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Thread: 10 Online Store Tips You Wish You Knew Before

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2017
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    Indonesia
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    10 Online Store Tips You Wish You Knew Before

    Starting an online store can be pretty challenging at some points. While everybody certainly can make a fortune out of selling goods on the internet, to make your online store stand out and be the frontrunner is entirely different. You need a clear marketing plan, get customers to buy your products and come back again, and most importantly get your online store acknowledged by search engines.
    Yes, there are a lot of works to do. But, don’t fret. We’re going to give you 10 starting tips on how to begin your journey in the world of e-commerce.

    1. Do it differently
    Unless you’re producing your own products, you’re probably going to share the same idea with a couple of other online stores. You definitely don’t want to identify your brand in the same way as your predecessors, right? Therefore, you need fresh ideas to form your own branding strategy. You can start with how you describe your products. It would be better if you can actually take your own product image and describe the specification according to your point of view, or the plus points of the products that your potential customers might want to hear.

    2. Know your competition
    If you want to know how tight your competition is, try searching the same products on search engines. Search a keyword you’re hoping to establish yourself in and compare the results. If the websites you found are badly designed or outdated, then you might have saved a safe space in the internet realm. But, there should be one or two online stores that will be your head-to-head competition. You don’t need to imitate the sophisticated elements you found out, just learn what you should do differently to get your website far better than the others.

    3. Successful online stores establish reputation not only from trading
    The quality of products and customer service are undeniably the most important aspects in e-commerce. But, to create a reputation, you will need more than that, especially if you’re new in the industry. As a newcomer, you neither have the brand or the reputation yet. Thus, the first thing you need to accomplish is building brand awareness for your products. To start building your online presence, you can’t just sit and wait for customers to purchase something from your online store. You need to present contents like high-quality blog posts on the topic, link to your own products, and place yourself as an expert. Be a part of the community around the products and share your knowledge, don’t just sell.

    4. Invest in SEO
    SEO is something every new media activist must have been familiar with. Search engine optimization can help you reduce online advertisement cost. Principally, SEO works to make your online store’s website presents on the front page of the search engine when people type certain keywords match to your product description. With the right keyword research, you can bring more traffic to your website more than ever.
    Here several SEO strategies you can apply to help to generate more traffic to your website:
    • Use short URLs. Your visitors clearly don’t want to see endless characters parading on the URL bar. Short, user-friendly URLs help your website ranks better on the search engine.
    • Create the best user-generated content. More content, more traffic. Proving your website is more than just trying to get money out of selling goods can create a better impression within online communities. Make sure your websites provide fresh, updated user-generated contents to keep your customers informed.
    • Link to other sites. You might have heard rumors that providing links from other sites would actually jeopardize your website. That’s not entirely true. Instead, it will show your visitors that you have a commitment to provide helpful content and don’t mind even if it’s from other sites. This will help your store to generate a genuine and reliable image.

    5. Pay extra attention to About Us page
    Your About Us page is the front yard of your house that is your online store. You sure want to make it fresh and appealing, right? Approximately 7 percent of website visitors get straight to About Us page, and those who see it convert 30 percent more than those who don’t. This fact alone should make you confident to start crafting a draft to be put on the page. The key to creating the best About Us is providing an honest, updated and well-designed page that sparks curiosity and hopefully generates more conversion.

    6. Product recommendation
    Product recommendations will create a better customer experience and can actually increase your order value up to 40 percent. Take a look at Amazon, which was among the firsts to implement this idea and eventually became the inspiration of other e-commerce sites to apply the same feature. The product recommendation section basically mirrors what customer has in his/her shopping cart, a product they like, or have bought. If your goal is to generate more sales, then you should have this feature on your online store website.

    7. Keep your customers informed with newsletter
    The newsletter is the way to build your loyal customers a special community. When you make a sale, prompt the user sign up for newsletter subscription. Sending a notification to write a review after a purchase is also the effective way to keep your customers coming back, just ask Amazon and eBay.

    8. Optimize social presence on social media
    This may be obvious. But, having a page in social media can help to build brand awareness, as well as reach to your potential customers. Through social media, you can provide direct marketing tools such as: interacting with customers, answering questions in an open and public way, giving discounts, or intrigue users with sneak-peek of your next products.

    9. Use live chat to help your customer make faster decision
    Live chat is by far the best customer service tool in an online store. Unlike email or phone support, live chat has better and faster response, at least according to 44 percent of online shoppers. With additional features like visitor path and offline message form, live chat can provide customer service assistance 24/7.

    10. Indulge your customers
    To get your customers coming back for some more, sometimes you need to indulge them with treats. The treats may vary, from discount, free shipping, special coupon, loyalty program, or any other ideas that pop into your mind. Besides, you need to give a chance for your customers to give an insight or feedback about your products and service. By learning what your customers think about your products, you can create a better plan to develop your business.

    By developing the best strategic plans, you will be well on your way to establishing a thriving online store and laying the foundation of a successful business.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2015
    Posts
    184
    Thank you a lot for the tips here, they are indeed very helpful. How do you recommend to build eCommerce websites? I am using different opencart themes for this purpose and they work nicely for me. What do you think of that? I would appreciate some thoughts from you

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