How to Write an Ecommerce Business Plan [Examples & Template]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, like many others, I considered starting a side hustle — an online ecommerce business selling printed stickers. While the venture never materialized, if I were building one today, I’d make sure to create an ecommerce business plan to ensure that my vision had enough stock to be profitable.

Why? Having a business plan for my online store would help me define my target market, establish monthly and quarterly sales goals, and increase the likelihood of long-term ecommerce success.

In this post, I’ll go over what an online store business plan is, its key components, and how you can create one for your ecommerce startup. Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

What is an ecommerce business plan?

An e-commerce business plan is a document that outlines your business and its goals, analyzes your industry and competitors, and identifies the resources needed to execute your plan. It also lists the e-commerce retailers you’ll use to distribute your products and the marketing strategies you’ll use to drive sales.

Here’s a helpful guide to starting an ecommerce business. Whether a company operates as a startup or has years of operations and growth under its belt, an ecommerce business plan is essential for evaluating a business and determining areas of improvement.

An ecommerce business plan is vital for increasing numbers of shoppers conducting business online. It’s estimated that the number of ecommerce users in the US alone will grow to 333.5 million by 2029. An ecommerce business plan keeps you organized and is useful when seeking investors who need to understand your company.

I’ll dive into some examples of ecommerce business plans and what goes into writing one using our free template.

Components of an Ecommerce Business Plan

While the different sections of an ecommerce business plan are tailored to the needs of a particular organization, below are some standard components. Download this template and checklist for a handy PDF version.

Cover Page

Keep the cover page simple and professional. A cover page should typically include the following:

• Company name.
• Logo.
• Contact information of the founder.
• Company address.
• One-line description of the company.

Executive Summary

An executive summary, like the name suggests, is a summary of what the ecommerce business plan will cover. Later in the article, I discuss what an executive summary should include in more detail.

Company Summary and Opportunity

This section generally contains a company synopsis, a short description of the products and services, a brief history of the business, the mission statement, and the team and management structure. It should also cover the challenges the business solves and how it aims to do so.

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Target Market and Audience

In this section, describe the state of the current industry, major trends, and key competitor details. Additionally, talk about what your target customer(s) and buyer persona(s) look like (along with demographics, psychographics, and pain points) and also why they’d be interested in your product or service.

Pro tip: Here’s a free tool to help build a buyer persona for your business.

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Product and Services

This section should detail the products and service lines along with the pricing strategy to be used.

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Marketing and Sales Plan

Marketing and sales are vital to a business’ success, so it’s essential to list the methods to be employed. The image below includes the key aspects to include in this section. I also elaborate more on what a marketing plan and sales plan should cover later in this piece.

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Financial Plan

This section covers monetary details. Topics to cover include costs, revenue streams, projected revenue, and funding requirements and sources.

Pro tip: Visualize the data using tables, graphs, pie charts, and other tools to make the numbers easier to understand.

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Goal Planning

This section notes down goals and milestones to be achieved, particularly in the first year. “What will success look like?” — that’s the question to be answered here. It’s even better if certain goals can be data, number, or metric-based.

Download Your Free Template Here

Ecommerce Business Plan Template

Download Your Free Template Here

How to Write an Ecommerce Business Plan

1. Give an executive summary. List and describe your business. Detail your products and services. Conduct a market analysis. Strategize your marketing plan. Create a sales plan. Outline legal notes and financial considerations.

HubSpot’s template provides clear steps to structuring one for your ecommerce business. Throughout this section, I’ll use the example of a photography company specializing in online photo editing.

1. Give an executive summary.

An executive summary is a one-to-two-page overview of your business. The purpose of an executive summary is to let stakeholders know what the business plan will contain. HubSpot‘s free template offers some tips on how to write one, as I’ve done in the image below:

Download This Template

It’s important to provide an executive summary. This allows investors or executives who don’t have the time to read your full plan to quickly see the most important highlights.

2. List and describe your business.

This is the section that needs the most detail because it highlights what you’re selling. To begin, I’d provide an overview of your product or service. For instance, a photography company would probably list their photo packages arranged by price and services, as I did below:

Download This Template

HubSpot‘s template also provides direction on how to describe your company’s purpose and break down values. It also advises businesses to include the team structure, if applicable. Next, I’d go into detail about the product and service lines.

3. Detail your products and services.

Once I have described my business and its purpose, I’m ready to dive deeper into the plan. What products and services do I or will I offer?

This is an opportunity to list each item and its purpose, allowing me to answer the question, “Why?” In other words, why am I choosing to offer these specific products and services?

