7 tips to grow your online store

You’ve just created your online store and eventually added some products to the catalog. For that reason, you are very likely to be excited and full of ideas, but also a little intimidated. If this is your first experience with e-commerce, you don’t want to waste your valuable time and money on tools and tasks that won’t make your store run as quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively as possible. Thinking about it, discover 7 tips to grow your online store with simple and valuable advice for your business!

1 – Know your industry products and services

The best ideas are born out of hobbies, interests, and passions, where the e-store owner saw an opportunity because no one else was present in that particular niche. Or better yet, they knew for a fact that with hard work and dedication, they could do it better! Don’t underestimate the power of the niche.

2 – See what the competition is doing in your sector

Before considering or starting a virtual store for good, it is advisable to fully research your competition. We recommend, on average, performing an Internet search by entering two or three keywords or even phrases that your target customers or prospects are likely to use to find the types of products or services you intend to sell online.

After this process, look at the hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of pages already online doing the same, if your product is not innovative or unique. If for some reason the numbers are overwhelming, you will need to become even more niche or plan to be a very competitive and aggressive business, resulting in more capital involved as well as your time invested.

3 – Have a good pricing parameter and profit margin

Another important point for you to become competitive and still for profit after taking everything into account is to make sure you include all your costs for an answer: SSL certificate, hosting, platform, domain, email, themes, plugins, extensions, module add-ons, monthly fees, payment gateways, credit card processing fees, advertising, inventory, packaging material, among others.

4 – Create a privacy policy and general policies for your store

In addition, one of the points that many entrepreneurs do not observe and understand are the policies applicable to their niche and practical business. For that reason, you should have a conspicuously posted policy that states what you do with your customer information. Undoubtedly, this process facilitates the building of trust. Never put one thing in this policy and then do another. So be ethical, and straightforward and state exactly how you will manage, distribute and use customer information.

5 – Have a strict, transparent, and priority security policy

Another important point is also to have and maintain a good security policy, but this policy needs to explain exactly what you do, in detail, to protect your customer’s payment information. Explain that you are on secure servers with SSL (security certificate on the server) and why. Are you protected by a third-party verification service? The more information you can provide, the better to instill the confidence your customers need to share their sensitive data with you.

6 – Have good product descriptions and objective technical specifications

Know that generic descriptions or copied texts are not enough, and neither are those that are the same as those of everyone who sells the same thing as you. Remember that you need to differentiate yourself from the competition and not make more of the same. So, details, sizes, colors, and dimensions are needed, along with some good marketing puns that make the potential customer realize that they need, want, and must have this product!

Also, ask the following question: “Will I access and organize your products myself?” If not, plan to hire someone to create a spreadsheet or do the data entry for you, in which case outsourcing may be your best option. If you prefer, contact us and request a proposal !

7 – Create a structured marketing strategy and set a budget

Last but not least, we advise you to create a plan and budget of time and financial capital to promote your new online store. What are you going to do to get your site “off the internet”? There is no such thing as just “build it and they will come” in the online world – if you’re lucky if you’re found with that approach. Yes, once you open an online store, you can start promoting it without spending a dime.

However, if you want to get lots of customers to your e-commerce site faster, however, you may need to invest in some marketing. In addition, pay-per-click campaigns can run from a few hundred to thousands of reais per month, depending on the competitiveness of your market and also your short, medium, and long-term goals.

It is also important to note that running paid advertising campaigns on search engines like Google and also on social networking sites will also require time to test and find the ideal parameter for your business. Also, it’s definitely worth spending time discovering and playing around with all of your options and thus creating a solid marketing plan before opening an online store.

Do you need help with your online store that you are starting and don’t know where to start? Request a proposal!