subject: 7 Elements of an Ecommerce Business Plan [print this page] Writing an Ecommerce Business Plan can be a tough task. More importantly, writing a business plan that your intended audience wants to see is also a tough task. Doing a search online yields results from many experts in the industry.
Gathering information from several industry leaders has produced our list of the 7 essential components of writing an ecommerce business plan. Here they are in order:
1. Executive Summary
2. Business Description
3. Competitive Analysis
4. Marketing Strategies
5. Design and Development Plans
6. Operations and Management Plans
7. Financial Components/Requirements
The Executive Summary should be no longer than half of a page typed double spaced. The executive summary should serve as an overview of your ecommerce business plan hitting on every key topic including but not limited to a short description of your business, your business objectives, your marketing plan, your targeted demographic, your financial requirements and your financial objectives.
The Business Description should be very detailed.Consider your audience when writing a business description for your ecommerce business plan. Is your audience a city planner who has to give his approval, or is it a banker who is possibly lending you money? Knowing your audience will allow you to write a detailed business description.
The Competitive Analysis portion of your business plan is important for banking officials and investors. They will want to know who your competition is and will be at every level of business. They will want names, traffic, price points, product information and comparisons and service records.
Detailing your Marketing Strategies is also important for potential investors and lenders. They will want to see how quickly and aggressively you plan to market the business. This will play into how quickly you can repay loans or pay dividends to stock holders. A quality discussion on marketing also shows that your ecommerce business plan is complete, all too often new business owners have a solid idea but no way of knowing how or where to reach their customers.
The Design and Development Plan element is created to give bankers or investors a description of the product's design, create a timeline for the product's development and create a development budget that will enable the company to reach its goals.
The Operations and Management Plan is designed to give your audience and idea on how the business functions on a day-to-day and month-to-month basis. The operations plan shows the logistics of the organization like the responsibilities of the management team, the jobs of employees within the company and will show the capital and expense requirements related to the operations of the business.
The Financial Components and Requirements element is always at the back of the business plan, but that doesn't mean it's any less important than up-front material. All bankers and investors will examine at the charts, tables, formulas and spreadsheets in the financial section. Understanding this information is crucial to determining the outlook of a business.
