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How To Start an Online Store: The Ultimate E-Commerce Course Singapore

e commerce store training providers

About The E-Commerce Industry

Before you start any course (not just an e-commerce course), you should know the basics of that industry. You shouldn’t invest in anything based on just one person’s word.

For the case of e-commerce courses, we need to understand the e-commerce landscape in 2022.

E-commerce is a Fast Growing Industry

Singapore e-commerce market to surpass US$10 billion mark in 2025 - Retail in Asia

Brands are Seeking as Many Users as Possible

Top 10 eCommerce Companies in Singapore - 23 March 2022 Clickpost

Mobile E-Commerce Platforms are Crucial for an Online Store

mobile online store

How Do I Pick the Right E-commerce Course?

4500 e commerce courses supported by skillsfuture

Okay, so there’s a lot of stuff out there.

In Singapore, there are over 4500 e-commerce online classes where you can get attractive discounts with Skillsfuture credits.

How do we know what we need to learn?

After training thousands of learners in the last 2 years, here are 3 quick tips from Auston to help you pick the right course:

  1. Start with your end goals in mind: Think about what you want to be able to do by the end of the course. For example, with Auston’s e-commerce course, you should be able to get an online store up and start selling successfully upon completion

  2. Learn just in time, not just in case: If you only need to know 5 things to start an e-commerce business, then learn those 5 things first. The other 1001 things can wait for later.

  3. Business in 2022 is very volatile: If there’s one thing to take away from Covid-19, it’s that we don’t know what tomorrow will look like. If you’re opening an online store, your business must be lean and capital must be portable.

What Do I Need to Learn for My Online Business?

professional certificate in ecommerce for singapore citizens

Most people look at Amazon by Jeff Bezos or Alibaba by Jack Ma and dream of becoming a similar billionaire.

Wrong idea. Don’t reinvent the wheel.

We teach e-commerce courses based on Marketplaces, the Facebook e-commerce platform. Every day, HUNDREDS of thousands of customers conduct their purchases online. There is already a preference among the existing platforms, like Shopify and Magento. If you try to create your own e-commerce platform, it’s going to be lost in the noise of the big players.

Furthermore, the variety out there makes it a hassle to decide which one best suits your needs. Your requirements may also grow as you progress in your e-commerce journey, and diverting them to your new marketplace or website is going to cost you millions.

Don’t do it. Build your online store where the people already are – Facebook Marketplaces.

Forget Shopify.

Forget Magento.

Forget Adobe Commerce.

Forget Online Payments Gateways.

Forget about Internet Payment integration.

Forget about cyber security and hacking.

Forget about email reminders.

Forget about chat-bot helpers.

Marketplaces have it all built-in! Just use that, and you can start today!

1. Learn how to use Marketplace

Before jumping into the intricacies of an online store, you need to know the basics:

  1. list your product

  2. name it effectively

  3. describe it how people want to see it

  4. use good photos

  5. use good design

  6. promote it simply

Generally, you can learn these skills online. But when you join our course, this will be covered with our own unique e-commerce experience that carries value beyond the basics, including major mistakes to avoid and shortcuts to the top.

2. Learn how to promote it with various forms of digital marketing

Digital marketing takes on many forms and mediums, such as emails, search engines and so on.

This is a high level overview of what is needed in digital marketing:

  • Search Engine Marketing

    • Keyword Research

    • Bidding and Budget Optimization

    • Ad Writing / Designing

    • Landing Page Optimization / Conversion Optimization

  • Search Engine Optimization

    • Keyword Analysis

    • Competitor Analysis

    • Content Design and Writing

    • Digital Marketing Strategy

The good news is that out of all these digital marketing skills, you only need to learn a few, in bite-sized pieces for your online business.

3. You’re now a small business owner. Here are the supplementary skills you need to have:

An online business is just like a physical business.

All the little costs that you have in a physical business have equivalent ones to track in your online business. If you forget to factor in these things, you will probably have an inflated profit, or quickly sink into losses.

Our course teaches you how to make sure that all the right costs are factored into your selling price and the way you make money. These courses are based on Excel so you will need basic computer knowledge to join.

Don’t worry if you’re not proficient – we teach that skill at Auston too.

Getting Started with the Course

course fees

The investment you would need to set up a physical store is 1000x the cost of setting up a simple online store.

We are an SkillsFuture Singapore approved training organisation serving the local market for several years now. The great thing about the SkillsFuture Singapore scheme is that course fees are the least of your worries, especially if you have SkillsFuture credit.

Our e-commerce course cost several thousand dollars in fees but SkillsFuture Singapore subsidizes this by 50-70% depending on your age and nationality. That means international participants can enjoy this opportunity as well!

Further, you can use SkillsFuture credit to offset the rest of the 30-50%. The course fee that you would need to invest is nearly zero.

When you start your e-commerce business, your investment in knowledge will pay back dividends for the rest of your life. Take our 8-day e-commerce essential skills course and start reaping benefits as quickly as 30 days!

Our Course Format

hands on sessions

Selling Online With Marketplaces

Join us as we guide you through the setup and registration of your first store on online Marketplaces and get your products listed.

Then we go through the market research and competitor research process, diving deep into the customers’ mindset and consumer behaviour. Unlock this and the sales can start to flow.

entrepreneurs

Promoting Sales in Online Marketplace

You may understand Google ads. You may know how Facebook works. However, advertising and promoting in Marketplace is an entirely different animal. This is not a place where you want to waste money especially if you are just starting out.

This course teaches you how to set up small testing campaigns and calculate ROI. Most importantly, you will learn how to scale or kill off your campaigns accordingly.

Also, there are a few tips and tricks here to get free ad credits and bonus ad spend. This is where your shop can scale up fast if you pick the right strategies.

online orders

Orders Fulfilment and Returns Processing

Let’s be real – nobody likes to do this part of the work.

In fact, this is probably the part that you didn’t put much thought in when you were dreaming about becoming an e-commerce millionaire.

Thankfully when you start, the work is simple and can be finished in just a few minutes per day. When you start to move upwards though, you will need help. Not to worry, we have a section of this course that covers those services as well.

Now you’re getting into scaling and the serious stuff. The last bit is the most important…

manage store for future growth

Selling Online: Calculating Product Profit

Everybody loves a good discount, so having attractive discounts might seem like a good way to attract business at first.

But what if your business was losing money because you forgot to include certain costs in your sales price?

Don’t let this be you. Course trainees will have the opportunity to learn how to break down the costs of receiving and sending goods as well as tracking your real profitability. You will also learn how to track annual sales turnover and profit.

Who knows? If your online store gets big enough, you can make this your full-time job and become an e-commerce entrepreneur.

Create a Successful Online Store with Auston

Rest assured, Auston provides e-commerce courses that are useful in everyday life to make your investment truly worthwhile.

While it may seem easy at the beginning, running an online store requires intricate knowledge of business and experience can really help in launching a successful e-commerce store.

Luckily, with Auston, you don’t need to struggle to gain experience. Our e-commerce courses are taught by experienced players in the field – we only want to see you succeed.

Interested in registration? Want to learn a skill not listed here?

WhatsApp us today!

We’ll do our best to get you equipped with the most appropriate course and answer any questions you may have.

So What Should I Do Now?

We recommend that you start looking for degree programmes and hopefully, you choose us.

Many people ask where do I start.  

Everyone starts in different place. Your past qualifications and work experience is critical in determining where you go and start. If you’d like to speak to a consultant about joining, please complete the form below and we can get back to you about fees, duration and more.

Speak To Us About Joining A Course

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