[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”5″]I[/su_dropcap] think many people get it wrong when they decide to do commerce online and eventually get very disappointed and depressed. The fact that you can get to a browser and access websites and go over to your social media channels where you interact with your fans, is not enough to land you a sale online.
Selling online is about strategy and timing. Ignore this two basic facts then you will just be posting online to no one’s attention and no result.
Starting to sell products online is just like starting any other business, it involves a lot of work, if you are not willing to put up with the work you might as well just quit.
First of all if you are going to sell online, you will either be on your preferred social media channel , your website (which should be ecommerce enabled) or a merchant website like shopify, amazon, alibaba or whichever suits you best.
If you have an online store and you feel its not performing, here is some simple advice which you can apply to boost your sales online.
Focus on these three fundamentals;
Quality Product, Great Imagery and Good Shop Navigation
Optimize your design
Work on a simple, clean and professional look that will be pleasing to your customers — make shopping with you an easy and pleasant experience.
Bring your Products to life
Well photographed images of your product make a huge impact on potential customers. Provide images that allow them to ‘experience’ your product online.
Leverage Data in your Decisions
Measure everything, from people who visit your websites, to click rates to conversions everything to actually know where you are at.
Build Relationships with influencers
If you’ve got a niche product, don’t be afraid to reach out to the community of bloggers that suit your product. Offer them samples and let them know of your sales. They’ll get you free publicity, and their word will be a lot stronger with their readers than your own words ever will be!
Ask for honest Feedback
Find a group of people who are going to tell you the truth.
Connect with your customers
Build a community around your products.
Always be Selling
Don’t get bogged down in social media… go out and talk to real people too!
Make Buying Easy
Streamline the purchasing process. Eliminate the barriers to entry and customer doubt.
Enjoy the Ride
If you have fun your followers will have fun and will want to support you and your store. Make your sale about creating new relationships, not just making money or getting rid of extra inventory.
My idea of this article is to be able to make selling online easier for everybody. The advice above might not be sufficient enough maybe too I could share, what I believe are great secrets into selling stuff online.
To selling products online – work works
The web provides a level playing field for selling online. There are millions of consumers worldwide, but possibly thousands of competitor websites competing for their attention.
Starting to sell products online is just like starting any other business, it involves a lot of work, first to get visitors to your site or fans on your facebook page and then secondly deliver to them a good service. The good news is that selling products online is cheap compared to opening a retail store or catalog mailings.
To selling products online – choose the right niche
What products sell online is a question asked frequently. Well, the answer is less about what item will sell more than another online, and more about how much each website has done to promote it, and the size of the potential niche you are appealing to.
The smaller the niche the less competition means you have more chance of the buyer finding you. It also means less potential buyers. So you need to balance the level of competition with the size of the market.
If you are considering selling a digital product like software, music, ebooks or PDFs which can be sold internationally as delivery is not an issue. Geography becomes an issue if you are selling a physical product online as you need to include the cost and logistics of domestic or international delivery.
To selling products online – make it easy for the buyer to purchase
This is sort of a ‘Main Squeeze kind of secret’ Visitors to your website or blog have a small attention span, so you have about 10 seconds to grab their attention when they first visit your site. Don’t put obstacles in their way or make them think, as soon as you do this they will leave.
Three golden rules are:
- Don’t force visitors to register when they first visit your website
- Don’t make the navigation on your website or blog complicated to use. Put the navigation at the top of the page.
- Don’t make buying process long and don’t try to collect a lot of information from buyers. The more steps and information requested, the greater the friction, and the more lost sales you will have as buyers abandon their purchase.
To selling products online – offer great customer service
When people purchase from a website, they are looking for reassurance before they purchase. Provide them with reassurance.
One technique when selling products online is to offer a guarantee that if they are not satisfied, you will refund them no questions asked.
Another is to show that your site is secure and verified by trusted third parties like Symantec or McAfee. If planning on handling credit card information, your website or blog will need to be on a secure server and PCI compliant. This is a lot of work, time and investment.
If selling online digital products, the delivery should be automated. If selling physical products prompt shipping is important, as is providing the buyer with the ability to track their shipment.
To selling products online – promote your site
Having a great website, blog or facebook page is not enough. You need to attract people to it and you want people to purchase.
Put yourself in your prospective buyer’s shoes. What will they do? Most likely;
- Do a search on Google or Bing
- Ask for advice on a forum or from other people on social networks like Twitter or Facebook
- Seek recommendations or reviews from other websites or social media
You will need to invest a considerable amount of time and energy each week to promote yourself. Try writing relevant articles or posts on your site or do guest posts on other websites that your prospective customers will visit. Get other people to review your products on their website.
Focus on getting prospective customers to visit your blog or website. Use Google Analytics which is Free to see what sources bring the most prospective customers and which convert the best to sales.
I may not have said a lot here but I sure must have driven the point home in trying to let you know that selling online is not just about going online and showcasing your product and offering phone numbers and email on your social media posts. People need to be wooed towards your product and they few ideas I have just dropped for you might go a long way into assisting you sell better online.
Please feel free to comment on this article, and hey as they say, sharing is caring. Please do share this.
