E-commerce & Digital Entrepreneurship

Many of Sri Lanka's most successful young entrepreneurs started their businesses while still in school — selling products on Facebook Marketplace, ikman.lk, Instagram or their own Shopify stores. Our 10-week E-commerce & Digital Entrepreneurship course teaches Grade 9–13 students how to actually launch a real online business while still in school — ethically and legally.

The course covers business idea validation (how to know if your idea is actually worth pursuing), choosing a product or service that fits the Sri Lankan market, basics of pricing and unit economics, setting up an e-commerce store (Shopify free trial, plus WooCommerce for those who want a free option), Sri Lankan payment gateways (PayHere, Onepay, FriMi), shipping logistics with PromisedPL, Kapruka and DEX, basic accounting in LKR, and the digital marketing fundamentals to actually get customers (Facebook Ads, Instagram, content marketing).

Two real outcomes by week 10: (1) every student has a working e-commerce store live on the internet selling at least one real product or service of their own choosing; (2) every student has run at least one small Facebook/Instagram ad campaign and analysed the results. We do not romanticise entrepreneurship — we honestly discuss the hard realities, the legal responsibilities (tax registration, customs for imports) and the time and parental approval considerations for student-run businesses.

This course pairs well with our Canva Design and Photoshop courses for students who want to also handle their own visual marketing.

Course Outline

• Weeks 1–2: Idea validation + Sri Lankan market thinking
• Week 3: Choosing your product/service + pricing
• Weeks 4–5: Setting up Shopify or WooCommerce store
• Week 6: PayHere + Sri Lankan payments + shipping
• Week 7: Branding + visual marketing
• Weeks 8–9: First Facebook/Instagram ad campaign
• Week 10: Showcase + lessons learned