Starting selling on an online platform would be a difficult start. Most beginners do the same mistakes. So, here is the list for beginners to follow so that you can succeed in the online selling business.
➥ Choose the right platform
Ecommerce platforms are the backbone of any online retail enterprise, allowing the front-end and back-end of an online shop to work together efficiently. An eCommerce platform should give you all the features you need to start, scale, and manage your online business. Spend time researching your options and finding the one that best suits you and yours. Beumaxafrica is one of the best eCommerce platforms where you can start selling online.
➥ Know your customer needs
With the market currently changing, it’s important for businesses to change as well. My advice is to constantly think about your customers’ wants and needs, and evaluate what’s working and what’s not. Best-selling products that were really popular before the pandemic might not be in high demand during these unique times. Think of ways to modify your products or innovate to better serve your customer’s needs.
➥ Engage the customers
One of the worst no-nos I see on new online stores is prominent social media links, in either the website header or elsewhere on the home page. The minute someone sees that Facebook or Instagram logo, they’ll be distracted from buying from you and enticed by the engagement that social media brings. This means even if they click a link that takes them to your social media page, they’ll immediately get drawn into their own notifications and feed and forget about wanting to buy from you. So stop sending people away. If you want to include social links, keep them in the website footer, and discreet
➥ Make and follow an SEO strategy
When selling online, you don’t have the luxury of people wandering into your brick-and-mortar store by chance and making an impulsive purchase. When SEO is done right and a strategy is set in place, consumers can organically uncover an online retailer. It sounds scary, but SEO is a sure way to make sure that your target market can find you in a search engine
➥ Make your online presence more
The number one tip I would give you is that you need an online presence. You need to be all over the place. You need to live and breathe digitally. What I mean is you have to know everything out there when it comes to running an online business. You need to have an online presence and social media pages. You need to be running ads, writing blogs, making YouTube videos, or posting your product at online marketplaces. This may sound overwhelming at first. But there are a lot of how-to articles to help you with your online business. As for me, I’m old school. I prefer using beumaxafrica to sell things online. It’s a wonderful online selling platform.
➥ Sell with Unique ideas
To be a successful online seller, find your unique selling point. Whatever industry you are in, there are already thousands of other businesses doing exactly what you’re doing. Some of these businesses have been selling online for years and have accumulated the kind of cachet that you simply do not have as a business that is just starting out. So, how do you compete? Analyze your competitors and discover what they don’t have that you do. When I was first starting, I realized that most businesses in the VoIP space lacked verified user reviews. As a result, a lot of potential customers were skeptical about their legitimacy. We made this a core part of our model, and over the years we have racked up over 20,000 verified user reviews which have helped instill trust in potential customers so that they are willing to take recommendations from us.
➥ Sell what’s already available
Use what’s already available. Utilize beumaxafrica to sell your best products. Let your offline customers know where they can now get their favorite goodies. Then, move to your brand building slowly, after you’ve taken the time to figure out the best way to do things for your business. And even then, use what’s already there.
➥ Give your best to customers
Minimizing customer friction is the #1 factor in determining whether you’re successful in selling your product online. Do everything you can to ensure your customers get the best experience possible beginning with the information customers need in order to make a purchase, like a robust product description with the right positioning, pictures, video customer testimonials, and reviews, to details on taxes, shipping, and delivery. If you clearly explain how your product solves your customer’s pain points and make it easy for them to make a purchase, you’re 90% of the way to selling online successfully.
– Jonathan Pipek, Product Marketing Manager
➥ Identify your audience
Most of the battle in selling a product online is identifying exactly who will buy it. Ecommerce sellers should develop a hypothesis for who the target audience may be, and then rigorously test the hypothesis through interviews, data analysis, shadowing, and selling. The result of these testing methods is getting closer and closer to the “actual” customers who will buy. Too often, that process takes too long. Develop a hypothesis, test it, and pivot often to increase the speed at which sales actually happen.
–Brett Farmiloe, Pursue The Passion
➥ Make delivery fast and secure
If you get your delivery strategy right, you’ll increase the conversion rate on your website and encourage repeat purchases. Your delivery strategy covers everything from the price you charge and the services you offer, to what arrives in the parcel and how the packaging looks.
It’s really important to invest some money and thought into getting this right for your customers.
Encourage both the first online purchase and the repeat purchase
To be successful, you want to take people from not knowing about you to:
- visiting your eCommerce score
- enquiring
- ordering for the first time
- buying again and again
Many eCommerce businesses only focus on the first order and forget all about getting the second order – which is crazy because it’s easier.
You’ll find different marketing methods suit each of the stages of this journey. Test, analyze and change your plans accordingly.
➥ Calculate margins
My best tip for online selling is to be mindful of your margins. It’s tempting to feel the need to offer free shipping because the big retailers do, but when you do, the cost of shipping combined with packaging supplies absolutely dilutes your margins.
➥ Optimize your online shopping experience
This is my personal motto. Nothing you ever do in your business will be finished; in some ways, everything is permanently in test mode. So you have to have a policy of constant optimization – find the area that is working the least well, and make it better.
Once that’s done, find the next area you need to focus on – and repeat.
➥ Build your brand
Today’s online shoppers are pretty savvy. Just as you wouldn’t buy food out of a run-down, dirty old van, an online shopper won’t buy from a website they don’t trust. You need to work hard to build the trust of your customers – it’s hard to gain, but easy to lose.
Trust needs to be built into every interaction the customer has with your business. Include customer testimonials and reviews on your site, deliver on your promises, and make sure all the information on the site is accurate.
➥ Collect Emails
Building up an email list is absolutely essential to make your first sale and it doesn’t have to cost you a thing.
According to DMA, email has an average ROI of $42 per $1 spent — not too shabby. Building your email list, however, costs very little.
Having a list of emails from previous and potential customers means you can get your information, products, and content into their personal mailboxes. In contrast, updates made to your Facebook page and Twitter handle will almost never reach your entire following, due to time zone differences and social media algorithms.
Start building your email list by including an email subscription form on your website.
Here’s a clever way to convince visitors to sign up for your list. Instead of simply saying “Join our Newsletter,” offer an incentive or some type of value for signing up. Skinny Teatox offers the chance to win a free product every week, so they showcase that offering to encourage people to join.
➥ How can you make your online business more successful?
You’ve already got the first ingredient to running a successful online store: A great product! But there are several other factors you need to get right from the beginning to ensure long-term success.
Good quality copy in your listings: The words you use to sell your products should sell the benefits to your customers. Don’t just use the description the supplier provides. Inject some fun and personality into your listings with a creative copy.
Ask customers for reviews: Positive reviews tell potential customers that you’re a trustworthy seller with a good product. You should ask your customers to leave reviews in order to put your future customers at ease when they land on your listings.
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