Ecommerce Business Plan Template
If you want to start an Ecommerce business or expand your current one, you need a business plan.
Your Ecommerce business plan will accomplish several key objectives. First, it will help you create goals for your Ecommerce business and give you a roadmap to follow to reach them. It will also help you develop the right strategies to attain your goals. For example, by understanding trends in the Ecommerce market, the strengths and weaknesses of your competition, and the demographic and psychographic needs of your target customers, you can craft better product and marketing strategies.
Third, your plan will help you identify the human and financial resources you need. And finally, if you need outside investment, your business plan will be a key tool to show prospective investors to convince them to write you a check.
The following Ecommerce business plan template gives you the key elements to include in a winning business plan for an ecommerce startup or an existing ecommerce business.
Below are links to each of the key sections of a sample ecommerce business plan:
I. Executive Summary
II. Company Overview
III. Industry Analysis
IV. Customer Analysis
V. Competitive Analysis
VI. Marketing Plan
VII. Operations Plan
VIII. Management Team
IX. Financial Plan
You can download our Ecommerce Business Plan Template (including a full, customizable financial model) to your computer here.
E-commerce Business Plan FAQs
- Executive Summary - In this section, you will provide an overview of your e-commerce business including highlights from each section of the business plan.
- Company Overview - This section includes a description of your company, its legal form of business, where you are located and/or based out of, who is involved in the venture (both financially and non-financially), who your customers will be, and why a consumer should buy from you instead of a competitor.
- Industry Analysis - Here you will describe the current state of the industry that your business is involved in by providing relevant data. This information will allow you to then describe the competitive landscape, any barriers that may affect entry into this industry, and how your company plans to overcome these obstacles.
- Customer Analysis - Identify who your customer is and why they would buy from you. What is the size of your market? How will you reach your target audience?
- Competitive Analysis - Identify who your major competitors are. What are the different ways that you can differentiate your company from these competitors?
- Marketing Plan - This section should include a description of your target customer, how you will reach them, and what the cost associated with this activity will be.
- Operations Plan - This section should discuss how you will run your day-to-day operations. This includes information such as manufacturing or service delivery, inventory management and any other key issues related to how your company will operate.
- Management Team - This section should be composed of resumes for each member of your management team including any current gaps in their skill sets.
- Financial Plan - This section should include projected income statements, balance sheets and cash flow forecasts for the first three years. You will need to provide both your financials as well as those of any sub companies you are involved in.
