investment. In order to proceed, we are requesting an investment of $101,600 by June, 1999. The funds will be used to purchase equipment and to cover initial operating expenses. The $101,600 will be used to implement Phase 1 of our operations. Once the company is in full operation, we will require an additional capital investment to fund Phase 2 of our operations.

Phase 2 We will be in discussion with developers on the best direction to take and what cost savings we can achieve. The specific details for Phase 2 are still to be determined, but three major areas (server, small PBX, and business development funds) will require approximately $30,000 by January, 2000.

Exit/Payback Strategy We can provide an exit for this investment within three years by a dividend of excess profits. The increase in profits generated by sales revenue will provide funds to repay the investment.

Conclusion Based on our projections, we feel an investment to Web Applications is a sound business investment. In order to proceed, we are requesting an investment of $101,600 as soon as possible.

7.1 Break-even Analysis

With average first year fixed monthly costs and an average margin as shown below, Web Applications calculates it will break even at the sales volume presented in the table and chart. The company management plans to reach such level by the end of 2000.

7.2 Important Assumptions

The following chart contains assumptions important to the success of the company.

7.3 Projected Profit and Loss

The projected income statement for Web Applications is shown below. The company is basing its revenue projections on anticipated sales of products.

7.4 Projected Cash Flow

The cash flow statement can be found in the chart and table below.

7.5 Projected Balance Sheet

The projected balance sheet is provided below.

7.6 Business Ratios

The following table outlines some of the more important ratios from the Computer Programming Services industry. The final column, Industry Profile, details specific ratios based on the industry as it is classified by the Standard Industry Classification (SIC) code, 7371.

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Grow Your Business

8 steps to building an online course business (+ business plan template), share this article.

There has never been a better time to build a business selling online courses . By 2027, the global e-learning market is estimated to reach an enormous $521.8 billion ( Research and Markets ), signalling an enormous potential.  Millions of people are purchasing online courses, inside and outside of the traditional education system, in order to upgrade their knowledge and skills.

Skip ahead:

Step 1: Decide what to teach

Step 2: create a business plan for your online training business, step 3: validate market demand, step 4: create a compelling and unique brand, step 5: build your audience, step 6: create an online course, step 7: focus on customer success, step 8: scale your business.

It comes as no surprise that in response to this demand, entrepreneurs and subject matter experts from all over the world have started creating and selling online courses to share their knowledge with others.

At Thinkific, we’ve felt the effects of this demand first hand as thousands of individuals and organizations have started using our platform to create online courses .

Creating an online course is just one part of building an online course business. Building a business is the other part.

But let’s be real here. If you ask ANY type of business owner if it was easy for them to build their business, they will tell you that it wasn’t.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is an online course business

At the beginning of 2017, I watched a close friend of mine open his own barbershop. It took him 3 months of renovations and tens of thousands of dollars just to get his barbershop ready for him to welcome his first customer through the front door. (I was his second customer, by the way. Someone else beat me to the grand opening by about 5 minutes!)

For my friend, those 3 months of preparation work was just the beginning. During the next 6 months after his grand opening, he worked 7 days per week to build up his clientele and recoup his startup costs before he started hiring more barbers. Why did he do this? Because that’s what it took to start his own barbershop. 

What does this have to do with building an online course business?

The point of this story is that it takes a lot of work upfront to build a business . It doesn’t happen overnight and building an online course business is no exception. There is a lot of work you will have to do, both before and after you create your course, in order to be successful.

Unfortunately, most course creators give up on their business before putting in the work required to ensure they will be successful. They stop digging for gold before they experience the big payoff that makes all the hard work worth it.

Even though it takes a lot of work to build a successful online course business, there are plenty of other people that have done it before (check out our customer stories to see some examples). 

With that in mind, we reached out to more than 40 successful entrepreneurs and online course creators. These people have literally built their careers by sharing their knowledge with others, many of them selling millions of dollars worth of training programs and online courses throughout their careers.

