We have to admit it: Learning how to sell online effectively is the key to stay on top of your 26 million competitors. All you need are the right strategies, techniques, and a guide to help you along the way.
Learning how to sell online is like embarking on an exciting journey. It’s not just about putting your products out there and hoping for the best. It’s about understanding the digital marketplace, planning your moves, and adapting to changes as they come.
So, are you ready to take the plunge and start your eCommerce business?
Here are some essential steps you have to take to start off your eCommerce business on the right foot.
Build Your eCommerce Website
If you’re selling physical products, you’ll need a proper product display to show them in detail and at their best.
That’s where your eCommerce website comes in to sell online effectively. What’s more, you have to get it up and running as soon as possible.
If you’re starting from scratch, it’s going to take some time and effort, but there are plenty of resources available to help you set your foot in the door.
You can create your online shop using WordPress or Shopify or other platforms like Squarespace and Wix. You’ll also want to make sure that you’re using a professional-looking template so that customers feel confident making purchases on your site.
Price Profitable Products
Once you have created an eCommerce website to sell online, it’s time to select profitable products to show and price them accordingly so they’ll sell well.
There are many factors that determine what price customers are willing to pay for a product, such as features, quality, brand name, etc.
Also, you should choose your prices wisely taking into account all costs involved in selling the particular product, including storage fees and other expenses like shipping costs or taxes.
Moreover, your prices need to be competitive enough so that the products can be sold quickly without loss in profit.
Find Unique Items to Sell
How can you thrive in the highly competitive market?
You have two options.
If you sell products buyers could easily find with other merchants, you should offer an irresistible combination of superior quality and affordable price.
The other alternative is providing customers with the chance to get a unique item they are looking for but could hardly find anywhere else.
To get inspiration, go through our niche eCommerce ideas. They’ll help you think of goods that are intended for a specific customer base or belong to a particular product category.
Niche products could be one-of-a-kind or handmade items that are becoming among the most popular eCommerce products. Usually, they are produced on demand or in small batches.
If you can’t find an existing product that fits this description, consider making your own. You can also look for unique items that others might be selling on Amazon or eBay. Think of ways to further customize them and offer them at a lower price so that shoppers are tempted to buy from you rather than from your competitors.
Market and Promote Your Products
Once you’ve created your eCommerce website and found great products to sell online, it’s time to start marketing them.
An omnichannel strategy can do miracles in promoting your brand and products to a large audience. Tapping into the potential of multiple marketing and sales channels will help offer a consistent and smooth customer experience across all touchpoints of the buyer journey.
Spread the word about your online store and the products you sell online using channels, such as email marketing, social media, SEO capabilities, and paid advertisements to build your online presence and brand awareness.
For example, Instagram, which brings excellent opportunities for eCommerce businesses, should become your marketing go-to. If you’re wondering how to get around to taking advantage of this platform, go through our ultimate guide on how to use Instagram for marketing.
Also, make sure to create a Facebook Business Page and promote your brand and products there, too. A fascinating advantage of social media is the ability to make sales from your profile within the platforms.
Highlight your product listings, share happy customer stories, and include links to your online store in newsletter emails and social media posts.
Alternatively, you can post ads on Google AdWords and Bing Ads. You only need to craft a compelling ad copy and get out there letting people know about your brand and products.
Have you already picked out your top products to sell? If you still need some more inspirational ideas, there is a way to find them…
How Do You Find Trending eCommerce Products to Sell Online?
Google Trends is a tool that allows you to search for any keyword and see how popular it is over time. It also shows you which regions of the world are searching for it and which websites are linking to it.
For example, if you enter “yoga pants,” Google will show you how many times people have searched for that term, its relative popularity compared to other terms, and which countries have the highest search volume for it. You can select the period to track – from an hour to seven days, to five years. You can even go back as far in the past as 2004.
This can be useful for finding out what people are interested in right now, and which trends are on the rise.
You shouldn’t just look at the current popularity of a keyword though. You can also look at historical data and see how popular that keyword was in previous years.
This will enable you to roughly predict the demand for a given product at a particular time of the year.
How Can You Tell If a Product is Good to Sell Online?
The main thing you want to look at when deciding whether or not to sell an item is the profit margin. The profit margin is calculated by subtracting the product cost from its selling price.
The product cost is the cost of manufacturing or buying a product. It includes the material, labor, and any other expenses associated with production and sourcing. The lower the product cost, the higher your profit margin will be when you resell it.
If a product costs $10 to make and you sell it for $20, then half of every sale will go toward paying off the original production costs, leaving you with $10 profit per item sold.
You need the product margin to be as high as possible because it means increased profits for your business in the long run.
How Do You Source Products to Sell Online?
This may be a challenging and tricky task to do. Generally, you can opt for domestic and international sourcing. Online marketplaces, wholesalers, dropshippers, and manufacturers are among the most widely used product sourcing strategies.
Other viable options include print-on-demand suppliers, handcrafted or homemade products, and trade shows that can bring in valuable contacts and excellent ideas.
To get a better and more detailed understanding that will help you buy products to offer in your online store, look at our product sourcing guide, which will walk you through the steps of the process.
Final Thoughts: Time to Shine, Sell, and Thrive
Remember that every sale starts with your customer’s needs. It may sound vague, but there are easy and practical steps that will take you closer to your marketing goals:
- Build your eCommerce website.
- Think of your ideal customer. What are their struggles? What are they passionate about? What do they need in their everyday lives? The deeper you understand your target buyer, the more efficiently you’ll manage to respond to their demands. After all, perhaps, their needs and aspirations aren’t much different from yours.
- Now, think about the products that will best help your potential customers. Identify them and find the best ways to source.
- With the best products in place, it’s time to use your creativity and imagination to build the most enticing picture of these items for your audience. Use high-quality photos that will make them stand out. Write your converting copy focusing on the benefits your products will bring. Highlight extra perks and reasons for buying from you instead of the myriad of online sellers.
It’s your turn to shine and attract your customers now!
