I need to put a businees plan together for an e-commerce site, any help much appreciated....forecasting 2-3 years growth..

What should be factored in...

It would be the same as any business plan ...

Costs, sales projections, marketing / sales costs etc.,

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For the most part yes..

But how would you relate seo/marketing to future growth, i.e if you spend x on seo & marketing this will increase your market share by x (which is worth? in sales?) Is there any to gauge the potential someway accuratley?

Let's just say i'm going to start a hosting company, The Irish Market is worth 5 billion (how do I get that market value?)

I supoose my question is, how do you know the value of your market, does any company compile reports on Irish e-commerce trends & market value?

I guess you would have to pay for such reports , i.e. Irish Market Research Reports by MBD UK or use a service like Reportlinker

not that I've used either myself...

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I'm sure Enterprise Ireland have some data available. You might be able to get something from them

Alternatively there's the IIA (Irish Internet Association) who should be able to help with some figures.

In terms of sample plans... I suspect you might find a few knocking around online

The kind of costs to factor in would vary on the type of thing you're doing.

You may want to consider:
- hosting
- ssl certs
- merchant accounts + fees
- merchant gateway fees
- programming
- marketing
-trademarks (?)
- staff
- marketing (online + offline) - you would probably include seo here as well I suspect ?

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googlebomber, i was just starting off doing the same thing myself.

Really, what I am doing at the moment is getting supplier catalogue's from the place i work, and pitching the prices against other national retailers - finding out the profit, and then finding out how many customers you would be expecting/needing.

from what i can see, it's no harm to make estimates once they're backed by proof. also, business plans are just as much about setting up goals as they are about how to achieve them.

definite SEO figures will not be known until you are well into the course of your online store. the best i could recommend you to do is just to say "over the course of a 12 month period, i would like to have search engine visitors to increase by 25%"

Hi All.

I too am in the same boat except I have nealry completed the b-plan. Now I need to add a section in relation to marketing the new website. I need to include all aspects of online marketing as this is going to be the only method of advertising.

Its such a minefield. Just picking one place to start takes me off on another tangent and I get all muddled up. I even tried posting up on a freelance website on Friday to see if someone would compile a report as I could not find any templates.

If any of you lads come across a template you might let me know and likewise I will return the favour. If there are any SEO's out there that want to earn a few euro pocket money then drop me a line. if all else fails I'll enter the minefield again.

thx

T

Hi Guys,

I got this book a few months ago on the subject but to be honest I can't fairly rate it yet as I had to stop reading it due to other commitments. I wasn't blown away with what I read in the first couple of chapters but it was useful, esp if it's all new to you. It's called "How to write a .com Business Plan, by Joanne Eglash", you'll find it on Amazon. Might be worth a look! Think it's a few years old.

In relation to Enterprise Ireland, does anyone here have any experience dealing with them in relation to web based businesses? If so care to share your experiences? Could be good to create an Enterprise Ireland Support/Funding thread allowing people to log their experiences, lessons learnt, tips to secure funding, what they look for etc. Just a thought!