Stay with us in this article to start online sales and to know how to sell your products online.
Selling online can be intimidating. You need to know what you are selling and where to find it. Don’t worry, in this article, you will learn how:
- Create a strategy for online sales
- Sell through your store or a marketplace like Amazon and social media
- Find products for sale online
- Attract customers and convert web visitors into buyers
We also provide you with a checklist in this article so that you know what you will need to start selling online. So if you want to know how to sell online, you have chosen the right place. If you’re worried that the process is too technical or too long or too expensive, don’t worry, we’ll go through everything step by step. According to Store Builders (which we’ll get to later), selling online has never been easier than it is today.
Table of Contents
Steps to set up online sales (online sales of products)
1- Determine how you want to sell on the Internet
Deciding how to sell online can be difficult, but we’re here to show you the most popular choices to help you find the best way to sell online.
The most popular online sales methods are:
- E-commerce store builders such as Shopify and BigCommerce
- WordPress website with WooCommerce extension
- Stores like Amazon, Etsy, and eBay
- Social networks such as Facebook and Instagram
The thing to remember is that you don’t necessarily have to choose one of these 4 options, you can have your online sales through different channels without having to hire an army of employees. And skip your sleep or get another pair of hands!
how about In short, e-commerce store builders provide applications that allow you to integrate your online sales with platforms such as Amazon or Facebook. Linking your online store to social media accounts or a large marketplace can be done with the click of a button.
All this means that your products will sync with, for example, your Facebook page. So when a customer visits your Facebook page, they will see the products listed in your online store. If you update a product in the online store, it will also be updated on your social networks. You can sell online through multiple channels, but manage them all from one place!
That’s why a good Store Builder is like a smartphone. With your smartphone, you can manage your life from one place, in the same way e-commerce store builders do the same for online sales.
Sell through your online store
Running your online store is the best way to sell online because you are in complete control of everything. You decide on the look and feel of your store and how you present your products. You are not vulnerable to external factors, such as algorithm updates, nor do you have to compete in crowded markets.
If you want to change something, you can easily. You don’t have to wait for Instagram Facebook Amazon or any other site. The algorithm update means that a platform like Facebook has changed the way it decides to prioritize pages and content.
Online store builders allow you to display your products and drive sales in the fastest and easiest way. You can automate many day-to-day processes and as a result, you will have more time to focus on other parts of your business. In addition to all this, your e-commerce store can be open 24 hours a day!
The biggest platforms in the world for beginners in the field of commerce are Shopify, Wix, and BigCommerce respectively. More than 600,000 people, for example, sell online through businesses powered by Shopify.
What you need to keep in mind is that these platforms are designed to help you sell. The templates they offer you are designed with online sales in mind. Having your store gives you credibility when selling online. Most internet buyers are inherently skeptical of online stores, and the more you can give them a reason to trust you, the more likely they will buy from you.
Having your online store makes you look professional. Think about this for a moment. Would you rather buy a pair of underwear from someone who only has an Instagram account or someone who has their own branded website integrated with their social media accounts?
In the following episodes, we will take a look at the largest online marketplaces in the world. Before we move on to the next section, there are two reasons why e-commerce platforms are the best way to sell online that we want to take a look at, abandoned cart recovery and mobile usability.
Abandoned shopping cart recovery
Abandoned Cart allows you to email customers who have reached the checkout page but abandoned their order. Maybe they are distracted by something, maybe the internet is down. Either way, you can remind them about the order they placed and give them a chance to complete the order without having to fill in the details again. This can have a huge impact on your results.
Think of online selling like fishing. Retrieving an abandoned basket is like having a special net that catches a lot of fish that managed to escape your fishing rod the first time!
Responsiveness on mobile
39% of American internet users have made at least one online order through their mobile phone during the last month. Think about this statistic.
If you want to know how to sell successfully online, your store needs to be as good on smartphones as it is on a laptop or desktop. This is where e-commerce platforms come in, they automatically design your store in a way that works well on mobile. So it doesn’t matter what your customer’s screen size is, browsing and buying your products can be very enjoyable for them.
Selling on WordPress-based websites using the WooCommerce extension
WooCommerce is an e-commerce extension designed for WordPress websites that turns your WordPress site into a powerful online store. WooCommerce has been downloaded more than 5 million times and currently supports more than a third of the world’s online stores, as well as 22% of the top one million stores worldwide. In terms of trust, it couldn’t be more difficult, right? But could WooCommerce be a good choice for you?
Unlike e-commerce store builders such as Shopify and BigCommerce, WooCommerce is open-source software and requires little coding knowledge. We do not recommend using this software for beginners, but at the same time, this extension gives you complete freedom of innovation if you are a little more experienced with the keyboard and mouse.
