In the eCommerce world, it's all about constant development and differentiation. So if you've decided to start your own online selling business you have to get ready to work very hard to get some profits.
How to start a successful online store?
On the threshold of the huge refreshment of our Simple Marketplace store plugin for SocialEngine, we've prepared the list of main points you have to follow if you're about to start your own online store or if you already run one.
Memorable detail
This point is a must-have for any successful undertaking. The market is full with alike product and you just have to differentiate. How you will be reaching this is your business, but there are few points which you need to note anyway to run a successful online shop:
- use your own product images;
- do not rewrite product descriptions of other sellers;
- do not make fake reviews.
Your eCommerce store must have those "little bits of biscuit" in it, you know. Owning an eCommerce website? Great, let's add a unique memorable detail to its interface! Choose our custom ecommerce website development services to create a full-featured online store.
Slow site – fewer profits
Slow page load is the bane of any kind of a site, it always causes loss of visitors. And if you are running an online store it will cause loss of customers. The main point of the eCommerce site is to bring profits, but if your visitors won't stay at your site for long, how will you make them your buyers?
Online shops contain a huge amount of data, that's why optimizing the page load speed is absolutely essential.
How many products should an e-commerce site have?
Watch the competitors. As well as optimization this concerns any kind of a website. Nowadays any service or product has lots of analogs all over the world. That's why it is very important to always keep an eye on competitors. If so far their sites or products look worse than yours, it doesn't mean this will last forever.
Search a keyword you're developing in and compare the results with what you already have within your business. If your site and products are as great as your best competitors are, think what you can implement and offer that they haven't accomplished yet.
Give more than just a product
Create more than just a shop. It's understood seller's aim is to gain as much money as possible, though no one likes being an object of earning profits on them. One of the secrets of the popular brands' success is their loyal customers. While deciding where to buy something, they will more likely choose them first.
These brands have proper and prompt customer support, they gather feedback to better their reputation, offer discounts, send gift cards and special offers, in short, they listen to their customers, thus making them feel important and special. People will feel and respect your love to your business if it's true. Establish yourself as an expert, this is the first step to trust.
Hear your customer
Customers input is crucial for online shops. Don't ever ignore what your customers say, doesn't matter it's a good word about your business or a bad one.
Why so?
Well basically because you ought to value all people who enter your shop. You work for them and your profit totally depends on whether they leave satisfied or disappointed.
In fact, bad feedback is even better than a good one, because it gives you a chance to improve some flaws. So let your customers talk, always engage them in your blog or newsletter, offer goods for the best idea for improvement or arrange the contest. Let's imagine you sell clothes, offer your buyers to share some photos of them wearing what they've purchased and let them vote for each other.
The winner gets a free something or a discount. Your customers will appreciate this and definitely come back to your shop.
Newsletter
As mentioned above, a newsletter is a good thing for customer engagement, plus it is great for advertising. In general, the aim of a newsletter is to build a base of customer loyalty and its main task is to entice customers.
But you should always remember that only making site visitors subscribe is not enough, you have to captive them, so that the thought "Where is your the Unsubscribe button?" never crossed their minds. Invite your visitors to subscribe to your newsletter while making a sale or offer a discount for subscription with the help of popups or announcements.
Some sellers add to their system a feature of automated promo code sending once a user subscribes to their newsletter or a feature of sending reminders to leave feedback to those subscribers who have already purchased something.
Note these four things a proper newsletter must have:
- the sign-up area on the homepage or sidebar is simple and works like a charm;
- the content you send is useful and not annoyingly frequent;
- the way to unsubscribe or change subscription settings is clear and easy;
- only real subscribers emails in your list, the irony is that system can recognize you as a spammer for your sending emails to spammers.
And of course remember that SocialEngine has a huge advantage – it's a social networking platform! So if you're having trouble finding your audience, interest-based community might be a proper solution.
Share your thoughts on ways to successful eCommerce business with us and get ready to implement the best ones with the help of our completely upgraded Simple Marketplace plugin.