After reviewing all of the valuable insights these online course creation experts and entrepreneurs shared with us, we managed to distill the process of building a successful online course business into 8 specific steps (well, more like phases, since each one of these phases has several steps involved).

In this guide to building an online course business, we’ll be sharing these 8 steps with you.

8 Steps to Building a Successful Online Course Business

Before we jump into Step 1, there is something very important that you need to understand:

By itself, an online course is NOT a business

Without an online course to sell, you can’t exactly build an online course business. But creating your online course is just one part of building your business . Your online course is your product. It’s not your entire business.

As you can see from the graphic below, a typical online course business has many other parts as well:

This may surprise you, but creating an online course isn’t even the first step in the process of building an online course business. Out of the 8 steps we’re about to go through, creating a course is Step #6.

You’re welcome to skip steps 1-5 if you want to, but I would advise against it and here’s why:

If you jump straight to creating a course without strategically choosing a topic to teach (Step 1), creating a business model (Step 2), and validating demand for that topic (Step 3), you could end up creating a course that no one wants to sign up for.

Secondly, if you don’t build your brand (Step 4) and audience (Step 5) before you launch your course, you won’t have a way to stand out among your competition or have an audience to promote your course to.

Even if you have the “perfect” course created today, without a compelling brand and an audience to promote it to, it will be very difficult to generate sales. No sales = no business.

So to save yourself many hours of effort and (potentially) thousands of dollars in course creation and marketing costs, don’t skip these steps.

Okay, let’s dive in…

The first step in building an online course business is deciding what you will teach. What topic do you want to become known for? What topic are you expert enough to teach to others?

To be an expert at something, you just have to know more about your topic than the person you are teaching. That’s it. To that person, you’re an expert. Don’t overthink this.

Choose your course topic

Between the combination of your life experience and your professional experience, there are likely several topics that you know enough about to create a course on.

To help narrow down a specific course topic , we recommend completing the following exercise:

On a piece of paper, draw 2 vertical lines to create 3 columns. Label the first column Passions & Interests . Label the second column Skills . Label the third column Experience & Achievements .

Next, start adding as many things as you can think of to each column (aim for at least 20 per column).

Once you’ve done this, identify the top 2-3 topics where your passions/interests, your skills, and your experience/achievements intersect.

For example, if you like science fiction ( passion/interest ), you’re a great writer ( skill ), and you’ve written several science fiction novels ( experience/achievement ), then “how to write a science fiction novel” is a viable topic to consider teaching to others.

“You’ve been given a talent, you’ve been given a gift, you’ve been given experiences in your life that are here to serve others.” – Alexi Panos

Identify a specific target audience

Once you’ve identified a specific topic to teach, the next step is to identify a specific target audience (aka a target market) that is interested in that topic.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your topic (and therefore your course) will appeal to everyone. If you try to create a course that appeals to everyone, it will likely appeal to no one. I know it’s counter-intuitive, but trust me on this.

To give you an example, one of our customers ( Lizzie Lasater ) is a yoga practitioner and instructor. When she decided to create online courses , naturally, she decided to start teaching yoga online  

Instead of creating courses to teach people how to practice yoga (a very broad and highly competitive topic) she decided to narrow her target audience to other yoga instructors (more specific). With other yoga instructors as her target audience, she created courses that are specifically about how to become a better yoga teacher.

Once you have decided on what to teach and have sufficient clarity about your course topic, it is time to get your business plan ready. 

A business plan or business model is a formal blueprint describing how you will structure, manage and market your online course business. It is important to create one as it helps to ensure that your online course business will remain competitive and financially successful in the long term. 

You can choose one of the many software tools to create a standard business plan or use a regular spreadsheet or word processing software.

Now, as every business is different, their business models can vary drastically. However, certain aspects remain common to most companies. 

Here, we have laid out what you must include in your business plan:

Describe your business

A business description is needed to clearly state the purpose of your business, your target audience, and how you plan to deliver your products and services. 