Installing this software is free, but you have to pay for services related to hosting, security, site maintenance, and template design. WordPress officially recommends Bluehost for hosting. Not only does this platform have a great support system and plenty of space, but it also has WordPress-specific plans that make life much easier for you, while also providing automatic website updates and one-click installation for you.
In terms of in-app features, WooCommerce can’t compete with apps like Shopify and BigCommerce. Although it offers access to more than 50,000 plugins to create more functionality in your online store. In addition, you can create any e-commerce site template you want using it. If you know how to code, you can express your creativity more freely and you won’t face restrictions like e-commerce builders.
Sell on Facebook
Along with marketplaces, social networks are also a popular way to match you and your products with customers. Facebook and Instagram can help you a lot in this field, and since Facebook is the mother platform of Instagram, most of the tips and tricks mentioned for selling on Facebook can also be implemented on Instagram.
To start selling on Facebook, you need to create a business page and then create a buy button. If we want to point out some key points to be successful in selling on Facebook, the following can be good points:
Have fun: Don’t just post your products and expect a reaction. Facebook is a busy place and customers have a short attention span. Experiment with videos, riddles, questions, and even jokes, and try to get your customers’ attention and most importantly keep it.
Advertise: Offering exclusive discounts for likes on your page is a great way to build an audience.
Use quality photos: Don’t ruin your page’s credibility by uploading blurry photos.
Post consistently: This is very important, but overdoing it can also hurt you, so generally one or two posts can be good. Try different times of the day to see when you get the most response from your audience.
The problem with exclusive selling on Facebook is that you have to manage all the orders manually, which can be very time-consuming. On the other hand, if you sell through a commerce platform that is linked to your Facebook page, you can manage all your product updates and inventory from one place.
2- Work on your online sales strategy
Once you’ve decided how you want to sell online, it’s time to think about your business strategy. You don’t have to be Warren Buffett to do this(!), but it does require some preparation. We know from experience that starting an online business from scratch can be difficult. It can feel like a very, very long journey from the time a great idea is formed to the first sale.
You don’t have to be afraid; We are here to help you on this path, and one of the first steps to take is to create a business strategy. In this section, we will address some of the key questions to ask yourself before starting to sell online.
This is not a definitive list, as you will learn more about how the market works when you start selling online, but it is a good starting point. This list will also help you choose the best eCommerce platform for you because it will make you think about what your online store needs.
So grab a pen and paper and get ready to create your online business strategy. A practical business strategy doesn’t have to be full of complicated graphs or predictions that only a Harvard math graduate could understand.
Ask yourself the following questions:
1- What do you want to get? Think about how much money you want to make and how many products you want to sell in the first 6 months. Do your research and check out e-commerce success stories in your industry. Not having financial goals (even tough ones) is like driving down the highway with your eyes closed, you’ll quickly get lost and in trouble.
2- What safety margin do you want to create? Anyone can start selling online blindly, but you’re here to learn how to do it right, right? In this case, you need to determine your safe margin. See how much it costs to produce or buy and then deliver the product to you and subtract this number from the amount you want to receive from the customer. By doing this, you create a safe margin. If you’re not sure how much you want to set, do some research and see how much other sellers are charging to sell products similar to yours.
3- Who are your competitors? When it comes to online sales, standing on the shoulders of industry giants makes you see further. There is nothing wrong with learning from the best in the industry. Search Amazon, Google, and Facebook for the products you want to sell and see who appears at the top of the results. These businesses are probably the most successful sellers in the industry. Look at their product descriptions, photos, and page layouts, and make a list of the good things they do. Signing up for their email newsletter is a great way to stay updated on their competitors’ pricing and product promotions. Think about how you can do better than them, because, after all, you want to stand out, right?
4- How do people spend their money online? The better you know your customers, the better you can meet their needs. The better you meet their needs, the more money you make. A big part of this process is allowing customers to pay however they want.
5- How will customers find you and your products? Many e-commerce entrepreneurs forget to think about this when learning to sell online. You can attract customers by blogging about your products or sending email campaigns. We’ll talk more about these techniques a little later but think about which method works best for your business.
Answering these questions is a critical step in learning how to sell online successfully. This will give you a clear idea of what you hope to achieve and how to achieve it. Now it’s time to talk about the most important thing, your product.
3- What products to sell online
“Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.” We all love this quote from marketing guru Seth Godin because it rightly states that if you want to sell online, your products are very important. Your online store may look better than others, but if no one wants to buy what you’re selling, you’re not doing well.
