Business Tips: 3 Major Ways To Make Your Online Store A Success

Starting an online store nowadays is common among youths and anyone really looking to sell either their services or products. Being in the blogging industry for a few years now, I have noticed us bloggers expand into online retailing. I mean, we already have a platform. So, why not expand into another area of our field of expertise.

While in University, a few years back doing my Undergraduate degree. I used to run an online baseball cap retail platform. I DIY’ed a pompom cap and boom I started getting lots of people ask me where I got them from even got stopped on the street countless time. So, as a business person that I am, I decided to make lots of these caps and sell them on an online store while the trend lasts. It was called “Bizoux”, anyone remember that?

Now, this is very important when you are starting an online store. Know why you are starting and how long you plan to run this platform for. I knew I wanted to run it for a short period while the trend lasts which made me consider a cheap (Free) platform to stock my products and I wasn’t really worried that my website link wasn’t a “dot com” website. If you are planning to run it for a long period of time, then your case would be different.

Now, that you’ve launched your online store – congratulations!!! How do you drive traffic to it?

• Provide Valuable product/service: Let’s make it clear. If your products and services are A1, people will fall in, come back and recommend you to others. You can have the best team, design, picture, and marketing tool but if your product isn’t as great, you’ve lost the battle even before starting at all. When I started selling my blogging ebook, which you can find by clicking HERE. I tried my best to make it exclusive to what I already have on my blog and I can boost of 3 people who said they got it because my regular blog tips helped them a lot. So, providing great products and services is key as it will help you build that healthy relationship.
• Take advantage of Influencer marketing: I know as a young business pers, you might be thinking: why would I give a free product to a blogger?I can’t afford it. Well, Influencer marketing is one of the biggest trends now in fashion retailing and the earlier you jump on that, the better. If you are still confused and don’t know how to go about it. Check out my post HERE where I talked about ‘How to successfully collaborate with an influencer‘ and another one HERE where I talked about ‘5 things to consider and ways to organizing a successful influencer marketing event‘.
• “Dot com” factor: Remember I said I didn’t bother about having a “dot come” website because my platform was planned to function for a very short time but if you are considering this online store as a long-term business, then it is essential to have a “dot com” website. One because it’s easy to remember and share. Secondly, it looks professional which will make people see you as a “real online store“. 
• Extra – Separate business social platform: Opening a separate business Instagram account. You do not want to mix your personal page with your business page. I mean, It’s free to open a new Instagram account, so you have no excuse at all if you are trying to promote your products or services on your personal page [Exception: Online if your personal page relates directly to your product or service]. For example: My personal page is all about my blogging, so promoting my ebook on there seems right and appropriate.
• Extra: Branding is key!

Thank you for reading.

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