Francesc Sánchez
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Are you thinking of creating an e-commerce? From La Teva Web, as experts in the design of online stores, we'll offer you some thoughts which we hope will help you to focus your project. There are some questions you should ask yourself before deciding to make an online store.
First of all, you should know that the situation of the sector is in full swing, every day dozens of new online stores appear in the network, increasing the market and variety of products and services. But in this changing market, there are also many changes in reverse. In fact, just a 1 in 10 is consolidated as a business. The rest will close.
The reason? Well, a lot of factor can have influence on it, but the main element in most cases is the absence (or errors in its preparation) of a business plan. It's important to analyze all the variables, and really determine if it could be a profitable business.
You must carefully analyze your product, your potential audience, your competition ... and write a detailed business plan. This should be added to an online marketing plan.
To answer this question there's no consensus in the sector. Many marketers argue that not all products that are physically sell can be sold throught an ecommerce. Another experts say that's no longer true. And the truth is that both have some reason. More and more types of products and services are sold through Internet without any problem.
It is true that in some specific product types, a specific individual user profile prefer buying at physical stores to see and touch the product. For example, many people don't want to buy clothes without trying it on, or to buy a couch without sitting in it. We must consider this reality, but slowly the user is breaking these barriers.
Once I decided what we will sell and considered that there is enough market to launch my business, it's time to deploy an online marketing strategy aimed at making my online store a profitable business.
If I arrive to an online store which visually disgusts me, I did not find what I was looking for or gives me a bad feeling, bye bye. It is therefore essential that the web design captures the attention of the user who wants to know the products we offer. It must be well oriented to the style of our target public and has to have the brand image coherent with it.
The responsive web design is critical to 7 out of 10 buyers. If your site is not well adapted to the device from which the users connect to your store, most of them will leave the site without buying and will not return. And that has also consequences your SEO. And think about that: 70% of users prefer to shop with a phone or a tablet.
Set a good product info provides greater security to consumers, and the CRM will increase. Also, and this is very important, it will help us greatly in our SEO. But this takes time and effort. In the product description take also that Google penalizes duplicate content.
This is fundamental, because finding an image of quality will be critical to the user and to our friend Google. Take the image of the provider and use images without resolution or too small, or too amateur images are the most common mistakes. In terms of images SEO optimization, you should keep in mind that all images must have the same dimensions, must have the lowest possible weight, you should add keywords in the name, title and alternate text.
When deigning a web you must think in an easy navigation: the user should find easily what he wants, find it easy to build the shopping cart, complete the order, and so on. It is therefore recommended to test with potential users before launching the web: see where they click, , what problems they find, and so on. Once the site is online there are tools that analyze the users behavior, such as Google Analytics.
The data and experience show that online stores that sell are those with more products: more variety of products usually means more sales. This is due to the fact that the variety induces the user, but also in its effect on SEO. However, there are other cases of online stores with less than 30 products in its catalog that sold even more than others that have thousands of products, but these are exceptional cases.
Having a competitive price is critical for us to sell in an online store, and this is one of the first analyzes to be carried out before putting all the logistics of building the store. This is essentially important if your product can be found in other stores, and even more if you're starting, to get a place in the market. You have to do an analysis of your competitors in the market: choose 10 or 15 top products of your online store, and four or five competing companies and compare their prices in an excell. If you are not competitive on price, you won't sell anything.
The visibility of our products in the Google search engine (SEO) is one of the best ways to publicize our products and our brand to thousands of people. In fact, it is fundamental for the sustainability of your business online at medium and long term.
It is therefore essential to design a SEO strategy where we set goals, the keys to achieve it, and a constant work plan. The fruits of SEO are slow to take effect, but when it happens they will give a very important push to our online store.
The speed of the website is crucial for search engine optimization or SEO. Moreover, it implies a clear improvement in the user experience and reduce the number of bounces from our page. Ideally the page must load in 1-3 seconds.
The purchase process should be simple and easy to follow for any consumer. Otherwise you will find that many users do not end up the buying process (abandoned shopping carts).
Most of our potential audience use social media every day. It is therefore logical that our brand wants to be present where our audience is. A good strategy will allow us to reach thousands of people within a few hours, along with other more direct communication channels.
It is therefore essential not to improvise. We need to develop a good social media strategy, an analytical tool that lets you decide where it's necessary to create a profile, the objectives for each channel, the creation and consolidation of an active community, establish a schedule of work and publications, analytical tools for measuring results, and so on. We have to look for quality fans, to turn into leads and eventually customers.
