The Benefits of Having an Online Store
Having an online store provides the obvious benefit of having a direct income stream connected with your website. There are several other benefits that people may not consider initially when deciding between having their own digital shop or choosing to promote their products on an online marketplace platform, such as for example ebay or Etsy:
Lower Rates
As well as charging a monthly fee for their services, online marketplaces will also often charge a premium per transaction, this can be upwards of 30%. Conversely, with your own online shop you will only usually pay a small amount to the payment processor per order, usually around 2-3% plus a small fee (usually around £1.99) per sale.
Full Control
The main issue with hosting your products with an online marketplace is that ultimately, it’s not your account, it belongs to the service provider (eBay for example). As a result, using one of these platforms means you are subject to their terms and conditions, that can change on a dime, without your say (i.e. increases in rates). On top of this with cybercrime on the rise the amount of hacking, phishing and other scams means that your account can be taken from you instantly, sometimes without any means of recourse (unless you pay extra for support).
With your own website, you are in full control. You decide the terms and the security of your site and all information is readily available to you so that if there is an issue it can be resolved quickly and effectively at minimum expense.
Targeted Approach
With an online marketplace such as eBay, you’re a small fish in a big pond. Although you can promote your brand on their platform, ultimately you’re promoting theirs, and are limited in the ways you can market your products, subject to their terms (with Facebook you will always pay extra to use their marketing services, for example).
With your own website, there are many ways to promote your products, some of the them free, some of them for a premium service, but always subject to your decision, the possibilities are truly endless. On top of this, you’ll be able to leverage the popularity of your brick-and-mortar business and SEO, to build a targeted audience who are interested in your products specifically and who you can develop a relationship with, providing a personable service and developing return customers.
How to Promote your Online Store
There are some challenges when first setting up an online store. It’s a competitive space, and unless you already have some national (or international) reach, you’re competing with larger companies and the online marketplaces for your audience.
There are however some very effective methods to help grow your audience and increase sales over time that can result in having a dedicated client base of customers who appreciate your service, recommend your products to others and come back to order from you again and again. In simple terms, here are the things that help you get an edge in the digital marketplace:
SEO
You may have the best designed store in the world, with stunning visuals and the latest features, but unless your site is optimised for search, you won’t get very far in reaching the right people that are looking for your products. SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimisation”, which fundamentally means Google (covering over 80% of all search traffic). Some key features of optimising your online store to appear more on the first page on Google for key search terms relating to your business are:
- Optimising your Google Business Profile to ensure you have reviews (that you respond too), appear on Google Maps, and have images and up to date information (phone number etc.) relating to your business, and to also make sure that these features are integrated into your site (Google loves Google!)
- Optimising your home page (the first page Google lists and people visit) to ensure that it includes the most relevant content and important key-phrases that people use when searching for your products and services
- Optimising your product category pages to ensure people who are searching for these products or types of products are landing on your website, again using keyword research to find the right language and include your USP’s (unique selling points) that promote in simple terms why people should order products from your website over others.
There are other aspects of this, however this is a good place to start. This type of work must be done by an experienced Web Master who is keyed into your website’s Analytics and the movements of your industry online, to adapt it over time based on what people are searching for, and how they first interact with your website.
Best Practices
When optimising your online store, it’s always important to consider the target audience for your products. If for example, the people you’re attempting to reach are in a 40-60 age bracket, it makes sense to accommodate them by increasing font sizes, ensuring your site runs quickly and making your site easy to navigate and your products as accessible as possible.
By including your quality-of-life features, you make it more likely for the people visiting your site to stick around, browse more and make a purchase. While it’s always a priority to ensure your site is mobile ready, has a modern look and feel and slick visuals, function always trumps form. Sometimes, it may be of more value to compromise on aesthetics, in order to have the best impact on your audience.
Paid Advertising
If you’re looking to take your online store to the next level, paid advertising is the way to go. There are several platforms for this, social promotion campaigns on Facebook or Instagram for example. One of the best ways, is through “pay per click” (PPC) advertising on Google, specifically, through a Google Shopping Campaign.
As discussed, Google basically owns the digital highways when it comes to promoting your products to your audience, PPC campaigns give your advertising priority at the top of the page. For an online-sales focused campaign, Google Shopping Ads that make your products appear right at the top of the page are the optimal way forward.
As an experienced Web Master I am able to setup a shopping feed for your business to ensure your products are advertised right at the top of Google’s first page. This can then be optimised by comparing your products to competitors offers and adjusting them to make your products, prices and USP’s (for example discount offers) more appealing. The other benefit of shopping ads is they are less cost per click that “Search” (text-based) ads, more targeted since they display for people searching for your specific products and a much more visual medium, making them more attractive to potential buyers.
Re-Marketing
Paid advertising is great if you have the budget, however, there are other ways to “Re-Market” your products for a minimum rate. Google Shopping Ads can be setup as an organic search campaign for example, these have less priority that paid ads but will still promote your products more and help improve your ranking.
Other methods include those you can setup directly on your website such as an email list building and newsletter campaign, text promotions (generally more successful than email), and other methods such as automated messages for “Cart Abandonment” when visitors start the buying process but don’t finish it.
With a degree of knowledge and experience anyone can apply the methods previously mentioned at a basic level, however it takes an experienced Web Developer to manage, optimise and improve these campaigns over time to get results.
What it Takes to Get More Sales
It’s great to have an attractive modern website, but in the competitive online space, it isn’t enough. It takes someone with an understanding of the digital market, which is a lot faster in pace than with sales in a brick-and-mortar shop and required a degree of constant attention.
I’ve helped many of my clients grow their online sales, increase leads and bookings and make more money through their site. If this interests you, call me on 07768016737 to setup a 10-minute face-to-face meeting today.