You might have some products that you want to sell and an idea for your green online store, and a knack for marketing and entrepreneurship that can help you launch a successful business. However, if you’re focusing on a more sustainable route with your eCommerce store, there are a few options to choose that will help you to build greener from the ground up.
Get it built for you
You need to have an eCommerce platform to run an eCommerce business, that much should be clear. Some people do run buy and sell businesses through other owners’ platforms such as eBay and Amazon, but it can be difficult to get recurring customers that way. There are plenty of eCommerce website builders that can make it much easier to set up your store without any need for web design or development experience. However, you should also make sure that you’re using sustainable web design, with designers that focus on reducing the environmental impact of your website, typically by ensuring that not as many resources are needed to keep your site running effectively.
Building your green online store…
Setting up the point of sale and ethical bank
The part where your customer actually pays for their products is very important to get right. They’re submitting highly sensitive financial data to you, and that data takes physical assets to store, which can be resource-intensive. If you’re uncertain as to how to do that, you can learn more about hosted checkout here. Having a third-party (one that’s proven through other vendors, at that) to handle the checkout for you can ensure that you don’t need to keep all of that customer data on hand but can host it on servers that are already up and running. As well as your checkout option, you want to make sure that your business finances are green. Set up an account with an ethical bank like Triodos or Starling.
Managing the product side
It’s not all about the actual eCommerce website or platform, either. You have to remember that you have real stock to manage behind the scenes. You can skip a lot of this hassle by running a dropshipping business, that effectively uses your store as third-party access to another brand’s inventory. However, if you’re using your own inventory, then you should also make use of inventory management tools that can help you keep track of what you have, what’s selling, and what you might need more of.
Find a greener method of distribution
You need to manage how your goods get from your inventory system to your customers as well. Needless to say, transporting goods is going to take energy. However, you can reduce it by partnering with green delivery companies that put an extra emphasis on making the most efficient journeys by training their drivers to use fuel-saving methods, while tracking their routes with GPS to find the most efficient ways from A to B.
The tools and help mentioned above can’t do all of it for you. You should learn to manage more of your site by yourself while running it. Total control should be the end goal, but don’t let that stop you from starting your eCommerce business and striking while the proverbial iron is hot.
Photography by Daniel Oberg
