Benefits of selling products online
Selling online has many benefits ranging from flexibility to customer reach. As compared to a physical store, you have many advantages of starting an eCommerce business and make your online store stand out in a crowded eCommerce market, Selling products online in India has immense potential because more consumers prefer online shopping. And this rise in eCommerce will grow exponentially in the coming years, according to recent reports.
How do you start selling online?
Before you can start selling online, you have to devise a plan for how you’re going to do it well. The quickest way to fizzle out is to throw random products on a website or online marketplace and hope for the best.
“A good e-commerce business is a cross section of two disciplines,” said Mike Nunez, founder of Tilde Enterprises. “You are passionate about it and are really good at it.”
Nunez pointed to Beverages Direct, an online merchant that specialise in root beer and hard-to-find beverages, as a good example. The owner had a real love for root beer and was able to bring a level of expertise to his shop that others couldn’t. “Find the differentiation, and find the thing you love – that’s a business,” Nunez said.
Once you know what product or products you want to sell, you can get busy setting up your e-commerce business. Follow these steps to start selling online:
5 Ways to Sell Products Online
1) Your Own E-commerce Store
Building an eCommerce store from scratch is the most traditional option. It takes some work to get all of the pieces together. But it also gives you the most control.With this option, you need to find your own website hosting and domain. Then you need to actually design the layout, add products and fill it with content. Of course, you can hire a designer or developer to do some of this for you.When you’re done, you’ll have your very own site that you can control every aspect of. You have the freedom to add new products, change content and fiddle with the back end functionality.
2) Hosted eCommerce Platforms
Hosted eCommerce platforms differ from dedicated eCommerce sites because the majority of the work that goes into creating the site is already done for you. Basically, this SaaS offering gives you all the functionality of your own eCommerce site. But you don’t have as much control over the details. Big Commerce and Big Cartel are all examples of this. Each one allows you to quickly set up a storefront from a select set of options. Often, you can choose from themes and templates. And some even offer further customisation options. They also give you instructions for adding products, photos and other content to the site.
To your customers, this type of site might appear very similar to an eCommerce site that you set up on your own. But if you have very specific design or back-end preferences, they might not be available. Additionally, this type of site is often easier or less expensive to get up and running. But they usually charge monthly fees that may exceed basic hosting fees over time.
3) Marketplace Sites
Marketplace sites include things like eBay and Amazon, where small businesses can sell their products alongside other sellers. On the back end, these work fairly similar to hosted eCommerce platforms. But there are usually fewer options for customisation. Most of these sites also charge a listing fee or take a percentage of each sale.These sites are less personalised to your own products. In searches, your products will most likely show up alongside others from competing sellers. But the chances that you’d get all of those visitors to your own website are slim. So if you’re able to create attractive listings that set your products apart, this could be the option for you. Additionally, some sellers make their products available on these platforms, while still keeping their own dedicated sites for loyal shoppers.
4) Social Media
Today, about 72 percent of U.S. adults use at least one social media platform. So for businesses, it makes sense to meet customers where they already spend time.The options for selling products on social media vary by platform. Facebook, for example, allows page owners to set up storefronts right on their business page. Instagram also has a feature that lets users create shop able posts. Basically, users just click on a post to see the products pictured, then they can follow the links to complete a purchase right within the app.The built-in audience is definitely the key benefit of this option. However, many of the people spending time on social media aren’t in the mindset of making purchases. So you may have to do more work to convert buyers than you would on a dedicated eCommerce site where people are already looking for products.
5) E-commerce Add-On
eCommerce add-on give you an option that sits somewhere between building your own site and using a hosted platform. You create your own site and then use plug-ins or pre-made options to facilitate things like payments or buy buttons.This makes the process of getting up and running easier and can save you money in the long run. However, there are a lot of moving parts to organise if you go this route. So it can get a bit complicated. And you may have to worry about certain components of your site experiencing glitches at differing times.
Conclusion
Whether you’re re-marketing your content or a specific time-sensitive sale offer, re-marketing is arguably the single most effective way to increase sales online. Not only does re-marketing keep your brand at the forefront of prospects’ minds, it also provides would-be customers with numerous additional opportunities to convert. Given the often-fractured customer journey, which now usually takes place across at least a day or two and several devices, re-marketing also closely aligns with how today’s consumers prefer to shop – which is wherever and whenever they choose.
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