If you’re looking to dive into the exciting world of e-commerce and create your own online store, try following these tips, as they could mean the difference between experiencing several growing pains versus seeing quick success and solid return on investment (ROI). ).
E-commerce tips
No matter what niche you are entering, you will likely experience a lot of competition. These simple, yet valuable ecommerce tips can help you get ahead of the competition as they are considered some of the best practices in ecommerce and online selling.
Before we get started with our list of tips for running an online store, a quick note about eCommerce platforms. There are several great options to choose from, including well-known brands like Shopify and Etsy. However, if you intend to build your own online business with a free solution like WordPress, we suggest you check out our list of the best online courses for WordPress to get started.
Example of a WordPress online store using the WooCommerce plugin
Model your brand after an industry leader
If you’re not sure how you want to proceed with the look, functionality, etc. of your online store, choose an industry leader and model your brand after theirs. You shouldn’t copy the model’s brand on everything they do. Instead, use them as a guide and add your own personal twist to set yourself apart from the competition.
Grow your customer base from the start
You could have the biggest online store on the planet, but without customers to bring in traffic, your e-commerce business will fail. You can avoid this common problem by focusing on building your audience from day one.
As soon as you decide on a brand name and buy your domain, start doing some of the following to build your customer base and build a name for yourself:
Create social media profiles for your brand and start making relevant and engaging posts on a consistent schedule. Don’t just rely on one social media network as you want to diversify if one day something happens to a platform and it goes away. Collect email addresses once your store is built so you can send relevant content and news about your products and services straight to your target audience’s inbox.
By making these moves, you can grow your audience organically without relying on expensive ads that can stretch your budget, especially as a beginner.
Reach out to influencers
You can grow your audience much faster with the help of established social media influencers. Take the time to find influencers who have followers who are interested in your products and services and reach out to them. If you build a good enough relationship, they could help your store’s popularity explode pretty quickly by doing sponsored posts.
We have a great tutorial that lists some influencer marketing tips if you’re interested in going that route.
Experiment as much as possible
Chances are your store, products, and services won’t be hugely successful when you first start. So you need to keep experimenting as much as possible until you see what works.
How do you experiment with e-commerce? A great place to start is with your ads. Create as many ads as possible that differ in format, images, and copy. Once you’ve seen the type of ads that appeal to your target audience, you can move on to experimenting with your site, using some of the same ad data and statistics that caught your customers’ attention.
Our guide, What is Paid Search, is a good place to start if you want to learn how to market your website through online advertising.
Be thorough when creating your website
One way to lose potential customers is to have an incomplete website that doesn’t have all the answers or information they need to make informed purchasing decisions. A few simple omissions like these could mean the difference between making a sale and losing a customer forever:
Return policies. Shipping information. Conctact information.
Not only should this information be present on your site, but it should also be extremely easy to find. If not, it could lead to a frustrating user experience where your site visitor leaves without making a purchase.
Example of a Shopify eCommerce store
Hire someone to write your product descriptions
Great copy could convince a potential customer to make a purchase and become a loyal follower. If you feel you can’t convey the benefits of a product or service well on your own, hire someone to do it. Yes, it will be an investment, but it should pay off more than in the long run.
Be consistent with your schedule
You want your customers to keep coming back to your store so you can increase your sales. In addition to offering great products or services, one way to achieve this goal is to stick to a consistent schedule.
For example, try introducing new products to your store on the same day each week. Once your customers see this pattern, they can continue to check-in on the calendar to make new purchases. Or, if your store has a blog, make new posts on a schedule so your customers keep coming back to find new content, giving you an extra opportunity to sell.
Whatever you do, avoid inconsistencies. This will cause your customers to lose interest, decrease their loyalty and move on to your competitors.
Be as visual as possible
A visually appealing website can lead to more conversions. Post as many images for each product, so the customer has no doubts about what they are about to buy. Don’t be afraid to make your blog posts visual by adding various images, videos or even gifs to entertain and inform your visitors.
Read: Helpful tips for designing a landing page that converts
It offers free shipping at first
With only half of online stores offering free shipping, making this simple move could push you past 50 percent of the competition right out of the gate. Free shipping could convince customers to pull the trigger on a purchase instead of going elsewhere, as they may be reluctant to give their cash to a new store.
Reinvest in your business
As your online store starts to turn a profit, it can be tempting to take that money and screw yourself over. However, instead of going this route, you should reinvest your business in ads, as it takes money to make money.
After a few profitable months of reinvesting your advertising dollars for more sales, you should reach the point where your business can support your lifestyle.
Don’t overlook abandoned carts
There can be many reasons why someone puts something in their online cart and then abandons it. Regardless of why they do it, you should do everything you can to recover abandoned carts to increase your results.
Try different emails and abandoned cart apps until you find what works. And to increase your conversions, consider offering a discount soon after cart abandonment so you can strike while the iron is hot.
Focus on marketing more than your store
Again, you could have the perfect store and line of products or services, but your online business will fail if no one can see what you have to offer. This is one reason why you should focus more of your marketing and advertising efforts on driving traffic rather than trying to create the perfect store.
The more you do to market and advertise, the more attention your offers will get. With that in mind, remember to post daily to as many social media channels as possible. Also, create great blog content, reach out to influencers and other sites in your niche, and test ads until you’re happy with your traffic. Once you have the perfect mix of marketing and advertising that attracts customers, you can start focusing more on your store.
Read: Digital Marketing Overview
Get feedback so you can improve
While you may think your store is perfect, what really matters is what your audience thinks. Create surveys to get customer feedback on how you can improve your product or service line or your store. And while customer feedback is most important, you can get more opinions by asking Shopify Support to review your store or by reaching out to other online business owners for their opinions.
Read more search engine optimization (SEO) tutorials, digital marketing tips and SEO tool reviews.
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