Are you planning to create an online store but you don’t dare because of the investment it may entail? Would you like to create your own job and don’t know how to do it? Do you want to start making money online on your own and do you want to work hard at it? Still don’t know how to start online business in Pakistan without investment?
Although the title of the article may seem a bit exaggerated, really to create an online store you will only need a small financial investment, and above all a large investment in the form of time. I wanted to convey the idea that it is possible to create an ecommerce business without the need for a significant economic investment.
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For example, you can use a platform like Wix eCommerce that allows you to create and manage an online store easily and economically, from only $20 per month. Providing you with all the tools you may need to grow your business and start selling online.
As you already know, today it is possible to sell products over the Internet to everyone. It is also possible to create an online store without the need for computer knowledge. Wholesalers or dropshipping suppliers can directly ship their products to your customers.
There is enough information on the Internet to learn the basics of online marketing, and companies like PayPal make it very easy for us to implement an effective payment system. So, what’s the excuse to learn how to set up the online store you want?
The 10 steps to Start Online business in Pakistan without investment
I am going to summarize the process of how to start online business in Pakistan without investment in 10 easy steps, very briefly and above, so that you get an idea of what would be essential to start selling from your own online store:
1. Choose the name and domain of your online store
This is one of the most engaging parts of start online business in Pakistan, so I put it at the beginning to encourage staff. Choosing a good domain is essential in an online store.
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Both the name and the domain must be easy to remember and write, they must be as short as possible and, if possible, descriptive.
In the case of the domain, if it also contains any of our keywords, it will help us position ourselves in the search engines for those terms. Try to make it a .com, or a .es if you will only sell to Spain .
2. Choose a good hosting company
This is practically the only investment you will have to make to start online business in Pakistan, so don’t be stingy and look for a company that offers you quality hosting and guarantee .
The speed of your online store is key , both for users and for positioning in search engines. A slow page makes its users get tired of waiting and abandon the page, while Google, for example, penalizes pages that take more than X seconds to load by sending them to the bottom of the search results. You should even pay more in Adwords for having a slow page!
So make sure that your hosting company guarantees you enough space for your online store and a good connection speed. By hiring a good hosting service you will also avoid unnecessary server downtimes and you will be able to have your store available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We recommend Hostinger for your first store because it is the cheapest hosting of the best quality, you have hosting from only €1.49 per month ($1.99) with a free domain included and other very economical options if you need more resources.
If you want to start online business in Pakistan, you can also use an online store service like Shopify, an all-in-one tool, which provides you with all the necessary tools to start your business, such as hosting, integrations with the main payment gateways, thousands of free templates and a web builder that allows you to create your online store in less than 24 hours and you can concentrate on selling and attracting customers .
3. Choose a Dropshipper with guarantees
A while ago we already explained how the dropshipping method works . Basically, it is about our wholesaler or distributor directly sending the products that our customers have purchased in our online store to their home.
Obviously, the dropshipper wholesaler will be responsible for shipping the product without any logo of his company, adding your own invoice to the package if you wish.
In this way, the customer is equally satisfied and we avoid having to invest in product stock, sending orders to the customer or worrying about logistics. The dropshipping company will take care of all this service for you .
Logically, as a general rule the margins will not be as large as if we bought the products first, but to open an e-commerce business, get the first customer, test the product and see how everything works, I see it as the ideal solution for entrepreneurs who cannot invest in a large number of products .
There are many lists of wholesalers and dropshippers, make sure you choose one with guarantees, do some testing before selling directly to your clients, and have another one selected in case you have to change.
4. Use a good CMS for e-commerce
As we mentioned in the hosting section, if what you want is to sell without worrying about technical things, it is best to use a website builder like Shopify , especially if you are just starting out. But if you decide to set up an independent website to start online business in Pakistan without investment, you need a CMS or content management system.
Currently there are many completely free and completely reliable CMS for ecommerce . All of them are designed to a greater or lesser extent so that they can be used by people without much technical knowledge.
Furthermore, as they are free source tools and known by a large number of professionals, there are many companies and freelancers who, for a small price, can tweak or expand those functionalities that you cannot do on your own.
Without wanting to go into details or enter into comparisons, for a project or store without too many complexities, I would choose Prestashop without hesitation, mainly due to its ease of use, but also for its “lightness”, good natural positioning and large number of easily configurable options.
Other CMS that are also recommended would be: WordPress, Magento, Oscommerce, Virtuemart (Joomla), Zencart, Opencart, Digistore or Drupal Ecommerce. When choosing hosting, keep in mind that it has the CMS you have chosen pre-installed, so the installation will be automatic and simple.
The simplest alternative would be a service like Shopify or Wix since they are very intuitive platforms that you can use without prior technical experience and without help from anyone to set up an online store.
