#1
If you run an online store selling products, such as tools, jewelry, makeup, gifts, clothing, or any other products, you make more money when you sell more products. Since the objective of any business is to make money, online store owners know that the more products they sell, the more money they can make.
“How can I sell more of my products online?” is one of the most common questions I hear from my clients is. Here are several tips that will help you sell more of your products online and generate more revenue:
– Show off the products in the best possible light. When people buy a product, they want to know what the product looks like. If someone is buying a couch, they want to be able to see if that couch would fit with the rest of their furniture before actually buying it. If someone wants to buy a piece of jewelry, they want to see what the jewelry looks like before buying it.
Therefore, the best way for you to convince your web site visitors that your products are right for them is by showing the products in the best possible light. Have high quality, detailed pictures of your products on your web site so that people are convinced that they need your product as soon as they see it.
– Make your web site easy to use. If someone comes to your web site to purchase your products, make sure they can find exactly what you are looking for. Your web site should have clear and concise navigation that is exactly the same on every page of the web site.
An easy to use navigation ensures that your web site visitors find what they are looking for on your web site and purchase it.
– Optimize web site for search engines. Another good way to drive more customers to your web site and increase your online sales is by optimizing your web site for search engines. Search engine optimization is the process of modifying web page content and meta-information to improve the search engine ranking of the page. Meta-information includes certain HTML tags (title, heading, emphasized text, keyword and description meta-tags), as well as the internal (links between pages on the same site) and external (links between pages on different sites) link structure of a web site.
Optimizing your web site helps you improve your search engine rankings and drive more targeted traffic to your web site.
– Create a blog to promote your business. A blog is your business diary, in which you share the information about your business, your new products, different ways of using your products and much more. Your blog is an excellent tool to let the world know about your business and your products, to connect with potential customers and promote what you have to offer.
In order to bring the most online traffic and make money with your blog, make sure that your blog consistently and create blog posts that are of interest to your past as well as potential customers. Regular posts that are interesting to read is what will keep your readers coming back and buying from you.
The Internet is a great place to sell your products. When you know how to market your business online, you bring more web site traffic, get more product sales and make more money.
#2
Think about this. You are planning to engage in “eCommerce”, to take your business online. So, you need to learn a new set of business rules, a new way of doing things, because online business is “different”, right?
Well, actually, no, not really. You still have a product or service to sell. You still have a store with a shop “window” (your website) and you still need the customers to visit your store, in order to buy whatever it is that you are selling.
The only major difference is that (continuing the analogy) your local store window can only be seen by a small group of people, whereas your online business can be seen by the whole world. By engaging in eCommerce, you can take your business “global”.
For many businesses, this is truly an advantage, representing a wonderful opportunity.
But that is not the case for everyone, particularly for companies who sell a physical , tangible product. When planning to go online, therefore, you should spend some time thinking about your product and exactly who your target market is, because this will be a crucial factor in determining whether your venture is a success or a failure.
What it is that you plan to market on your eCommerce enabled website, and who will want to buy it? Some products will, by their very nature, not be totally suited to a world wide market. Pork based food products for example, will not be popular in Muslim countries, nor will wine, whisky or beer. Sales of open toed sandals may be disappointing in Iceland, Greenland and the frozen polar North.
Secondly, give very careful thought about how you will get your product to the customer. For example, if you were to make laser toner cartridges in Asia (as one of my client companies does) there is absolutely no sense in trying to sell one or two cartridges at a time to a customer in the USA, because of the cost of delivery.
So, if your product is bulky or heavy, selling outside your locale may not be practical.
Furthermore, you need to consider that, whilst most countries use the same Standard International Trade Classification (S.I.T.C) codes for deciding on how much import duty to levy on a particular product, the actual duty to be paid varies from country to country, and such variations can (and will) lead to disputes. Again, using my client as an example, they sold a consignment of toner cartridges to a customer in Finland, which got held up in Customs for several weeks on arrival in Helsinki, because of a dispute over the Import Duties to be paid.
Whilst this was not the fault of my client or his customer, nevertheless, the result was an unhappy customer, who obviously did not become a regular customer.
Likewise, if you plan on selling a service online, can that service be provided outside your local area in such a way that you still make money? Do you need to have one of your own staff actually work with the customer (in which case, you need to stay local) or can the work be easily subcontracted on a global basis? Would it be easy to find such a local subcontractor capable of supplying your advertised service in such a way that both you and the customer are happy? How much would such a subcontractor cost?
Unless you can get positive answers to all of these questions, then, again, it may pay you to keep your services local, rather than overreaching, in order to become a global player.
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