Getting started with your online store

How to be online?

The first thing you should ask yourself when you decide to sell online is how do I get my store online?

This may seem like an obvious question with a potentially simple answer “I’ll get a website,” but with so many options available at varying degrees of difficulty and cost to set up and maintain your store, you need to decide what’s best for your business. You can choose between popular out-of-the-box platforms such as ‘Shopify’ and ‘Squarespace’ which offer seemingly easier setup at a price, or open source platforms such as ‘Magento’ which can offer great platforms with the freedom of choice your own accommodation. services, but may require the services of a developer to get it up and running.

Whichever system you choose, you need to know which one is right for your business.

receive payments

Once your store is designed, built, and ready for customers, you need to decide ways to receive payments from customers. One of the biggest hurdles online retailers face is trying to reduce the number of abandoned carts. There are many reasons this could happen, but it’s worth the time and effort to give your customers convenience and choice when using your store. The obvious initial payment method for most stores is ‘PayPal’, as it has a global reach and is a household name for being a secure method of making and receiving payments. However, a second option could reduce an abandoned payment due to the option offer. There are many payment processing plugins available that are compatible with most shopping engines such as ‘Shopify’ and ‘Magento’ and these can run alongside ‘PayPal’ to increase your payment acceptance range.

Starting

Even if you are lucky enough to have an established customer base, you still need to let your customers and potential customers know that you have set up an online store. It is foolish to think that just by opening an online store customers will simply find you and start shopping without any effort. If you already have a physical store customer base, you’ll want to promote it through an email promotion and/or through your store’s social media pages. Consider offering an online-only promotion to start accepting traffic and build momentum to convert occasional customers into regular online customers.

If your business doesn’t have the luxury of an existing customer base, then the job is more difficult but will be extremely rewarding once the sales start flowing. To generate clients, create a buzz, make sure you are active on all forms of social media and consider posting a PR blast online to send out to all the relevant news outlets to tell the world or at least your community that you have open a store and go. for business

keep the momentum

Hopefully, the initial hard work is now complete and your store is up and generating sales. To keep shoppers coming back again and again, keep your range fresh and up-to-date. Keep engaging your existing customers with regular emails informing them of new items and great deals, and generate new customers by building subscriber lists with the allure of a first-time purchase discount or gift with purchase.

spreading the word

Once you’re satisfied that the store is starting to gain momentum and loyal customers, it would be natural to think about expansion, as that’s probably one of the reasons you went online in the first place to get a bigger slice of the pie. Before deciding on marketing options, it is essential that an adequate budget is established to ensure that profitability is maintained within the business. For online retailers, key advertising mediums that can accurately measure success include ads on social networks like Facebook and PPC search campaigns like Google and Bing. These traffic sources can be a great source of customers, but they come at a cost, so monitor your campaigns carefully to make sure you’re targeting the right people and not wasting your budget on irrelevant clicks.

grow grow grow

Now that your business is selling and expanding, it’s important not to lose sight of your core business values ​​and to keep your ideas fresh and simple. Spend more time working on the business than on the business, which means delegating day-to-day areas to free up time for bigger decisions. Surround yourself with positive people who are prepared to roll up their sleeves and get dirty with growing your business.