When drafting it, you must be as objective and concise as possible regarding the nature of your online course and how it intends to help the target audience. 

Make sure to highlight if you will deliver your courses only online or offline. It also helps to state if your courses will be instructor-led or delivered through other e-learning methods. 

Identify your marketing strategy

Once you describe the nature of your business, the next step is to put together a marketing and sales strategy. 

Describe the strategies you will use to market your online course and how you plan to implement your email marketing, social media marketing, and other organic methods. 

In addition, you need to plan to allocate a budget for your paid advertisements and online marketing if you decide to opt for pay-per-click ad programs. 

Hiring and team management

While many online course creators choose to run their own shows, many opt to hire virtual assistants or full-time employees for help. Others choose to delegate tasks to freelancers or third-party vendors. 

Make sure to describe how you plan to delegate the tasks you cannot do. It is always a good idea to outsource tasks that do not require your intervention to save time for those that require your expertise.

Business operations

This section of the b-plan states how your day-to-day business activities will be structured and managed. 

You can include your course content, operational hours, telecom and IT-related necessities, insurance, etc. The more concise your operations section, the better ground it makes for you to validate your plan later. 

Every business requires money to run, and online businesses are no exception. In addition to the marketing and advertising expenses mentioned above, you will also need to factor in infrastructure, technology, hiring, etc. Remember to also describe what you plan to sell and how you plan to monetize your business. 

With this, make sure to have a detailed budget plan and allocate your resources to different expenses fairly. However, be careful to ensure that your budget is within what you can commit to and it does not make you feel overstretched. 

Please note that in addition to your online business course, you may also add other income streams such as selling ebooks, offering paid talks, etc. 

Two financial calculations you should consider initially are:

Gross Profit Margin: This is the number of courses you sell minus the cost of running your online course. It can be represented as a percentage. 

Gross Profit Margin = (Net course sale revenues – cost of running your online course) / net course sales x 100

Selling, General and Administrative (SG&A) Ratio : This figure tells you the percentage of your online course sales revenue used to cover your operational expenses. 

SGA = [Selling + General + Operational (Administrative) expenses] / Net online course sales revenue

While we have described the essential aspects of a business plan, it also helps to follow the structure of a formal Business Model Canvas .  This concept was popularized by Alexander Osterwalder in 2005 and consisted of nine building blocks. These include key partners, activities, resources, cost structure, revenue streams, value propositions, customer relationships, channels, and customer segments.

Once you’ve identified a specific topic to teach and have your basic business plan blueprint in place, the next step is to validate the demand for that topic.

As a course creator it sucks to spend several weeks, maybe even months (or years?!), creating an online course about a topic that you find out there is no demand for.

It’s a lot more efficient to validate demand for your course upfront before you invest time, effort and money creating a course.

Here are 2 ways you can validate the demand for your course topic:

Research your competition

See if you can find other people or companies that are selling courses and other forms of training about your topic (or a similar one), or who serve your target audience.

• Bestselling books on Amazon
• Other online courses
• Popular blogs and forums
• Top podcasts on iTunes
• In-person seminars, conferences, workshops
• Online events (virtual summits, webinars )
• Networking groups on Meetup
• Coaches and consultants

If you can’t find anyone that is profitably teaching your topic to others, that is a red flag that there isn’t enough market demand for that topic to justify creating an online course (or building a business). Competition is usually a proof of market demand.

What if there is no competition?!

On the rare occasion that you can’t find any competing products or services about your topic, that could mean one of two things:

• There is demand, but no one is serving that market yet (rare), or
• There is no demand, and you should pick a different topic

Either way, there are still two more steps you should take before you pull the trigger and decide to create (or not create) your course.

A great way to gauge demand for your topic is to use Google’s Keyword Planner to see how many people are searching for your topic per month. The higher the search volume, the higher the demand.