After detailing my products and services, I’d outline the pricing model. What is the cost associated with each service? What will the profit margin look like? Determining price, especially as a startup, can be challenging. However, sales pricing calculators can help determine the best pricing strategy.

Download This Template

4. Conduct a market analysis.

For the market analysis, I’d provide the operational climate of the industry I’m in. To illustrate, at this step, the photography company would need to analyze its position in a world of rival companies like Adobe or online services like Canva. Below, I’ve done a quick competitor analysis, available in the template:

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Using directions in the template as a guide, I was able to come up with more selling points of the company and how it stands out from competitors.

Filling out the market analysis section of the business plan assists with providing the framework for future campaigns. I’m able to define the target market and ideal customer. Refer to my example below for how to structure this analysis in your ecommerce plan.

Download This Template

In my opinion, a good market analysis includes your target audience, projections of your company‘s goals, and a breakdown of the competition’s goals and weaknesses. This is a counterpoint of how your business improves upon those weaknesses.

5. Strategize your marketing plan.

Having the right marketing plan for your ecommerce business is crucial for any business. It serves as a roadmap for how your company will build brand awareness, reach your target audience, and boost sales and revenue.

As seen in this template, your marketing plan will focus on positioning strategy, acquisition channels, and tools and technology.

I’ll take a look at each one:

• Positioning strategy. This fixates on how you will position yourself to your audience. How will you address their challenges and goals? How will you use the tools at your disposal to accomplish this?
• Acquisition channels. The marketing plan will also require you to focus on where your customers come from. Are they finding your business through search engine marketing? Do they discover your business from your blog or social media accounts? Identifying your acquisition channels allows you to identify which ones to prioritize.

• Tools and technology. Lastly, your marketing plan should lay out the tools and technology your marketing team will need and use. Will you use a content management system (CMS) like Content Hub? List all the software and programs your company will use to execute its marketing plan.

Download This Template

6. Create a sales plan.

When creating a sales plan, I’d describe the methodology, organization structure, sales channels, and technology.

For example, when discussing methodology, will I focus on an inbound strategy where I attract customers to my business through my content or an outbound strategy where I initiate contact with my prospects? And what’s the reason behind this decision?

This part of the ecommerce business plan will also require me to outline the people in charge of selling my products and services, as well as what channels they’ll use to sell the products.

Similar to creating the marketing plan, the sales plan will also require a brief on what tools I plan to use.

While my marketing plan might need a CMS, the sales plan might need a customer relationship management (CRM) software like HubSpot to manage relationships with current and potential customers. Both HubSpot’s CRM and CMS tools (Content Hub) are integrated into a single platform.

Download This Template

7. Outline legal notes and financial considerations.

In the following two sections of your business plan, I’d describe the legal and financial structures.

For example, the photography company should provide details on the legal considerations like online safety rules, ecommerce regulations, and the company’s costs.

Next comes the financial section. The below image details the different aspects to cover:

Download This Template

Legality and finances are crucial information for investors and stakeholders. In this section, it’s important to be honest and thorough to give partners a realistic idea of how to contribute.

Ecommerce Business Plan Tips

Before you lay out the business plan and set the tone for your ecommerce business, there are some factors that are essential to consider. These factors lay the foundation of your business and will help you construct the document with ease.

I’ve noted down some of the most crucial business plan tips and tricks:

Find the purpose of your plan.

There is not merely one purpose behind writing the business plan. Different business plans serve different purposes for ecommerce owners.

There are three main purposes of a business plan:

• Gain secured financial support. Ecommerce businesses are in dire need of investors, and hence, their business plan with all the objectives, competitor analysis, frameworks, and supporting documents use this to gain financial support.
• To set the direction for your teams. Businesses include metrics like target market, pricing comparison, working process, objectives, and other nitty-gritty in their plans to help their teams align and achieve the desired results.
• Attract relevant customers. With the current markets and trends in a well-laid business plan, it becomes easier to determine the segment of your target audience.

Know your competitors.

Competitors can inspire you to take risks and help you analyze what’s going to impact your business negatively.

Competitor analysis is done by looking at the companies that offer similar or substitute products in your industry. However, there are two types of competitors: direct and indirect competitors.

Direct competitors are the ones that serve similar products with the same customer base, whereas indirect competitors have different target audiences with similar products or vice-versa.

A customer who wants to purchase a two-wheel vehicle can also opt for the electronic vehicle.

Hence, an electronic vehicle company can use a similar two-wheeler company as their competitor.

To identify competitors, consider metrics like selling price, ratings and reviews, revenues, and organic search traffic.

