The millennials are individuals who were born between 1980 and 2002. They’re around 17 to 35 years old today.

However, who millennials are isn’t written in stone, as it’s more of a state of mind than an age bracket.

5 E-commerce trends for Millennial entrepreneurs

A “millennial” can mean anyone under the age of 45 or, even, 50 by 2017 who owns certain characteristics.

The Millennial Generation is the largest generation with 92 million individuals in the group in the United States alone. The Generation X comprises of 61 million people, and The Baby Boomer Generation includes 77 million. Worldwide, the millennials make up 25.5 percent of the population or 1.7 billion people.

The millennials are considered the first “digital natives,” that grow up during the recession. Thus, the American millennials have limited money to spend and encumbered with student loans.

Many of them still live with their parents and work part-time jobs due to an unpredictable economy.

In general, the millennials are considered “over educated” and “under utilized.”

Considering their circumstances, they prefer an independent lifestyle instead of working 9-to-5 and have different priorities than the other two generations before them.

They travel the world and consider themselves “global citizens.” They’re also pragmatic, progressive, and team-oriented.

They believe in the power of the crowd, like crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, crowdwriting, and others.

The millennials are aware of environmental, political, and economic issues early on. Thus they’re likely to be supportive of non-profit organizations, activism, and advocacies.

They’re free thinkers and conscientious, who are ready to defend their causes. Most of them are liberal and evangelize their values.

They also consume products and work differently.

They want more than money.

Thus they prefer working for passion for little money, than for something they aren’t passionate about for more money.

Overall, they appreciate meaningful things other than money, which also makes them more spiritual, but not necessarily more religious, than the other two previous generations.

As entrepreneurs, they’re socially conscious, inclusive, multicultural, and have strong values in making a difference.

They adopt the latest technologies and live and breathe the digital lifestyle. The more efficient business, which allows them to work for almost “hands free,” the more they’re interested in.

This being said, automation is their best friend.

Millennial entrepreneurs love anything that’s automated, so they can focus on things that matter, like social issues and people they love.

Taking their lifestyle, preferences, and characteristics into consideration, the entrepreneurial millennials would likely adopt the latest automation technologies and crowd-based marketing activities, when starting e-commerce ventures. The following tools will keep your hands as free as possible.

1. SaaS E-commerce Platform

Starting an e-commerce store from scratch takes too much time and resources.

Using Woocommerce e-commerce plugin for a standalone WordPress site is doable, but the primary use of WordPress isn’t e-commerce. It’s for blogging.

Thus, using a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform like Shopify is a better option for an almost “hands free” operation. Since it’s specifically designed for e-commerce, all the features and the accompanying add-on apps are designed to make the whole purchasing experience remarkable.

Also with a variety of paid templates to choose from, there must be one that fits the needs.

2. Dropshipping management app

The dropshipping e-commerce business model is very attractive to millennials as it’s convenient and low cost to operate.

Keeping inventory isn’t required. Fulfilling orders isn’t required either.

This model allows retailers to focus on marketing and acquiring customers, while the fulfillment and shipping of orders will be performed by the wholesaler or manufacturer.

Install a dropshipping management app like Oberlo, when using the Shopify e-commerce platform.

It will simplify the whole operation of an e-commerce store, from sourcing products, uploading hundreds of product photos in minutes, pricing globally, to order tracking. Almost “hands free.”

3. E-mail drip campaign

The next automation millennial entrepreneurs love is the e-mail drip campaign.

Zapier, an automation app, follows such technology closely and shares the best 25 automated e-mail drip campaign tools.

This drip campaign is also known as a sequence of “autoresponder” e-mails, which is used for nurturing leads, welcoming subscribers, on-boarding, following up abandoned carts, recommendations, confirmations, and unsubscribes.

It saves much time while keeping in touch with the tribe.

4. Crowd-written inbound blog

Inbound marketing or “content marketing” is all the rage lately, as it’s a proven method to generate leads on a daily basis without having to spend high advertising costs.

All you need is a well-written and updated blog, preferably on a daily basis. With appropriate SEO keywords, you can attract the right visitors to your e-commerce site.

Startup founders are usually too busy to write for a blog, so your “hands free” approach would be having articles ghostwritten either by a freelance writer or a crowd of writers.

Affordable crowd-written blog articles can now be ordered from agencies like BlogMutt and CrowdContent if you need something short every single day.

5. Ghostwritten thought leadership sales funnel

Using both drip e-mail marketing campaign and inbound marketing would greatly help with your marketing efforts.

Adding one more to the mix like establishing yourself as a thought leader with his or her own sales funnel would place you alongside top influencers who publish their own books.

The “hands free” solution is hiring a ghostwriter who can guarantee a best-selling status on Amazon like FunnelYourBook.com.

Once your name has been established as a startup founder, like Tony Hsieh with his book on Zappos “Delivering Happiness” and Gary Vaynerchuck with “The Thank You Economy,” your ventures will receive the exposure that increases organic traffic and revenue.

The viral effect of free e-books is definitely worth its value in gold to create solid sales funnel that brings in extra revenue. After all, ghostwriting is utilizing the power of the tribe and taking it to the next level.

In conclusion, millennial entrepreneurs are like other entrepreneurs with something extra:

they’re aware of the power of automation and the crowd and apply them in their ventures.

Implement these five trends, so your online business can grow exponentially.

What do you think? Have you noticed similar trends? How do you take advantage over them? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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