“Do not be afraid of competition. Their very existence validates that there is demand for the problem you’re trying to solve or for a solution to it.” – Greg Smith, CEO of Thinkific

Ask your target audience what they want to learn

If you have access to your target audience, whether online or offline, the best way to find out what they want to learn (and would be willing to pay to learn) is to ask them directly!

Here are a few ways you can ask your audience what they want to learn:

• Ask your list of email subscribers
• Ask your fans/followers on social media
• Ask your past and/or existing clients

With each of these options, you can send people a link to a survey, ask them open-ended questions directly, or ask them to have a quick call with you.

Another way is direct outreach (aka cold calling) to your target audience by phone, email or social media. Do this in a polite, non-spammy way of course.

See how many people are searching for your course idea on google

Engaging in keyword research is a great way to identify a course topic that can possibly sell like hotcakes, without directly asking your audience., keyword research essentially helps you to understand what people are looking for online by keying in terms on google or other search engines. , to conduct keyword research on topics that may interest your audience, you can use specialised tools such as semrush or ahrefs . , irrespective of the tool you choose to use, here is the basic framework to engage in keyword research:, identify your seed term, which would be an umbrella term for your course topic. , type in “course” + your seed term., get specific and find a niche area that has not been covered by other course creators but has a high search volume. check out this tool to identify search volume, continue to search and eliminate topics that are not feasible or interesting. , for example, if you wish to start an online course on gardening, type “gardening course” in the keyword search tool. you will see multiple results with different search volumes. these results will help you get more specific. for example, you may find that “gardening courses in semi-arid regions” is a possible course topic with a decent search volume. , alternatively, you can also use our search volume too l to discover popular course topic ideas. .

Remember: If you can’t find anyone that wants to learn the topic that you’re thinking of teaching, you should probably move on to another topic.

If you can’t find buyers before you create your course, you probably won’t find any after either!

The ideal scenario is you choose a topic that there is obviously a demand for (proven by competing products and services about that topic), but nothing that is for your specific target audience.

Facebook marketing , for example, is a broad topic with strong market demand (proven by all of the blogs, books, courses, consultants, seminars, etc. about this topic).

Now, assuming we want to create a course about Facebook marketing, let’s see what topics we come up with as we hone in on a specific target audience:

• Topic 1: Facebook marketing 101 (very broad)
• Topic 2: Facebook marketing for business owners (more specific, still pretty broad)
• Topic 3: Facebook marketing for local businesses (not bad)
• Topic 4: Facebook marketing for real estate agents (very specific)
• Topic 5: Facebook marketing strategies to get more listings (ding ding ding, we have a winner!)

If you are a real estate agent and you want to learn how to use Facebook to get more listings, which course topic is going to appeal to you the most? Which topic would you pay the most money for? Probably #5, because it is the most specific. It is exactly what you want to learn.

“The easiest way to know what to do is listen to what people are asking for and then give that to them.” – JJ Virgin , Celebrity Nutritionist & Fitness Expert

Once you’ve decided on a specific topic to teach, it’s time to start building your brand.

Don’t jump straight to getting your logo, website, and business cards designed. Those things do play a role in representing your brand, but they are not the starting point.

The starting point to creating a compelling and unique brand is making a conscious decision about how you want to be positioned in your industry. Branding is about positioning .

Your brand should position you as the go-to expert on your topic. Unless you’re positioned as an expert and a trusted authority on your topic, it will be hard to convince someone to buy a course (or any product or service) from you.

Even though we’re told not to, we do judge a book by its cover. Think of your brand as the “book cover” for your business.

Be strategic with your positioning

The biggest mistake that people (and organizations) make with their branding is trying to appeal to everyone. Don’t do that. Be strategic with your positioning.

Build a brand that appeals to your specific target audience. Don’t try to appeal to everyone, because everyone is not your ideal customer/client.

