How to start an ecommerce food business 7 ways

Posted by Damian Roberti on November 13, 2021

So you want to start an online food selling business.I'm going to give you seven different types of food eCommerce businesses, and we're going to get to that list right now.

All right, so welcome to marketing food online. And if this is the first time that you have ever seen one of my videos, welcome to my channel. We teach food entrepreneurship and we are YouTube's premier food entrepreneurial channel, creating all kinds of great content to show you how to get your food business up and running, create a packaged food product, get a food truck started, and everything in between.

So I want to get into seven different types of e-commerce food business models, and I'm going to explain to you how these work and how you can actually create an online business selling food. Before we get to the seventh, though, you want to make sure, be very, very sure that you've got the right types of permits and licenses. Most food businesses, like the ones I'm going to list, you can't necessarily start from your house because you can't sell food products from your home online.

You want to make sure that you've got the right types of licensing permits. Even incorporating yourself as a business, I highly recommend you separate yourself into an LLC or some type of business entity and not just do this without that, because you want to make sure you protect your personal property in case there's an issue with the food product.

So if you want to get into this, I'm going to give you the seven list right now and I'm going to explain each one of them as I go along. So, first and foremost, create your own website to sell a food product on.you are looking to sell a food product, being online with an eCommerce store, creating one like on Shopify, creating one on GoDaddy, or weebly.com is a great idea. Driving traffic to your own website is a bit of a challenge. I'm going to give you an example just as an experience on my own.

Now it can be done and you do, and you don't necessarily have to spend a ton of money to do it, but if you want to do it, you have to definitely utilize social media. You want to create some blogs, create some content, get on social media on a daily and weekly basis, and you want to get some attention and some eyes on your website. Also known as SEO, you want to make sure that your own website has proper search engine optimization, meaning that you're using the right keywords so that Google can basically categorize you and you can be found online.

One of the great things now is the flexibility of selling your own food products or other types of food products that you can buy and resell on your own website because you have control over the content. Pretty much every aspect of the website, from the look of it to the price points, how many products you can upload is nearly infinite.

So the first one is to have your own website right away.And it is a great way to get started, especially if you're new to e-commerce. Now, Number two, I recommend combining number two with number one.And number two is selling on an existing platform. What does that mean? Okay, so existing platforms are like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy.

Those are the three big ones that I would highly recommend you get on if you're starting to create an eCommerce business. Now, why is that? Well, they have a built-in audience. They have a built-in customer base, an algorithm, and a lot of other benefits that will boost and put your product in front of the eyes of people who are looking for it. So, as an example, if you're selling hot sauce or some spicy barbecue sauce, you're on, if you create a listing on one of these websites, you're going to get a better chance of having people find it because millions of people shop and utilize these platforms more so than, of course, your own website.

But the good thing is that when you begin to sell on these other platforms, whatever your product is, whatever your food item is, you're going to have a better chance of driving organic or just natural traffic to your website because people are going to want to find out more about your food products or about your business in general. So getting yourself on one of these platforms is, without question, a no-brainer. Okay? And when you create your own website, like I stated in the first one, and you put those two together, you're going to be much, much better off. Number three, all right. Now this is called "reselling food products that you don't make." You're going to resell it, kind of like a buy it and flip it type of concept. Now can you do that? Yes, you can. Again, make sure you have the right license within your state and within your county and city to do it.

However, purchasing food products and then selling or reselling them for a markup, creating a margin, and profit is an extremely popular activity.And when you can begin to buy it at wholesale or in bulk, it's even better. Number four, using a fulfillment center to fulfill your orders for your food business, How does this work? Now, of course, you may or may not be familiar with Amazon FBA. Amazon FBA is fulfillment by Amazon, and that allows you to literally send products to their warehouse and then sell them on your own. You can sell that product on your own website or other websites and they will actually fulfill the order. Now, is Amazon the only one who does this? No, there are literally dozens and dozens of fulfillment centers. They do range in price points as far as what they charge a fee for them to fulfill your order, but you can actually purchase or even create your own food product and send it to these warehouses and the order fulfillment will be taken care of for you.

It's actually a great idea. It's really a very smooth and easy way to operate an eCommerce business with any type of product, but especially if it's a food product. Now, one of the most important things you want to keep in mind is expiration dates. And if you have a product that has a really long shelf life and a good shelf life, then you would be better off using a fulfillment center. Number five is to sell in bulk.Now, this is different than selling an individual one single item or a singular item to two customers and having one single transaction for one product. It's kind of like a food service in that sense. If you're familiar with the food service industry, those are companies that fulfill orders for hospitals, restaurant chains, very large food chains, and food operations. But the quantity of the product is very large.

It's in bulk. So, for instance, let's say you have mixed nuts that you're selling. Rather than selling mixed nuts in a small bag, you could sell five, ten, or fifteen (1520) pound bags of a product at once.So big, like food service size portions.The bulk side is another way that you can sell food. Number six, the subscription food business, So this is actually really popular if you actually create and make your own food products or you have some type of line of products where you have a variety of maybe four or five or six flavors. Subscription food businesses are great because every month you could send out a subscription of a variety of foods to your customers. Where can you do that, Damien? How can I get that done? Cratejoy.com, CRA, T E, create joy, great joy.com, and they actually are one of the top subscription platforms to sell out.

It's almost like an Amazon for subscription food businesses. So if you're looking to do that, subscription businesses are hugely popular. Number seven, and this is one of my more popular ones, and I love doing this. It's selling food in bundles, and I would actually use Amazon, eBay, Etsy, or even your own website to do this, but selling in bundles, and what does that mean? Well, bundling food products by the category or the type of food product it is is a very big way to get very large order transactions. And what I mean by that is that if you had a gluten-free product and there were a lot of people who are gluten-free, if you had a specific product and you sold six, twelve, or fifteen hundred of them at a time, or a variety of those gluten-free products, different flavors of different sizes, and you bundled them together, you could create a larger price point.

That price point could be $50, $60, $70, or even $100, but what they'll get from you is a handful of products or multiples of the same product.Okay? So, creating bundles is a no-brainer and a great way to create an online eCommerce food business. So that is a short, sweet, and extremely to-the-point video. I wanted to give you seven ideas to kind of get to your imagination, how to create a food business online and give you a variety of ways that you can actually sell food. And these are highly, highly profitable small food business ideas to help you get started.

Okay, So if you have any questions about this, please let me know down below, and I will see you guys in the next video. So if you're looking to start your own food business, check out these videos for more resources, including profitable food business ideas and how to start a food truck business. Learn all about care cottage food laws to create a home business for selling food and how to start a catering business from home. These and many more small food business ideas are all at your fingertips when you subscribe to marketing food online.

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