It’s a great time to start an ecommerce business. More than 60% of sales in the Amazon store are from independent sellers, most of which are small and midsize businesses. Independent sellers in the US averaged more than $290,000 in annual sales in the Amazon store in 2024.1
An ecommerce business generates revenue by selling products or services online. Creating an online business can be a profitable venture, and it’s possible to launch with less investment compared to other types of businesses. The many benefits of ecommerce make it an attractive option for entrepreneurs and beginners: Once it’s up and running, your digital storefront can allow you to earn money passively, connect with customers around the world, and work from home or anywhere with an internet connection.
What are the steps to start an ecommerce business, and how can you set yourself up for success? In this guide, we’ll explore how ecommerce might fit into your business plans, so you can decide if it’s right for you.
Let’s dive in:
An ecommerce business generates revenue by selling products or services online. Creating an online business can be a profitable venture, and it’s possible to launch with less investment compared to other types of businesses. The many benefits of ecommerce make it an attractive option for entrepreneurs and beginners: Once it’s up and running, your digital storefront can allow you to earn money passively, connect with customers around the world, and work from home or anywhere with an internet connection.
What are the steps to start an ecommerce business, and how can you set yourself up for success? In this guide, we’ll explore how ecommerce might fit into your business plans, so you can decide if it’s right for you.
Let’s dive in:
- What is an ecommerce business?
- Costs and financial considerations
- How to start an ecommerce business step by step
- How to start an ecommerce business on Amazon in 3 steps
- Why start an ecommerce business in 2025?
What is an ecommerce business?
An ecommerce business sells products or services to customers over the internet. Ecommerce businesses can range from small, home-based operations to large, international enterprises. An online business makes sales through virtual channels like a website or social media presence in addition to (or instead of) physical locations like a brick-and-mortar storefront.
Examples of ecommerce businesses include:
Examples of ecommerce businesses include:
- A small business that sells electronics online
- An established clothing brand that has multiple store locations and also sells globally through a company website
- An independent maker who sells handcrafted goods through multiple social media sites
How does an ecommerce business work?
An ecommerce business provides an online setting where customers can browse products and place purchases virtually. Typically, an online business also has systems for shipping orders to customers, in addition to handling returns, exchanges, and customer support. While it’s possible to operate entirely online, many ecommerce businesses have physical locations, or they coordinate with suppliers and shipping providers who have physical locations.
What are key features of an ecommerce business?
Key features of an ecommerce business can include:
- Website with a unique URL
- Presence on social media or selling websites
- Secure payment-processing technology
- Virtual shopping cart
- Checkout process that facilitates payment methods like credit cards
An online business might use text, visuals, and other design elements to shape an identifiable aesthetic. Branding elements like a brand name or logo can also help a business represent itself and its offerings over the internet.
What are the benefits of running an ecommerce business?
Operating a business online can provide a range of benefits:
- Reach a global audience without being restricted to a local customer base.
- Launch and operate with relatively little overhead.
- Be “open” 24/7 and allow customers to buy from anywhere, anytime.
- Make data-driven decisions with insight into analytics like impressions, clicks, and conversions.
- Run digital ads and promotions to better engage online audiences.
Did you know?
Anker grew from a side business into a global brand
Did you know Anker Technologies, the worldwide provider of phone chargers and power banks, started as a small ecommerce business in Amazon stores? Steven Yang and his wife initially ran a dropshipping business that sparked the idea of selling portable charging devices; this became Anker. As sales took off, the couple went full-time with their business. Today, Anker is a global enterprise.
Costs and financial considerations
The cost to start an ecommerce business can vary depending on factors like what you want to sell, but it’s possible to get started for less compared to other business models. You may not have to pay upfront for facilities or staff, but you could have expenses related to:
- Website hosting and maintenance
- Payment processing
- Shopping cart software
- Inventory, fulfillment, and shipping
- Advertising, marketing, and scaling
To calculate your costs, try free sales estimators. It can be worth it to explore different scenarios and compare your potential costs and savings. For example, you can sometimes reduce or eliminate expenses by working with an established selling website like Amazon and making use of available programs, tools, and services.
How much does it cost to start an ecommerce business on Amazon?