Here are some questions to consider as you create your brand:

How do you want to be positioned and perceived in your marketplace? What do you want people to think of when they think of you? Who do you want to attract? Who do you NOT want to attract? What do you stand for? What do you stand against? Why do you do what you do?

When your target audience is searching for information about your topic, you want them to find you and immediately feel like they’ve come to the right place. They should feel like they’ve found the exact person (or company) that can help them overcome a specific problem or achieve a specific outcome.

“A great brand starts with understanding who you are, what you stand for, understanding your marketplace and understanding your positioning.” – Re Perez, CEO of Branding For The People

Identify your Unique Value Proposition

An exercise that we recommend all course creators complete is creating a Unique Value Proposition (UVP). Your UVP is what will help you differentiate yourself from your competition.

To create your UVP, answer these questions:

• Who do you help?
• What do you help them do?
• Why is that beneficial for them?

Once you have the answers to these questions, tie them together in a single sentence.

To give you an example, one of our customers Ellie Diop aka Ellie Talks Money , is a business coach with a proven track record that helps you scale your business and have financial success. Pretty good UVP right?

Here is a screenshot of her website’s homepage:

As you can see, anyone who visits her website will be able to instantly figure out who she is, what she does, and who her target audience is. She has a clear and compelling personal brand . If you’re someone who wants to improve your business and reach financial success, it’s obvious you’ve come to the right place. 

Good branding makes your target audience feel like they’ve come to the right place.

Once you’ve decided how you want to be positioned in your market, it’s time to start building your audience.

Your audience is the sum total of all the people that you have the ability to communicate with through various distribution channels (your blog, social media, email list , personal network, etc.).

Why is it important to build an audience?

Without an audience that knows, likes, and trusts you, it will be very difficult to sell your course for the simple reason that you don’t have anyone to sell it to!

So the sooner you start building your audience, the better.

“Online courses are the wave of the future. They can help expand my content and message into places and countries that I have yet to physically visit. Online courses have boosted my income and helped me share my message with a much larger audience.” – Andrea Beaman , Health Educator & Author

Related: How to Create Epic Content Your Customers Will Love

How to define your target audience

It helps if you follow a systematic framework to define your target audience . Some useful steps to that end include: 

• Ask your current customers
• Get details on demographics like age, gender, location, etc.
•  Understand their needs and pain points
• Analyze the solution they’re hoping for
• Create a customer avatar

Download our detailed step-by-step guide for audience research

Size is important (but not the most important)

The size of your audience is important, but not as important as you might think. The obvious benefit of having a large audience is the ability to reach more people. If you have 10,000 fans on Facebook, for example, your posts will probably be seen by more people than if you had 1,000 fans (all else being equal).

But the size of your audience is not as important as the relationship you build with your audience.

It’s more valuable to have 100 people on your email list that open and read every email you send them than it is to have 1,000 followers on Twitter who rarely see your Tweets or engage with you in any way.

When it comes to building an audience, loyalty and engagement are the most important.

Here are some of the most common ways that online course creators are building their audience:

• Social media

Set up profiles and/or pages on the social network networks that your target audience spends time on. You don’t need a presence on every social media network. Choose the top 2-3 that make the most sense for you and focus your efforts there. Share your content, join relevant groups, start your own Facebook group , and engage in conversations. The goal here is to build real relationships with other people that are interested in your course topic.

Read More: Social Media Marketing Guide: Uncracking the Code for Course Creators

• Content marketing

Publish free content about your course topic as often as you can. Free content helps you build trust and authority in your industry. Common types of content that you can create are articles, videos, podcast episodes, images, and infographics. All of these help to increase traffic to your website and exposure for your business.

The more content you publish on your website and other platforms (like YouTube ), the more likely your target audience will find you as they are searching for information about your topic.

• How To Generate Leads With Content Marketing (6 Simple Steps)
• The Complete Content Marketing Guide: Organic Growth Toolkit
• Publicity & PR

One of the quickest ways to build your audience is to get in front of existing audiences. Writing articles for popular publications in your industry, getting interviewed on podcasts , and getting featured in traditional media (TV, radio, newspapers, print magazines, etc.) are all great ways to increase your exposure and build authority in your industry.