Pro tip: If you’re confused about creating a competitive analysis, check out these ten competitive analysis templates.

Perform a SWOT analysis.

Once I’ve identified the competitors, I’d start with the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to dive deeper into my competitor’s loopholes. SWOT analysis works as well as performing a real audit of the company.

SWOT analysis for competitors can hit various birds with one shot. It answers the following questions:

• What keeps them at the top of the industry?
• What makes the competitor’s business model unique?
• What are the most negative aspects of their business?
• Are there any new technologies to scale the ecommerce business?
• What shifts in the market or the future of the industry can affect the competitor’s target market?

Pro tip: Here’s a list of SWOT analysis templates you can check out to get started.

Keep it clear and short.

Keep your business plan clear, concise, and with less jargon. A longer business plan with congested portions of text will leave your stakeholders and investors disinterested.

An ideal business plan comprises 20-25 pages of text with visuals and around 10 pages of appendices and other details. Anything more than 50 pages will turn your business plan as dull as dishwater.

However, there are always exceptions to it. Consider a restaurant chain. This business plan should include clear images, mock-up menus, proposed outlets, maps, and graphical representations of the customer base.

This longer plan will catch more eyeballs than the one with short pieces of text and less detailing.

Set out clear objectives and research points.

The first thing that gets noticed is the objective that the business wants to serve. Whether you are setting out your first presentation or submitting a thesis for your research work, objectives help in setting goals and provide focus to your project.

For example, a sales company can set its business objective as “convert 60% of the customers through calls.”

Instead of shooting for the moon right away, set out the stepping stones for the stakeholders to easily understand your business objectives.

Ecommerce Business Plan Examples

I’ve sourced five examples of ecommerce business plans and listed them down below.

1. TrendyFit.com Ecommerce Plan

TrendyFit.com is a fictional online brand that offers stylish fitness apparel and accessories catering to the fashion-forward, active young consumer. Available on the PlanBuildr.com website, a key highlight of this plan is the detailed financial projections (a sample is seen below):

Source

This business plan is logically structured and also includes a milestones section to be completed before the website launch. Organized by date, I feel that this helps keep the company on track with a to-accomplish list.

2. Nature’s Candy Ecommerce Plan

Nature’s Candy is a fictional online retailer that provides nutritional supplements. In my opinion, its business plan is helpful in seeing how businesses go from planning to execution.

Below is a preview of its plan in the financial forecasting section.

Source

This example shows who will be on the payroll yearly, giving investors an idea of how their investment will work in the long term. Planning ahead also shows stakeholders’ dedication to starting up your business.

3. Nexa Commerce Ecommerce Plan

This fictitious localized ecommerce store plans to cater to residents in the city of Lafayette in Louisiana. Created by PlanPros, this business plan has well-written customer analysis, competitive analysis, marketing plan, and operations plan sections.

Because the company is looking for funding, its plan highlights financial projections and a breakdown of funding use cases, which is crucial information for investors.

Source

When it comes to building an ecommerce business plan, I believe that typically, the more detail you include, the better.

4. NoHassleReturn Ecommerce Plan

Fictional company NoHassleReturn’s sample ecommerce plan is an expansive, detailed version of how ecommerce would translate to a completely online store.

The company itself is structured to offer a simple way to return items bought from an online store, and the steps to take are featured below.

In my experience, having a sequence of processes like this is useful if your company is a niche idea. Investors and stakeholders need to know how your business will be new and unique for the market.

Even though writing out a business plan seems like a painstaking process, we have a step-by-step guide to help. This will keep you organized and keep you on track when structuring your business.

5. Shannon & Shavonne Inc. Ecommerce Plan

Shannon & Shavonne Inc. is a fictional United States-based online retailer that offers its customers an abundance of products in fashion, home appliances, electronics, and more.

I feel that the depth seen in this plan is particularly helpful, especially with the detail seen in outlining the business structure and each job’s roles and responsibilities.

Source

The plan first lists all the necessary roles, from the chief executive officer (CEO) to a call center agent. It then describes the responsibilities of each role.

As displayed in the image above, an information technologist (IT) would be tasked with managing the organization’s website, updating the online store, and ensuring the security of the company’s payment platform.

The clear distinction of roles helps manage employee expectations and accountability.

Planning is the first step.

Successful businesses require strategy, and that’s what an e-commerce business plan provides. It allows me to strategize what the business does, how it operates, and why it’s essential.

Not only does it help me pinpoint who the key players of the company are, but helps me identify who my target audience should be.

I hope that the steps listed in this article and the examples above bring you one step closer to building an ecommerce business plan for success.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.