Some companies work hard to communicate well online, but they neglect what the people say about them on the net. A post on a blog, a comment on a forum, a Tweet, or any other web publishing about us not may have a key effect on our online reputation, and also in our visits and sales. That is why we must be aware of online comments about your company. Tools like Google Alerts or Social Mention can help us to achieve it.
Read the comments from other customers is quite normal before a consumer decides to buy a product in your online store or not. And the user may see comments about us out of our website, but he may also see the comments in our own e-commerce. Enable comments on my site is also an element that involves transparency and horizontality with customers.
You could enable comments in your own store or through an outside platform (as eKomi or others). We recommend the second option, because the consumer knows for sure that 100% of the comments are real, and not written by ourselves.
Paying ads can help us to increase our visibility in the network, and more sales. Social media like Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter have complete tools and increasingly enhance and improve them. The giant Google advertising system (Google Adwords) must also be considered.
In either case, the most crucial is to think well before what we want to achieve, then choose the best channel for that objective and deploy a campaign specifically designed for it. Otherwise we can pull thousands of euros.
Advertise on web sites which our target visits frequently is a good strategy to encourage sales of e-commerce. To do this, before disbursing one euro, you need to identify which sites are the most interesting for your site: study well the search volume, the quality of their visits, which user profile they have, prices...
This is a difficult decision, because we have to look at different elements: 1) the client's vision, who wants to offer more variety of payment methods. Limiting the payment methods can make us lose a customer; 2) costs and economic management of each option.
Considering these factors, choose the best option for your business. We generally do not recommend the bank transfer or cash on delivery, because they are slow systems that generate a lot of insecurities and management difficulties with the stock management while the sale is not completed.
That's why we recommend the installation of a POS with your bank (if offers good conditions), and supplement it with payment by Paypal, which is a system valued by many users for its security and speed for payment (before study the Paypal commissions). An example of a web where we have recently incorporated these options is persianas-ariol.com, a website dedicated to sell and install blinds, specially Somfy blinds.
It is essential to have a protocol for what to do with the abandoned baskets. Here are some recommendations:
Clearly a good email marketing strategy can increase the sales of e-commerce. But we must consider not to abuse it, in that case instead of winning sales and subscribers, we can have the opposite.
How often you must have to send newsletters? It depends on your specific case. The normal and recommended email delivery is every 15 days, maximum one a week, at least one a month. And it is important that we include in these mails some content that is not directly aimed at the sale (news, blog, tips...).
By their nature, ti win subscribers in an e-commerce is more difficult and slower than in a blog for example. Anyway to have success we should establish a strategy for our ist of subscribers to become hundreds and then thousands.
There are many ways and systems to encourage loyalty. The most common are the points systems. Other strategies include the invitation of a friend to get a discount.
Beyond the mass e-mailing you do for all your leads, your customers who have already bought should have special treatment. It is a type of action that can work a lot in the field of fashion and accessorie.
Confidence and security in the purchase process are the most important factors in the decision to buy in an online store. Some the important facts are: the brand, comments from other customers, ecommerce security, online trust verifications, and so on. It is important that the user perceives our site as a serious web, that the data he gives will be safe, that he will receive the order without problems...
Many users do not study it before buying, but anyway we have to think and write this areas very well, or we will create big problems in the future. It is mandatory to have our shipping policy in our web, and msut be in a visible place of our store. It is important to write the conditions very clear, and ensure that our conditions are in accordance with the law.
It is a strategy that continues to deliver good results in regard to sales, no doubt. It is something that is particularly recommended with the launch of the store, and if it's possible for you we recommend mantain it (although you have to put a minimum order). A complementary strategy that can be very useful in certain sectors is to offer free shipping of samples, such as online we done with the parquet store Goodbuyfloors we have developed.
The online advisor through chat is becoming an essential and highly recommended service to install in the online stores. This tool can help us to finish sales for customers a little unsure or uninformed. If you have a person with business profile and availability a few hours daily, we'd recommend it 100%. Note that a complete tool will have an small cost, from 15 € a month, as Zopim.
They are the oldest trade strategy and continue to be effective, when they are correctly designed. First of all we recommend you to study which products are more consumed at certain times of the year, to draw a quarterly strategy, and always promote the products of its particular season.
For the contests, the social media are a great place to do them, and Facebook is still the king, through platforms such as Easypromos. They are a good tool to gain visibility and leads, but not you use thinking about immediate sales because it won't work.
We hope this Online selling tips could help your business in 2022!
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