Think about this; A restaurant can have beautiful tables and classy waiters, but if the food tastes bad, will people eat there? Likewise, if your online store looks good and your customer service is excellent, if you have poor products, you will have trouble growing.
The good news is that we’re going to show you how to make sure there’s a demand for your products and you’ll have the best chance of getting them off the shelves.
We have divided this section into three key questions:
How do you know what products to sell online?
How do you find a source for the products you want to sell online?
How do you present your products in such a way that they sell?
Your products don’t have to be physical. With online store builders like Shopify, you can easily sell digital products like e-books. The question below will help us make the right decision for our online business.
How do you know what products to sell online?
All e-commerce entrepreneurs dream of predicting the “next big thing”. Imagine knowing ahead of time what the best-selling product or trending products will be in 2021. If there was a simple way to do this, we would all be millionaires by now!
What you can do is determine the demand for your product. This is done to maximize your chances of success. How should it be done? Let’s explore some techniques for this together.
Use Google Trends: Google Trends is a great tool to understand which products are growing in popularity and which products are declining. The results of this platform are based on the popularity of your chosen search topic on Google in a certain period. Let’s say you want to sell clothes online, but you’re not sure whether to sell long coats Hawaiian shirts, or jeans. You can enter all three on this platform and see which one is growing in popularity. Enter the country where your customers live and that’s it! Make sure you look for peaks, for example, if shoes are more popular in December, you might want to increase your marketing for shoes this month.
Use keyword research: Once you have a product idea, enter it into Google’s Keyword Analysis tool. Here you will get data about the number of people who have searched for this product every month and how competitive the keywords are. As a general rule, avoid selling products that get less than 300 searches per month. What can be the purpose of advertising and marketing a product that has no demand? You want to make money selling online, right?
Read online forums: Discussion forums and review sites give you first-hand information about the problems customers are facing. It’s like sitting in a room with millions of customers and asking them what they think about a particular product. Write down any complaints that customers have and use them in your product selection and business strategy.
Learn from the big stores: Big online retailers collect huge amounts of data daily. They know best what is on the stock market and what is not. Check the product page of the biggest names in your sector and see what products are currently in high demand. Are there certain trends that you take advantage of? Also, use your Amazon, Etsy, and eBay sales data regularly by checking the “Best Sellers” page in your industry. EBay also has a Trending page. Advertisements in newspapers and magazines are also a good way to check what products department stores are supporting each month.
Sell what you love: If you’re passionate about something (like cosmetics, art, or whatever) that passion should influence your choice of what to sell. Writing product descriptions, launching marketing campaigns, and selling your product is much easier when you believe in it yourself. This does not mean that you should try to sell regardless of whether or not there is a market for your product of interest. Do your research first, but if you find that there is demand for a product you’re interested in, that should be your priority.
There are also practical issues that you need to consider. Products that are oddly sized, fragile, or perishable (like food) generally charge more for handling and shipping. Consider this when deciding what product to sell online because it has a huge impact on your business.
How to find a source to sell products online?
In general, there are three common ways to find a source to sell products online:
Buy from a wholesaler or factory: You buy the products you want from a wholesaler or factory before you add your branding and necessary marks. The costs of this model include purchasing the product, keeping it in the warehouse, protection, and shipping costs. It is very easy to use this method if you choose a reputable and reliable supplier.
Product production by yourself: If you are someone who produces products yourself, this is an attractive route for you. This practice is usually adopted by people who sell art, jewelry, and handmade items. The main costs are the materials needed and the time you have to spend to produce the product. This method is great for creating a personalized brand and gives you the freedom to control your inventory and pricing, but it can be very difficult to do without hiring staff.
Supplying the product from a drop shipper: This is a way to sell the product online that is increasing in popularity day by day. This method allows sellers to deliver their customers’ orders without having to store or control the product themselves. In simple terms, it works like this: you create a list of products that the drop shipper you have connected with, register a custom customer on your site, and pay for it. The order is given to the desired supplier and he delivers the product directly to the customer.
How do you display products in a way that makes them sell?
Once you’ve decided on what product to sell and found a supplier for it, it’s time to sell. Even if the food of a restaurant is delicious, the probability of buying from this restaurant is very low if their menu is poorly written and the pictures on the billboard outside the restaurant look bad.
So when you decide to sell products online, how are you going to display them in a way that leads to sales? The two main pillars of how to sell successfully online in this field are:
- Product photos
- Product Description
How to add a product photo
Your products may be great, but how can you sell successfully online if your photos aren’t as good as the product itself?
