Many entrepreneurial people dream of running an online store, sitting back and watching the money flood into their new empire. But it’s not as easy as that – if it was, we’d all be doing it. When you put in the effort, however, even a mother working from home can do it right. If you want to run an online store successfully, here are some things you need to know.
Make a Good First Impression
When people first arrive on your website, they should get a feeling for your brand and what you offer within the first few seconds. You can do this by using imagery of your products being used and smart use of brand colours.
As soon as someone clicks onto your website, you want their first thought to be, “I want that”. So don’t scrimp on the design and photography for your website, it could lead to lost visitors and sales.
Have a USP
A unique selling point is one of the main principles of business, and if you don’t have one, you might fail to beat your competition. Think long and hard about what your unique selling point can be. For some online stores, it’s the larger-than-life personality of the seller and how they interact on social media. For some, it’s an exceptionally good product. For others, it might be a combination of two different services or products put into one great idea. When you have yours, it should be one that really makes you attractive to your buyers.
Target Your Visitors
Obviously, you want to get as many people as possible to your site, but that’s no good if none of them are interested in purchasing from you. You need to make sure that you are targeting the right kind of visitors. Decide who your target audience is, and make it as precise as possible – creating buyer profiles helps with this. Make sure all of your advertising, content, and especially your products are aimed squarely at this demographic.
Make Buying Easy
If it is long-winded or difficult to buy anything from your site, then no one is going to do it. Make sure that you have an easy and recognisable checkout process – a service like PayPal is a good option with their range of online payment solutions. A customer should be able to add something to their basket, see the total and check out, make a quick payment, and then receive confirmation. If you have added extra steps, you have too much for your customers to deal with.
Build Customer Trust
Make sure to share reviews and testimonials at every opportunity. If possible, you should also add a widget to each product page which allows customers to share their experiences and even photographs of their purchases in use. Make sure that you have guarantees in place as well as having a secure website with safety certificates in place. When a customer trusts your site, they are more likely to purchase from you.
Create Brand Loyalty
When you have customers who come back time and time again, you have truly struck gold. Brand loyalty is everything, so make sure to build it by giving your customers a reason to love you even more. Free gifts, beautiful packaging, fast service, and engaging social media presence are all ways in which you can do this.
You’re ready to go and make your online store now – but before you do, go back and read this article again. You don’t want to miss a thing, setting up an online business is not as easy as some think.