• Networking & joint ventures

Build relationships with other experts and influencers in your industry. It doesn’t happen overnight, but building mutually beneficial relationships with others can lead to a number of opportunities including guest blogging, interviews, joint ventures , partnerships, and customer referrals.

• Public speaking

Reach out to event hosts and organizers of conferences and seminars that your target audience attends. Offer to give a presentation on your topic. Some events will even let you sell your course directly to their audience, in exchange for a percentage of your sales. A major advantage of public speaking is you have the undivided attention of everyone in the room during your presentation, and that can be very hard to get online.

• Email marketing

When it comes to marketing your online course (or any product or service online for that matter), email marketing is hands down the most effective way to generate sales. An email list of people that have expressed interest in your course topic and have given you permission to communicate with them will likely be your most valuable asset as an online course creator.

Start building your email list as soon as possible. Stay in touch with your subscribers by sending them helpful emails and links to your content on a regular basis. This is a great way to earn their trust before you ask them to buy from you.

• Paid advertising

Even with a modest budget, paid advertising can be a great way to grow your audience. By utilizing advertising platforms such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can target people based on specific criteria including demographics, interests, search terms, job titles, and more. In fact, many of Thinkific’s most successful customers have been using Facebook ads to grow their audience and generate consistent leads and sales for their online courses.

“Consistency is what did it for us. Doing something every week, at least once a week, helped us get better really, really fast because we were putting in the time and putting in the practice.”

– Jordan Harbinger , Author & Podcast Host

Creating an online course is definitely one of the more exciting steps in this entire process, but it can also be the most time consuming one if you’re not careful.

Most people spend several weeks (or months, depending on the course) creating their online course. Other, more experienced course creators have perfected this process and can create an entire online course in one weekend .

But regardless of how long it takes you to create your course, the process that you go through will most likely look a lot like this:

• Choose your course title and subtitle. 
• Ensure that your topic has high demand in the market
• Ensure that the learning outcomes are stellar
• Gather material for your online course content
• Create a lesson plan (aka course outline) and choose your lesson types (audio, video, text, etc.)
• Identify the best ways to deliver each of your course modules
• Film, record, and edit your online course
• Set up your online course, including a website
• Choose a price for your course
• Create a sales page and focus on marketing your course

Instead of going through each of these steps in more detail right here in this article (which would make it way longer than it already is!), I’m going to share a few of the most important lessons we’ve learned about course creation from the experts we interviewed.

Want to create an online course business, but unsure of where to start? Use Thinkific for free and get free training !

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Create a “Minimum Viable Course”

A concept that has been popularized by American writer and entrepreneur Eric Ries in his book Lean Startup is the concept of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) .

An MVP is a development technique used by organizations (especially startups) in which a new product is developed with sufficient features to satisfy early adopters. The final, complete set of features is only designed and developed after considering feedback from the product’s initial users.

Applying this concept to creating online courses, that means that you should not try to create the perfect course the first time. Instead, create a Minimum Viable Course (MVC).

Here’s why…

The problem with trying to create the “perfect” course before you show it or sell it to anyone is that “perfect” is a very subjective term. What you think is perfect is probably not the same as what your customers/students think is perfect. Even if it is, your course does not have to be perfect in order to be valuable .

Perfectionism has stopped more people from creating and launching their online courses than anything else. Don’t let this happen to you. If your course (imperfect as it may be) is good enough to help someone, then it is good enough to publish. Done is better than perfect.

Create your MVC as quickly as possible so you can publish it and get real feedback from real students. Based on their feedback and other important data (such as course completion and engagement rates ) you can remove training, add training, and make revisions to your course to make it better.