The interesting thing is that you don’t have to be a professional photographer to take great product photos. Just follow these general rules:
Always use quality photos, if your photos are blurry, you will lose your customers.
Always use the same dimensions for photos. You can use different tools like Paint to determine the length and width of your photo.
Show as many different angles as possible. The more you can give a 360-degree view of the product to the customer, the more comfortable they will be in buying the product.
Make sure each product has separate photos for its different colors and designs.
Give your customers a sense by providing photos of the product being used by different people.
E-commerce platforms are a great option if you want to know how to sell online because they give you a lot of freedom in how to display products. For example, using the Shopify editor, you can crop, enhance, and resize your photos or add text to product photos.
Online store builders also help you in adding Alt Text to your photos, which is a huge advantage for SEO. Alt Texts are small pieces of text that tell Google what your photo is about and help your product page rank in the Google results page. Think of Alt Tags as labels on an item in a clothing store. They will tell you everything you need to know about the dress, color, size, material, etc. so that you know exactly what you are buying.
How to write product descriptions
We don’t rely too much on product descriptions or labels. The words you add to your store should do much more than just describe the products. They are one of the most effective ways to attract customers for you.
The biggest reason for this is SEO. Search engine optimization should be one of your top priorities when you want to create winning product descriptions. SEO is the technique of increasing traffic to your store through organic search results. To rank for topics that are related to your products, your descriptions should include keywords or popular words that your customers are searching for.
Let’s say you sell Hawaiian shirts, your product description could be something like “Colorful Hawaiian shirts available. We have shirts with cheap vintage designs that are available in different colors and sizes.
Words like Hawaiian shirts or cheap vintage design shirts are examples of keywords. When writing a description, make a list of keywords related to your product and make sure you use at least 3 or 4 of them in your description.
Let’s take a look at the dos and don’ts when writing product descriptions:
Do not copy and paste the description of the product manufacturer. This looks amateurish and Google may penalize you for duplicate content by removing your site from the search results rankings.
Highlight the benefits of the product along with its capabilities to your customers. For example, don’t just describe your pink Hawaiian shirt (capability), explain how this shirt can help your customer look cool at a friendly party. (Advantage)
Do not use clichés such as “change and transformation in you” or “something that everyone should have”. The more you can be like yourself and not like a robot, the more customers will pay attention to you.
Write for your customers. Speak their language and think about what motivates them to buy. With the right words, you can even sell ice to Eskimos!
Do not change your style from one product to another. This creates confusion for customers and makes your store look disorganized.
Add social verification. There is no better seal of approval than customers who have bought your product and are satisfied with it. This is simple to do. For example, with online store builders, you can add reviews and any media coverage you want to your product page.
do not lie This may seem obvious, but many people who want to know how to sell online make the mistake of selling their products.
Tell your story. If your business has an interesting story, don’t be afraid to tell it.
4- Checklist for items needed for online sales
Here’s where we give you a checklist of the key things you need to sell online, from checkout to shipping. Once you’ve implemented the checklist, you’re ready to start recruiting. The way it works is that you go through the checklist item by item and for each one, you ask yourself if you have thought about it or not. If the answer is yes, then you know how to sell online and you are ready to start making money.
On the other hand, if it’s something you haven’t thought about before, you must do.
Shipping and Order Fulfillment: You must consider a shipping and delivery method for your products.
Payment: You need to add a payment option to your store.
Customer service: Make sure buyers have at least one way to contact you.
Licenses and Taxes: Make sure you have the necessary licenses to start an online sales business.
Security: Make sure your store or page has adequate security to protect your customers’ data.
5- Customer attraction and sales
Now that you’ve gone through the above checklist, it’s time to attract customers. This is an interesting and slightly more difficult part of selling online.
We will introduce you to some effective ways to market your store. Customer attraction tricks that we also use and you can start taking advantage of them. These are methods that give results without costing you even a thousand Tomans. In this article, we will not discuss online advertising, because if you are new to online sales, there are other methods that you should go to first.
Don’t think you have to try all of these techniques. Try them all to see which one produces the best results for you. One of the useful exercises in this field is to imagine that you are the target customer and ask yourself where I was looking for the products you want. Did I go to social networks or Google? Don’t forget, that the more channels you cover, the higher your chances of selling will be.
Social networks
One of the best weapons in your marketing arsenal is social media. You have access to millions of customers at your fingertips. Don’t forget to post links about your products, promote exclusive offers, and share information about your brand on different networks.
To get started, we suggest using Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. You can keep up with trends related to your business by using hashtags in your posts. These tools are also great for communicating with customers. The cost of entering social networks is very low, one of the tools that can help you manage posts on different platforms is HootSuite.