Creating a successful e-shop...

[verasafe]

What are the secrets of making an e-shop successful?

(Let us talk about this. All ideas and comments are welcome)

 

[Ninja Commerce]

There's no real 'secrets' in my opinion, you just have to make time to do your marketing right. It's easy to not have time, forget or just busy yourself doing other things, but for the majority of e-commerce sites finding customers is objective number 1.

For any new business though my main advice would be:

Set up a mailing list from day 1
Send out an email at least fortnightly
Get started doing SEO on your site from day 1
Make time to do the boring bits each month
Install analytics and learn how to use it
Experiment with various sales avenues to find out what works:
- eBay
- Amazon
- Facebook Ads
- Adwords
- Bing Adcentre
- etc...
And once you find something that works, focus on it and get better at it.

Oh yeh, and pick the right products to sell.
And get a nice website that is easy to use (even if you have to pay someone to make it for you).

My 2 cents (so to speak)...

 

[webgeek]

1) Attract traffic (organic + social + referrals)
2) Convert X % (good user interface, pricing, terms, trust factors, conversion optimization / flow, etc)
3) Capture = 100% - X% (those that didn't buy need to be lead captured with some incentive to give up their email details)
4) Nurture (email to stay front of mind with the Capture group and build a rapport, trust and value add proposition)
5) Up-sell / Re-sell / Cross-sell (targeting the Converted group who bought previously via email)

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

 

[SBOnline]

Rather than setting up a full e commerce site some businesses find their feet with ebay - I know a few people that have started here and continued to a full e commerce site after finding the venture successful.

However, on the flipside of this, some businesses with full e commerce continue to use ebay as a sideline - a practice that is specifically beneficial in the B2C community.

Hope this helps.

 

[verasafe]

Thanks for sharing your insights. If you have additional ideas, please continue to post it here and for those who want to be part of this discussion, all of you are welcome.

 

[j600com]

eBay is a good low cost place to start (depending on your product/pricing of course) but many then start to resent the fees if it takes off.

You should (while you still can) use eBay to market your website and coax customers across to your site; this is a lot tougher on the likes of Amazon. But, the more channels you can be on the better.

 

[shani1981]

There isn't short cut to success. you need to hard working ,but some time only hard working is not enough. Good luck also very important.

 

[jai1557]

E-commerce websites do come with their unique disposition that is specifically proposed to lead visitors to just one simple 'task', which is making online purchase. A website designer should take into account a wide variety of internet selling ideologies when planning to design an e-commerce website. Many are possibly already inquiring how e-commerce web design is dissimilar to other custom web design. There is no doubt to the fact that all sites need to be well organized, attractive and utilize right color schemes that fit the site's spirits. However, a closer look at various triumphant e-commerce sites will expose conceptual dissimilarity that is usual in a thriving e-commerce website.

 

[pictofigo]

Seamless customer experience. They must enjoy the stay in the site and see something new everytime.

 

[Babar]

Focus on Search and social marketing. Think Traffic and Webgeek has explained very well.

 

[globaltrader]

Excellent SEO is an absolute must! It is best to contract this out to a freelancer if you do not have the time or skills to do it. You can pick up an excellent SEO professional on freelancer for a really cost-effective fee.

Even if you build an online store with excellent customer interface and experience, if they can't find your shop....well your bank account will be empty soon!

I think a combination of all the above posts are essential. Forget about all the ads telling you an online business is just 1-2 hours of work a week and the money will role in. Bottomline: having an online business is just as hard work as a normal business.

 

[Aqueous]

One thing we've found helps enormously is having an 0800 number. If you get one from the right provider (and we did!) it's less than £20 a month including all your calls but the benefits are huge.

People call us for an update on stock and are surprised that they can get through to a human being on the end of the phone. We win business because we

a) tell people we'll be there 9-5
b) answer the call when they ring
c) tell them that we're not sitting in our bedroom in our underpants dropshipping from hundreds of sites (we actually have business premises)
d) are actually nice to them.

No matter what else remember that people always buy people first so unless your stocking a commodity and pricing accordingly, being nice will always pay dividends.

Hope this helps?

 

[Aqueous]

Excellent SEO is an absolute must!

Agreed! It helps that we are an SEO firm that also has an ebusiness store so I totally agree with your advice here.

Bottomline: having an online business is just as hard work as a normal business.

Wrong. It's harder So many other people thinking it's an easy route to cash and trying to eat your lunch every day

 

[BusyVids]

Answer: Repeat buyers. Capture names and emails of every visitor to your site by offering a freebie or a discount for new customers. Then email them regularly and remind them about your offers etc. Build a list of potential customers/buyers. The money is in the list!