Day: October 16, 2021

Selling online doesn’t always have to be a hassle, with so many platforms and a lot of options to choose from, it is possible for you to feel overwhelmed. Do you pay for someone to create a website for you, or is it social media, or even placed advertisements? In this article, we will tell you just what you can do to start selling online in a few easy steps 

 

Use Facebook

With Facebook, you don’t need a website to start selling online. Everyone loves Facebook. With over 2.8 billion monthly active users, you can gain access to millions of online users that may be interested in your business. You can even set up a Facebook shop where your customers can directly select and pay for your products without you needing a website. You can create it for free, you just need a business page to get started. For a step-by-step guide on how to set up your own Facebook shop, you can check the business tools and resources section on Facebook. 

 

After setting it up, you need to figure out how to sell products on Facebook without a website. You must add details to your Facebook Store just like you would set up a website. You’ll need to create a collection of quality products and give them matching descriptions that give information about the type of product. Collections are items grouped by category in your Facebook shop. For example, “Clothes,” “Shoes,” “Accessories.” This makes it easier to find products when they visit your online store. Facebook Messenger will serve very well as a customer service platform to support your existing store. With Facebook, you can also create relevant content that supports your business and also engage your followers

 

Regular posts target your current followers only, while boosted posts and Facebook Ads allow you to reach out to a larger potential audience and attract more customers. With Facebook ads, you can target specific audiences and promote brand awareness. 

 

Sell on Instagram

Just like Facebook, Instagram has grown from just a social sharing app to an eCommerce force to reckon with as more and more businesses are making use of the platform to reach more audiences like never before. 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business on the platform, so it makes sense to connect with potential shoppers via Instagram, especially if your products fall into popular Instagram niches. Examples include fashion, beauty, and skincare, lifestyle, food, and artwork. By owning a business profile, you will have access to better tools for account management and built-in analytics to know how your content is performing. 

 

You need a loyal fanbase to engage your business on Instagram so it is important to grow loyalty among your fans. Stories are great for getting to know your audience (stickers with polls and questions), building anticipation for new products, and sharing behind-the-scenes clips of your store in action. Create longer videos for IGTV to explain how to use your complex product. Or, shoot short reels to show off your fashion brand. You can use paid promotions to show your posts and stories to a wider audience on Instagram, just like you can boost posts on Facebook. Instagram also allows you to run various ad campaigns, be it a photo, video, stories, or ads on the Explore page

 

Sell on a Marketplace

Marketplaces generate thousands of visitors a month themselves, so you don’t have to put as much effort into marketing as when you sell on your website. People that visit a marketplace are already in buying mode. With your product in front of their faces, you already stand the chance of making a sale. Popular market places like Jumia, Konga, and Jiji are known to attract a high number of visitors monthly and this can greatly influence your quality product. To start selling on a marketplace, you need to create a seller’s account on the platform of your choice. Keep in mind that marketplaces charge you a percentage of sales made from their platform. Bearing in mind that there are a lot of marketplaces to choose from, it is important to think of your target audience and whether or not they visit these platforms. This will help to influence your decision for good. 

 

By using relevant keywords, you are ensuring that your product pops up when searched. Don’t hesitate to write a long description showing the use of your product. Support with relevant high-quality photos, show your product from different angles, and demonstrate it in use. Use reviews you get to how to present your product better and communicate with your users. 

 

Be sure to get the best of all platforms by ensuring best practices that can help boost your chance of making a sale. Don’t forget to connect with your customers by making them feel special. Those are the ones who will come back to make another purchase or even better, refer your product to a friend or colleague. 

Before your first order, it is important to analyze how shipping affects your business costs and eventually how to charge your customers for it. You must choose the right strategy that will cover all your products and delivery location. 

 

One thing you must be able to do is to calculate the actual shipping costs of delivering your product. And a number of factors can influence the cost of shipping your product. The weight and dimensions, the destination, the value of the product(precious stones), delivery time. All of these are important considerations when calculating the cost of shipping. 

 

After you find a shipping service to use, calculate your shipping costs to make sure your margins can stay high. 

 

For example, 

If your product costs N50,000

shipping fee of N4000, 

packaging cost N2100, 

 

Total production cost is N56100, 

To make a profit of roughly 50% on your product, you need to sell it for roughly N90,000.

 

This is a rough analysis of the need to factor in the costs of shipping when listing your product online. 

 

Calculating shipping costs will help you choose a shipping strategy and decide at what price to sell the products. If your margin is high, you may want to absorb the costs of shipping domestic orders and offer free shipping to your local customers. To compensate for shipping expenses, you can slightly increase product prices in your online store. 