You can start an ecommerce business on Amazon by getting a Professional selling plan for $39.99 a month. This gives you access to a suite of tools and programs to help you launch your business and scale. Amazon also charges a referral fee for every item sold, which varies based on what you want to sell. You might also have additional costs if you use optional Amazon services like advertising.
How to start an ecommerce business step by step
Starting an ecommerce business can be a fun and fulfilling process. Here’s a checklist with key areas you might want to focus on:
- Ideation: Research and validate your ideas.
- Creation: Build out your assets.
- Launch: Bring your concept and products to the world.
- Operation: Manage orders and logistics.
- Expansion: Scale with marketing and analytics.
1. Ideation: Research and validate your ideas
Many businesses begin with an idea. It might be a new product, a way to improve a product with a new feature, or another innovative way to solve a problem. Your idea is the foundation for your business, so it’s essential to do your research at the outset to make sure the idea is a good fit for your goals.
Product research
Here are a few prompts for initial product research:
- What product could you offer to solve a common problem?
- What product could improve your favorite activities?
- What trends have you noticed?
As you consider what products to sell, you might want to avoid perishables, products with low profit margins, and dangerous goods or hazardous materials (hazmat). Products that are easy to pack and ship can be great for ecommerce. You might also specialize in products that have branding potential.
Depending on where you want to sell products, there may be restrictions on what you can sell. If you’re planning to sell in the Amazon store, check our selling policies before you begin buying inventory.
Depending on where you want to sell products, there may be restrictions on what you can sell. If you’re planning to sell in the Amazon store, check our selling policies before you begin buying inventory.
Competitor research
Whether you’re selling shoes, electronics, or another product category, do some competitor research to find out if the product already exists. If there aren’t similar products available, then you might have an opportunity to develop your own products.
If the product is already out there, that doesn’t mean you have to go back to the drawing board. In fact, it could indicate there’s demand for the product and that you’re on the right track with your idea.
You might be able to sell generic, or non-branded, products. But if a lot of other businesses offer the same or similar products, it could be difficult to differentiate yourself from the competition. Can you offer products at similar price points? Or could you offer better quality or features for a higher price?
If the product is already out there, that doesn’t mean you have to go back to the drawing board. In fact, it could indicate there’s demand for the product and that you’re on the right track with your idea.
You might be able to sell generic, or non-branded, products. But if a lot of other businesses offer the same or similar products, it could be difficult to differentiate yourself from the competition. Can you offer products at similar price points? Or could you offer better quality or features for a higher price?
Pro Tip
Analyze customer reviews
Take a look at the customer reviews of your competitors. If you can identify a common theme or a complaint that customers often have, it could be an opportunity for you to offer an improvement or alternative.
Audience research
Once you’ve settled on a product idea, don’t skip audience research. Here are a few strategies you can try:
- Who is going to be most excited about the product? This question can be a great way to identify who your ideal customers are, what their expectations might be, and how you can best meet them.
- Develop customer personas to learn about your audience in greater detail. The more you understand your customers, the better you’ll be able to cater to their needs. This can lead to higher sales.
- Conduct interviews. Reach out to contacts who face the problem you’re trying to solve. Use your meeting to talk about the challenge and learn whether they’d pay money to resolve the pain point.
Make sure to conduct thorough product, competitor, and audience research to validate your business idea thoroughly.
2. Creation: Build out your assets
Once you’ve decided on an idea, develop your concept by setting the building blocks of your business in place.
Decide on a business structure and name
You don’t necessarily need an LLC to start an ecommerce business, but registering your business could bring benefits. For example, some people form a business for tax or accounting reasons. You might operate as a sole proprietor, register an LLC, or form another type of business depending on the scale of your operations. You can also change your business structure as your situation evolves.
Other steps you might want to take include:
Other steps you might want to take include:
- Opening a business banking account
- Getting business insurance
- Obtaining any necessary licenses or permits based on what you want to sell
Pick a memorable business name that’s relevant to your concept. Research the name to make sure it’s not already in use in the Amazon store or beyond. You can also take the extra step of securing a domain name if you want your own website.
Pro Tip
Create a business plan to expand your financing options
A business plan documents a company description, market analysis, and other key components of your concept. It formalizes your ideas in a framework that you and others can use to assess overall viability. It can also help you get funding.
