To start an e-commerce business, you first need to decide what you’re selling. It might be a product that doesn’t currently exist in the market, in which case you’ll need to be confident that customers will buy it. Or it could be a product that is already in demand, but for which you can bring a point of difference – such as lower prices or innovative design.

Smith launched Pot Gang in summer 2020, selling kits to help beginner gardeners get started growing vegetables and herbs at home. His inspiration came from the hobby he had taken up in spring 2020 during lockdown: growing herbs and vegetables from his balcony.

“I got really into it and I noticed lots of other people were doing the same,” he says. “All over my Instagram and Facebook, people were putting up pictures of their chilli plants or radishes. But at the same time, I realised that most people didn’t really have a clue what they were doing. I thought there was a real opportunity to create something that made it easy for beginners to get into growing their own food.”

Marketing is one of the most important considerations for e-commerce businesses, and a key part of that can be creating a distinctive brand that is consistent across all sales and communications channels.

Smith wanted to position Pot Gang as a business that made gardening fun and accessible – and he needed to strike the right tone in its marketing and branding to do so. Along with an illustrator, he created a series of characters to represent each of the herbs and vegetables that customers can grow with their Pot Gang kits. These are printed onto the stickers and growing guides that are included in each box, as well as being used on Pot Gang’s social media channels.

But building awareness of the brand and securing new customers is an ongoing struggle, he says.

“I think this will be our main challenge for a long time. It’s a constant battle to keep pushing at that, and then once people have heard about you, it’s warming them up to subscribe themselves or gift it to someone. That’s the thing we’re pushing for every day.”

The e-commerce market is fast moving and competitive, so sitting on a great idea for too long could mean a competitor gets in there first.

While Smith had a clear idea about Pot Gang’s target customers and branding, he didn’t spend time developing a detailed plan before launching. Instead, he wanted to get started and learn as he went. Services such as Shopify allowed him to get an e-commerce store up and running quickly, and as the stock he needed was low value, he didn’t require much upfront investment.

“I felt we may as well crack on, learn as quickly as we can from the beginning, then become more strategic further down the line when we have a bit more money to play with,” he says.

He recommends other aspiring entrepreneurs do the same – whether that means getting a product in front of customers as quickly as possible and gathering feedback, or taking tangible action every day to reach goals such as securing funding.

“Don’t talk about what a good idea you have – get out there and move it forward,” he says.