 

Alternatively, you can choose to charge your customers the exact amount that you pay for getting their order shipped.

 

After you have calculated your shipping costs and how it affects your business, you will need to choose a shipping strategy that will cover all of your products and destination zones. There are three popular shipping strategies

 

1. If you have a local offline store, you can offer an in-store pickup service for customers who want to pick up the product after ordering online. Customers that come in will also have access to more physical products and you can offer them discount coupons for picking up their item.  
2. Charging exact shipping costs from your customers. After paying for their product on your online store, on delivery, they would pay for shipping 
3. If you deliver products yourself or your products have a similar weight and size, you can offer flat rate shipping for delivering your products to the customer’s location. For example, you can charge N2000 for the local delivery of any order in your store.

 

Knowing how much money your business pays to logistics companies will help you determine how to compensate your profits. After all, you’re doing business to make profits. 

 

You have just created an online store for your business, it is important to know what helps you drive traffic to that website. It is this traffic that will eventually lead to sales for your business. The more people that visit your online store, the higher your chance of making a sale. How do you then run a proper eCommerce business? At the end of this read you’ll be able to answer this question. 

Targeting the right audience with content from your website is important because only people who are interested in your business will click to visit your site after they see your ad. That’s why your target market cannot be everyone. You must know specific qualities and traits your business speaks to. The perfect avatar for someone who is interested in your business is always one person. One person that you are sure will need your business or service. With data from the Internet, you can reach millions of people who fit the perfect avatar for your business. All these people will be your defined audience that you’ll eventually cater to. It is important to under how analytics work and the use of it to know where your potential customers are and how they are finding your online store. One of the most important tools for analytics is Google analytics. 

Promote your store with your friends. 

Your friends and family are an important source of free traffic and if you’ve been sleeping on it before, it’s time to wake up. Word of mouth marketing is good to help you drive free traffic to your business. Talk to them about it, ask them to share your post on social media, or recommend your products to a friend or colleague. People are more likely to buy from your store when it’s recommended by someone they trust. This however cannot be your only source of traffic but it is highly recommended when you’re just starting out with your online store. 

Build a mailing list. 

Email marketing is an easy and free way to build connections with hot prospects for your business. By adding their emails, you can regularly promote new product picks, discounts and other freebies directly to them. Email marketing generates a ton of traffic if done right and can prove to be an important source of traffic for your store. 

Here are some tips to help you grow your mailing list. 

1.  Add a subscribe form to the home page of your website.
2. Add a subscribe form to your social media pages.
3. Offer a freebie in exchange for email addresses. 
4. Add a signup form to check out on your online store 
5. Encourage your subscribers to recommend your newsletter. 

Use Social Media. 

It’s a new world at our fingertips. The world is social and so are you. Your business should not be any different because it’s a part of the world. Even google as a company is on social media and they use it as an important tool to generate even more traffic for their company. You might say, what does google need more traffic for? Traffic is king, the more traffic you generate for your business, the more your chances of creating a scalable and profitable business. One place to get free traffic for your business is social media. Choose a platform that suits your target audience the most and create a business profile there. For example: if you sell home accessories, Pinterest might be the best place for you. Be sure to post relevant content daily in order to appear on their feed. Don’t be too salesy and create valuable content for your followers. You can run contests and giveaways to increase your following and eventually increase your site traffic. 

List your store in online directories.

Get listed in free online directories like Google my business to increase your chances of getting traffic to your online store. You can make a list of other directories that are relevant to your business. Find out how to register and follow the instructions. Add a link to your website to your profile on directories, and make sure to include as much information about your store as possible. Don’t forget to update your listings regularly.

• Some directories are well-ranked on Google, which could help with the site ranking higher for relevant searches for your business.

Optimize your Google my Business listing 

Getting listed on Google isn’t enough, you also want to show up in searches relevant to your business and location.

To optimize your Google My Business listing:

1. Fill in all of the details about your store, such as your business description, hours, address, and of course, a link to your website. Update this information as soon as it changes.
2. Add photos of your storefront and products. Businesses with photos have 35% more click-throughs to their websites than businesses without photos.
3. Keep the business description short but detailed. Include relevant keywords and search phrases in your description.
4. Manage customer reviews and reply to them.
5. Share offers, events, and products directly to Google Search and Maps through posts on Google My Business.

Your new online store is a gateway to generating more profit for your business and if it is managed well, it has all the potential to help you scale your hustle.