Source products and establish supply chains
The types of products you sell will likely depend on the ways you can procure them. You might:
- Work with a manufacturer to design products according to your specifications
- Source products from wholesale suppliers
- Coordinate with dropshipping providers
- Obtain inventory from a variety of sources and resell products at a higher price
- Create handmade products
Whether you want to use one or more of these approaches, review procurement from a supply chain perspective. For example, it’s a good idea to have more than one source for products. That way, if there’s a problem with one part of your supply chain, you can rely on others.
Choose your selling channels
How and where will customers connect with the products you offer? Here are a few online selling channel options:
- Build an online store from scratch.
- Set up shop on an established selling website like Amazon.
- Create a presence for your business on one or more social media pages, or try options for social selling like Amazon Live.
You can choose one or a combination of selling channels to suit your strategy. In each case, make sure the channel is easy for customers to navigate, with a seamless checkout process that reflects well on your business. You might begin with one sales channel and add others as you scale. The flexibility of ecommerce also gives you the option to drop a channel if it isn’t serving your needs.
Learn the lingo:
Product listings
Product listings are web pages that showcase a product and its features. They allow ecommerce businesses to share their catalogs with customers online.
How Hope & Henry grew online
"We were able to launch without having a distribution center. We were able to launch without having people dedicated to fulfilling inventory. That’s a big deal."
Matt McCauley
Hope & Henry
3. Launch: Bring your concept and products to the world
Once you have all the pieces in place, you’re ready to launch! Making your website public, going live with product listings, and posting about it on social media are all great ways to spread the word and get your message across. Here are some additional strategies you can consider:
Develop a brand
If you build a brand, make sure your branding is reflected in all the touchpoints where customers can learn about you. A logo and an identifiable color scheme can be a powerful way to leave a memorable impression and earn customer trust.
Launch products
A lot can go into launching a product, from making it available on all your sales channels, to keeping the momentum going after you’ve made the big announcement. For more details, here’s our checklist for a successful product launch.
Get customer reviews
To gauge audience sentiment, keep an eye on customer reviews. Focus on providing a great customer experience in order to get positive reviews, which can be a great source of social proof and help you win over new customers.
4. Operation: Manage orders and logistics
To keep your business running smoothly, get systems in place for key areas like order management, shipping, and customer service.
Manage orders
As you begin to make sales, you can shift your focus to tracking and processing orders, in addition to managing inventory.
Handle fulfillment
How will you get products to customers who place orders online? In ecommerce, fulfillment is the process of preparing, packing, and shipping products. You might use one or more fulfillment channels, including:
- Fulfilling orders in-house
- Outsourcing tasks to third-party logistics providers (3PLs)
- Working with a dropshipping supplier to ship products to customers without storing inventory yourself
The right solutions for your business will depend on what products you want to sell, inventory turnover, and other factors. Learn more in our guide to ecommerce fulfillment.
Did you know
You can store and ship products through Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
With FBA, you ship products into Amazon’s fulfillment network. When a customer places an order, we pick, pack, and ship it on your behalf, in addition to handling customer service and returns. As part of Supply Chain by Amazon, FBA can help you save time, reduce operational costs, and grow your business.
Provide customer service
Provide excellent customer service by making it easy for customers to resolve any issues they might have. This helps to ensure a positive shopping experience and build customer loyalty. It’s also a great way to earn positive customer reviews. You might handle customer service in-house, or you could outsource it to a solution like FBA.
"Amazon product reviews are the single most important input to our new product development process. We make sure our new products start from the need that customers express."
Steven Yang
Founder and CEO, Anker Technology
5. Expansion: Scale with marketing and analytics
Here are several growth strategies you can try if you want to increase sales and reach new audiences:
Set key performance indicators (KPIs)
By identifying measurables that you can track, KPIs can help you set goals and make progress toward them. For example, you could set the goal of selling 500 products a week, or reaching 3,000 customers each month.
Market and advertise digitally
To help more customers connect with products, you can use a variety of digital marketing techniques and advertising methods. Learn more in our guide to ecommerce marketing.
Review analytics
Who are your current customers? Who else might be interested in what you have to offer, and how can you reach them? Analytics can help you answer questions like these. For example, brands can use Amazon Brand Analytics to review data for insights into customer behavior and brand performance.
