Learn How To Set Up an eCommerce Store That Will Generate Profit
Online shopping is a booming market, so it’s no surprise that entrepreneurs are turning to selling online through an eCommerce store as a way of making money and earning a living. If you are looking to take advantage of the opportunities the internet can give you, but you aren’t sure where to begin or how to start making money, then you are in the right place.
Setting Up Your eCommerce Store
The primary step to setting up an eCommerce store is to pick a produce to sell. You can either approach this decision by choosing something that is important to you, or you can take something that is already on the market and find ways to improve it. If you are new at eCommerce, it can be helpful to take the second option because it is less of a risk.
Although the product you chose may not necessarily be something that’s important to you, choose something that you don’t have to do a lot of outside research to learn about it. Again, if you are new to eCommerce you should generally choose low-risk options and fit into a market that you already know about is certainly a lower risk. A resource that’s incredibly easy to access and to view existing products all at once is Amazon. You can start by looking at the best-selling and highest rated in the market and see what improvements can be made.
The next step to figure out is how you are going to source your products. An excellent resource for this is Alibaba.com. All you have to do is input a keyword or a group of keywords into the website, and you can view a list of suppliers the offer variations on the product you’re hoping to sell. Not every company that you view will be able to meet all of your demands or will fit what you’re hoping for your business. The best advice to follow is to contact several different suppliers; figure out what you feel is essential for your product and what policies and services you’ll need from your supplier and find out how each potential supplier matches up.
Now it’s time to set up your eCommerce store. A lot of merchants choose to sell their products solely on Amazon, but you can also choose an eCommerce platform to help set up your own website where you can sell your products. If you still like the advantage of how many people Amazon reaches, keep in mind that several different eCommerce platforms provide integration with Amazon so that your products can be sold on your eCommerce store and Amazon at the same time.
An eCommerce platform is an incredible resource; the software used for these platforms have dramatically improved as the online shopping industry has completely taken off. Many of these platforms are specifically designed for the average entrepreneur to be able to figure out and design their own website. For more complex or customized designs, web development companies like 1 Digital Agency are a great professional resource to turn to if you want to make sure that your website is innovative and uniquely designed.
Strategies To Generate Sales
The best way to generate sales? Drive traffic to your website. When setting out on this goal, determine who you want to be driving toward your website. Think about the market that you are occupying, and figure out who is most likely going to need or want your product. This can greatly vary how you drive traffic to your eCommerce store. Take millennials, for example. If you are targeting this age group, that means everything mobile and social media needs to have extra attention paid to it. Because of the dramatic increase in smartphone use (which is the phone of choice by millennials), you need to make your website responsive to mobile use. And you need to concentrate your marketing efforts on social media; rather than making a commercial, consider using Facebook or Twitter ads.
Another sale generating tip is to consistently re-target your audience. This means re-introducing your product to visitors to your website that didn’t purchase anything. This is where Facebook ads can come in handy because if a visitor (but non-customer) consistently sees your product advertised after originally choosing not to buy it, they become much more likely to purchase. Another great way to continue to generate sales is to target cart abandonment. This is when a visitor added something to their shopping cart but decided not to buy it and leave the website. A great way to target those visitors is by sending emails reminding them that they left products in their shopping cart. You can further encourage them to make a purchase by offering them a promotional sale or discount if they choose to come back and buy your product.
Now that you know the basics of setting up an eCommerce store, and a solid foundation of tips for generating sales, take the leap for yourself! Build your own eCommerce store and watch success come your way. Did you find this article helpful? Leave us a note in the comments or share to your social media!