All of them allow the selection of various design templates , both free and paid, that will cover all your needs. Choose a template with an attractive, usable and action-oriented design to create your online store.
5. Customize the products in your online store
Many wholesalers provide online stores with their product catalog in formats that can be uploaded to your store automatically, and thus all the products can be displayed in a very short time. It is not a bad idea to start, but it is essential to personalize all the texts in the store, expand the product description with information about its use, describe details that cannot be shown with images and that allow the user to imagine the product without seeing it directly. physical .
In the long run the only products that will be positioned correctly in Google and other search engines will be those that you have modified , and potential buyers will be grateful not to find the same text that they will see in other stores. In other words, be original and unleash your imagination .
Images are another element that influences the purchasing decision, so, to improve the user experience, make sure that the photos are of good quality and show details of the products .
6. Add all possible payment methods for your online store
It is essential to offer as many payment methods as possible in your online store . If you can offer 4, better than 3. There are still people who do not trust buying online, and only place orders from stores that offer the cash on delivery method, since they will only pay when receiving the package. Others always use a credit card since they understand that there will be a company behind it and some use bank transfer because it is more convenient for them. This way you can start online business in Pakistan.
You can add payment gateways with different banks but if you find it very complicated, either due to the banks or due to technical limitations when integrating the payment gateway (implementation is somewhat complicated and requires knowledge of PHP), There are alternative solutions such as Paypal’s comprehensive gateway .
Paypal provides us with a payment gateway that will allow us to charge our customers by card. Its “installation” is extremely simple and the only cost it will have for us will be the (quite high) commission that Paypal will charge us for each transaction made. All in all, it is a very good way to offer from the beginning this form of payment that is so requested in the world of ecommerce.
7. Create a blog to accompany the store
There are cases in which it is practically impossible to make long descriptions or that provide valuable content to our online store. In these cases, it is essential to create a blog to attract some traffic to the store if you are really serious to start online business in Pakistan.
Although it is always advisable to create a blog that talks about our sector and everything that surrounds it, and that also helps us to promote our products in some way, directly or indirectly .
Little by little you will position yourself for the topics discussed in the articles and this will bring you quality traffic willing to buy your products. So when creating an online store, don’t forget to create a blog to accompany it. If you don’t have time or you’re not good at writing, you can always use a platform like Fiverr to hire writers to write articles for you , including product descriptions and all the content on your website.
8. Regulate your legal situation
It is a very important point start online business in Pakistan without investment. Because legally you cannot sell products unless you do so as a freelancer or as a company. Furthermore, in most cases it is advisable to create a SL, especially due to the issue of civil liability.
Creating a Limited Company is a process that although we can carry out ourselves, it is likely that we will decide to leave it in the hands of an agency.
Make sure you have all the papers in order, take out insurance and comply with all current laws before starting your adventure, a fine or financial penalty for not acting correctly could make your company and your project disappear.
9. Create online advertising campaigns
Thanks to online advertising, we can make our online store known in an economical way but above all in a scaled way . By correctly using the free analysis tools that the Internet makes available to us, we will be able to know exactly which advertising campaigns are profitable and which do not work, being able to quickly rectify them and avoid unnecessary losses.
In this way, we can obtain benefits in a short time, and reduce the investment to “what we earn each month”, so minus the small initial investment, the rest of the advertising could pay for itself. The ability of each person to expand these benefits can make the difference in the future.
To start advertising online, I would recommend using advertising in Google search results using Adwords .
10. Work on online marketing
As you are going to start online business in Pakistan without investment. So your online store works correctly and you have already made a sale through Google Adwords, some other advertising system or naturally. Okay, now is the time to expand your sales through marketing.
Create your own online marketing strategy if you are constant to start online business in Pakistan : Make special offers, prepare a social media strategy, organize contests, conduct personalized follow-up with your clients, write press releases… Do everything possible to improve your online presence, make your brand known , position your products on Google and sell online.
As in all businesses, you must sell to survive . It’s no use for your store to be the best if no one knows it, it’s no use for your prices to be the most competitive if no one sees your products. You must make the effort to go out and sell, or at least, carry out the relevant marketing actions to achieve the necessary sales.
The ideal is to start with marketing at the beginning of creating an online store, do not wait because otherwise customers will take time to arrive.
Shopify has abandoned cart recovery functionality , allowing you to recover lost sales by automatically sending an email reminding the customer of the product or item they haven’t finished purchasing. It also allows you to sell through social networks such as Facebook, Google Shopping, which helps you reach users of these channels and get more sales for your store.
Conclusion
I have ignored some fundamental topics in the creation of any business such as carrying out a prior market study, the viability of the project, creating the business model with the business model canvas or documenting all the steps, but how I have focused on ecommerce businesses and the online stores, I have preferred to simplify.
We hope that by following these steps you have learned how to create an start online business in Pakistan without investment.