“Don’t be a perfectionist because the world can’t wait for perfect. Get it done, get it out and get it sold. It’s not a book so you can always revisit it periodically but your number one priority is creating a transformation in your clients, so keep your focus there.” – Shazzie Love , Business Strategist

Course length ≠ course value

Read More: How to decide on the ideal course length ?

Another big mistake to avoid is trying to teach everything that you know about your topic in a single course. Doing this will most likely result in a super long course that your students won’t complete and that takes a ridiculous amount of time to create in the first place. Wrong approach!!

Your online course is the shortcut

The purpose of your course is to teach your student how to get from Point A to Point B as quickly and as efficiently as possible. It’s the shortcut.

Your online course is the shortcut. Help your students get from A to B as quickly as possible.

You absolutely should not overwhelm your students by brain-dumping everything that you know about your topic into your course. Your course should be as short as possible without sacrificing the key concepts in your training.

Don’t create 8 hours of training if you can teach your students what they need to know with 3 hours of training. As long as they learn what you promised to teach them, they won’t complain that your course was “too short”. Instead, they’ll probably thank you for not wasting their time with fluff or filler content.

Launch to a small test group first

Another important lesson we learned from the experts we interviewed is not to launch the first version of your course (your MVC!) to your entire audience.

Instead, you should promote your course to a small segment of your audience at a lower price than what you eventually want to charge for your course. If you do promote your course to your entire audience, consider imposing a limit on the number of students that can enroll in it. Once you hit your goal, you temporarily close enrollment for your course.

This strategy is often called a beta launch (similar to pre-selling ). The goal of this type of launch is to get your course into the hands of a small number of students who will “test” your course. In exchange for accessing your course at a reduced price, you ask your students to provide you with feedback to help you improve the course and testimonials to use in your future marketing.

Based on the feedback from your students, you can make changes to improve your course. When you have a revised version of your course that is better than the first and positive student testimonials to use in your marketing, you re-open enrollment for your course and sell it a higher price.

If you’re ready to start marketing your course, check out these 55 online course marketing ideas here .

Okay, let’s pretend that you’ve already completed Steps 1 to 5.

• You’ve decided what topic you’re going to teach. It’s not too broad, and it appeals to a specific target audience.
• You’ve validated market demand for your topic. Thousands of people around the world are interested in it, and they’re already spending money to learn it.
• You’ve crafted a compelling brand. You are known in your industry as an expert on your topic. When your target audience finds you, they trust that you can help them.
• You’ve built an audience. You have followers on social media. You have people on your email list. You have relationships with other experts in your industry. You’ve been featured in other publications, podcasts, and media outlets.
• You’ve created an online course. And after promoting your course to your audience, you are proud to say that you have customers. Your business is generating revenue.

Even though it is a HUGE accomplishment to get this far (and yes, you deserve to celebrate at this point!), there is still work to be done.

Acquiring customers is just the beginning. Now your job is to deliver on the promise you made to your customers.

Think of any local business you are a customer of. A restaurant. A nail salon. A coffee shop. A convenience store.

These businesses don’t stay in business because they are constantly attracting new customers. They stay in business because their existing customers come back more than once, often bringing their friends and family with them. This same rule applies to your online course business.

“We’re not in this business just to get people to buy our stuff. We want them to see the change and the impact and create the success stories.” – Nick Unsworth, CEO of Life on Fire

It’s a lot cheaper to keep a customer than acquire a new one

If you are constantly investing in marketing and promotion to attract new customers, but you’re doing nothing to ensure the success of those customers, it will be very difficult (and expensive!) for you to build a profitable and sustainable business.

When a customer purchases your online course, this should not be the end of your relationship with them. This should be the beginning.

Your customers should be so thrilled with the training and overall experience that you provide to them that they purchase additional courses from you in the future, and they tell others about your courses too.

Related: The Top Customer Success Strategies Used By Successful Companies

Here are a few ways you can increase your student engagement and retention rates:

• Gamify the learning experience

Create incentives and offer rewards to your students for achieving specific milestones in your course.

