For the last few years, and no doubt many years to come e-commerce has grown rapidly. If you’re an entrepreneur, it is an exciting opportunity to get in on some online selling action. Even if you have been involved in selling online before, the chances are you can always do it better, learn, and improve.
But how do you take steps to make your online business a raging success?
Launch Slowly
The excitement of getting your products and services out there can sometimes cloud judgement when it comes to launching. You only get one real go at launching so you should give it your best shot. Purchase your domain, set up some of your websites but take your time adding photos and descriptions. It takes a decent amount of work to get people excited too. Put up a coming soon page, one that collects email addresses so that people can join your mailing list for notifications. Make sure you have quotes for next day delivery so you can factor that into your shipping options and costs too.
User Experience
Every step of your journey you should be thinking about how the user will interact with your site. The perk of going to a store is you can touch, see, try on and smell everything before they make a purchase. While they won’t be able to smell your goods any time you can still make them super enticing. Your pricing will be better, delivery options and where possible free shipping, plus easy returns and a great selection. Make sure your site is easy to navigate too. Test it yourself, ask friends to test it and give you feedback also. Make the experience all about the user, and you’ll see an excellent conversion rate.
Social Matters
Your traffic, unless you have a physical store, is probably going to come from your social media endeavours. Consider social media to be the very core of driving business and sales, so although you might want to delegate it out or hire someone to do it, perhaps you should tackle this one yourself.
If you really don’t have time, then maybe a social media manager would work, but you should remain hands-on and heavily involved in creating and maintaining your content schedule.
Ensure that your website has some fantastic and eye-catching social share buttons. Pop them next to products, and the ability to write reviews too. This allows people to share and you to keep a keen eye on that conversion funnel that you are creating.
Mobile Matters Too
People are increasingly making purchases on their tablets and mobiles. So if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re going to miss sales. Buttons too close together, text too small, images that just take over the whole screen – all bad for business. Stay relevant, keep mobile and table options in mind with everything you do.
Stay On Top Of SEO
There are plugins to help you manage your SEO, but in reality, you’re going to have to learn some for yourself too. There are millions of business, likely selling what you sell, and you’re going to need to compete with them. In the long run, if you want to nail you SEO, you might have to call in an expert to make sure that you are making the most out of all of your opportunities.
Customer List
You should be aiming to collect as many signup and contact details as possible. These are people who have opted to sign up to your website, and most of the time they are ready to make a purchase when the sign-up. Or, they want to wait for some sales and discounts to buy what they want.
So work on building your database straight away.
Move Forward
Even after you have launched, you could be making improvements to the usability of your website, delivery options, customer service options, social media plans and so much more. Technology changes rapidly, and as it does it gives entrepreneurs more options too – so make use of them.
Keep a firm eye on trends, when it comes to fashion plug into what influencers and bloggers are talking about, same for beauty. For tech start watching out for CNET, Wired, BBC and The Verge. Slot in some time each morning perhaps while you have your morning coffee to scout for news and new products that are going viral so you can be relevant in social media. Include them in your conversation for that day.