Optimize for search
Once you have content online, you can continuously make improvements to get more value out of it. Analyze the current performance of your web pages and product listings, then use search engine optimization (SEO) to get more impressions and conversions.
Run comparison tests
When it comes to online content, how do you know what works and what doesn’t? To find out, you can compare different versions of content and discover what performs better. For example, brands can use our Manage Your Experiments tool to compare different versions of product images, titles, descriptions, and more to determine what resonates with customers and drives the most sales.
Sell internationally
Consider expanding into different countries and regions around the world. We can help with tools and support for global selling.
Checklist to start an ecommerce business
- Product research
- Competitor research
- Audience research
- Business structure
- Product sources
- Selling channels
- Brand development
- Product launches
- Customer reviews
- Order management
- Ecommerce fulfillment
- Key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Digital marketing
- Analytics
- Optimization
"If people can’t find your product, they’re not going to be able to buy your product."Ryan MulvanyQuiverr
How to start an ecommerce business on Amazon in 3 steps
Step 1: Sign up and create a selling account
To get started with selling in the Amazon store, sign up as a seller, then set up your account.
Step 2: List products for sale
You can new list products individually or in bulk, or match offers to products that are already for sale in the Amazon store. Brands enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry—a free program to help you build and protect your brand—can create a multi-page, branded storefront within the broader Amazon store.
Step 3: Make use of tools and support to scale
Once your business is up and running, benefit from a wide range of tools and programs in order to grow. For example, you can use automation to manage orders, set prices, run advertising, and more.
Why start an ecommerce business in 2025?
With a low barrier to entry and the potential to access a global customer base, an ecommerce business can be a great way to operate from anywhere, open new revenue streams, and make data-driven decisions. The right ecommerce strategy can give you the flexibility to try new things, diversify your offerings, and expand into profitable niches as trends evolve.
We’re here to support your success at each stage with solutions for starting an online business, building your own brand, and more. In addition to a variety of incentives for new sellers, you can start an ecommerce business with Amazon to benefit from:
We’re here to support your success at each stage with solutions for starting an online business, building your own brand, and more. In addition to a variety of incentives for new sellers, you can start an ecommerce business with Amazon to benefit from:
- Efficiency: Hit the ground running with tools and programs for selling online.
- Scalability: Make use of our infrastructure, logistics, and global reach to help your business grow.
- Awareness: Sell in a store that customers already know and trust. In 2023, Amazon was ranked the most trusted brand by US customers.
Helpful resources
Whether you’re looking to start a new brand, expand an existing brick-and-mortar business, or increase ecommerce sales, here are some resources to support your path to success.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I start an ecommerce business?
To start an ecommerce business, first decide what you want to sell and what type of business structure you’ll need. Then procure inventory, list products for sale online, and use digital advertising methods to help customers connect with what you have to offer. Learn more in our guide to selling online.
Is it too late to start an ecommerce business?
No, ecommerce shows strong growth trends, and it’s not too late for you to be part of it. As broadscale economic trends have experienced growth, sales have grown in the Amazon store as well. A record-breaking number of customers signed up for Amazon Prime in the three weeks leading up to Prime Day in 2024, and independent sellers sold more than 200 million items during the two-day event.2
How profitable is ecommerce?
Ecommerce can be very profitable, either as the sole focus of your business or as an additional selling channel. According to our stats, independent sellers in the US averaged more than $290,000 in annual sales in the Amazon store in 2024, and more than 55,000 independent sellers generated over $1 million in sales that same year.
What are common ecommerce business models?
Two common ecommerce business models are business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C). B2B sellers focus on selling products other businesses may need, while B2C focuses on selling products to customers (also called “end customers,” meaning they doesn’t plan to resell the product).
Is Amazon B2B or B2C?
It can be both. Individual customers and businesses of all sizes shop for products and place orders in the Amazon store. Professional sellers can get support for bulk selling and other B2B strategies through Amazon Business, a program with a suite of solutions for reaching business customers.
Start selling today
Get started with over
$50,000 in incentives
$50,000 in incentives
*A Professional selling account is $39.99/month + selling fees. Learn more
12024 Amazon Small Business Empowerment Report
2Amazon internal data, 2024
12024 Amazon Small Business Empowerment Report
2Amazon internal data, 2024