Related: Gamification in Training: The Complete Guide to E-Learning Gamification [2022]

• Help your students be accountable

Pair them up with an accountability partner, offer 1-on-1 or group coaching calls with your students, or create a private group or discussion board for them to interact with each other.

• Appeal to different learning styles

Don’t create training that appeals to just one learning style. Utilize different media types to deliver your content (text, video, audio, worksheets, quizzes, etc.).

• Create small, bite-sized lessons

Shorter lessons are more likely to be completed by students than longer ones. If it takes you a while to teach a specific concept, try breaking up the concept into several shorter lessons.

• Bite Sized Learning: A New Strategy For Teaching (How It Works & Tips)
• What Is Microlearning? The Case For Shorter, Bite Sized Learning
• Send reminder emails to your students

If you notice that a student isn’t accessing or completing the training in your course, send them a polite reminder email to re-engage them. Show them that you care.

The final step in building a successful online course business is to scale your business by creating systems and/or hiring people to ensure that it continues to grow.

According to Greg Smith, CEO of Thinkific , you should only scale something that works.

The 76 steps that came before this one are your chance to do just that. To prove that your online course business works. Once you have a business that works, it’s time to shift from spending the majority of your time working in your business to working on it.

This is accomplished by creating systems and hiring people to handle the repetitive, day-to-day tasks involved in running your business. The goal is to free yourself up to focus the majority of your time on activities that move your business forward, such as:

• Building your audience
• Building your network
• Creating sales funnels to acquire new customers
• Creating additional courses and/or services to sell to your customers

Here are a few of the key lessons we learned about scaling an online course business from the expert we interviewed:

1. Automate repetitive tasks

Identify the tasks in your business that are highly repetitive and not the best use of your time as an entrepreneur. Document the process for those tasks and delegate them to someone else, or use technology/software to automate that task for you. Every repetitive task that you automate today buys you more time to focus on other activities tomorrow.

“The way you multiply time is by spending time on things today that give you more time tomorrow.” – Rory Vaden, Southwestern Consulting

2. Build a team as early as possible

To grow an online course business to 6 or even 7 figures in annual revenue and beyond, you’re going to need some help. Very few entrepreneurs are able to build successful and sustainable businesses without a team of people to help them make it happen. There is simply too much to learn and do, and not enough hours in the day for one person to do it all.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African Proverb

Hiring a virtual assistant or a personal assistant is a great starting point. From there, consider hiring help for other areas of your business including content creation and editing, marketing and advertising, branding, accounting, etc. These do not have to be full-time employees. Many course creators have teams that consist of freelancers and independent contractors from around the world.

Related: How to Hire a Virtual Assistant (An Entrepreneur’s Guide To Outsourcing)

3. Tie your business to a greater purpose

Sharing your knowledge by creating online courses is a great way to empower others through education and move humanity forward. But creating online courses is certainly not the only way to make a positive impact in the world.

There are countless organizations that are doing incredible things to make the world a better place. By partnering with other organizations and tying your business to a greater purpose, you ensure that as your business grows, so does the impact you make in the world.

“Whether you’re in the non-profit structure or the for-profit structure, you have a tremendous opportunity to use business as a force for good.” – Adam Braun, Founder of Pencils of Promise

This article was originally published May 2018, and refreshed with new information in February, 2024. 

As the Content Marketing Manager at Thinkific (2016-2019), Tyler Basu helped to create, publish, and promote content to help thousands of entrepreneurs learn how to create and sell online courses . Today, he works directly with entrepreneurs to help them create content that attracts and converts their ideal clients.

• 10 Steps To Creating A Wildly Successful Online Course
• How to Price Your Online Course (Complete Guide to Course Pricing)
• The Ultimate Online Course Launch Checklist (Free Guide + Templates)
• Best Equipment & Software For Creating Online Courses
• The Best Online Course Platforms in 2024

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