Some tips if you start your online store
Recently several people have asked me for advice when assembling its first e-commerce, either as its first project in Internet riding because they come from a completely different job, or as a way to bring to a wider audience the current business already has offline.
In both cases, the first thing they do when thrown, usually buy the domain and hosting and installing Prestashop or Magento and filling store of products, all references to products to sell. Once this is done, ask as it might not reach me orders, but on the Internet the thing is not so simple. You have everything up is just the beginning, so we will try to see just some tips if you start an online store:
Takes care of the presence: When your business is online every pixel of your website will be seen by a potential buyer, and if there is something that remove trust him look bad, low quality, crappy, or not like him or take to doubt, that the purchase may not ultimately occur. Therefore, we should consider things like doing a crappy logo, using a suitable image editor avoid pixeled images, fonts of beginner, avoid putting all text exclamations in capitals (.. that Internet is screaming ), and if possible, help of a professional designer, good for everyday work, or at least for advice. Belittle this aspect of our business, not realizing that the whole image of your company in an online store, comes down to what you can see on a screen, and therefore everything is all what worth.
Builds confidence: In an e-commerce always should always work to increase user confidence in us, and this can be achieved in different ways:
- Making clear and visible conditions, destinations and shipping prices.
- Showing all buy back options, if any.
- Being transparent everything possible in every detail that may seem unclear.
- Showing our company data, fiscal, physical address, and more.
- Clearing all doubts as making clear payment modes supported.
- Creating a set of frequently asked questions which clarify everything askable.
- Adding further forms of contact and live online if possible: form, phone, chat, etc etc. Whenever you can meet optimally.
- Getting the trust seals that are relevant to our type of business.
Offers all options: Sometimes the difference in Internet to get a sale, or not get it, and that gets our competition is a little thing like not having available payment method preferred by the user, or not use the type shipping is used and not see the equivalence of the cost in your currency or more subtle things, like not having a contact form or an email address to ask questions. Those details may tip the balance of a purchase end, so knowing we should not skimp on offer each day more options to our potential clients, so that tear down every barrier one by one until they finally produce purchase.
Makes the most of the buying process: As my friend says the great Ricardo Lop, “More clicks, fewer sales,” thus:
- Do not force the customer to register to buy, let the registry as optional as long as you can, avoid significant friction that will be passed on in sales.
- Simplifies the process from selecting a product until you pay as much as possible, if necessary eliminates steps that are not absolutely essential as you enter the address when there is no physical product shipping.
- Sample as automatically as possible on the data already the user understands: country, language ..
- And all the details that you see based on usability to allow the shopping experience easier, faster and effective.
Make yourself known: The advantage of Interne about the real world, is that the Internet is like if you could define where your store is located, because it can influence the number of people who visit, depending on the traffic you get to bring it. With more resources/efforts, your store can be located in the equivalent of Seventh Avenue NY, and less or none, it is as if in the coldest glacier in Antarctica. Therefore, you must define your target audience and find ways/strategies to reach him in the most efficient way to visit your store. And although traffic is not the only goal but revenue. Neither the number of users but the quality, if it’s a starting point.
Differentiate yourself of competition: Probably by now you build the shop that you build, already there will be competition, but direct, indirect, or else maybe if something new will have it soon, so once you admitted this, it is worth to define from the start a differentiation strategy that makes the rest us stand out in front of our future customers and that when we prefer to choose us before the rest. You can come by the visual side, with the design of the store product images to be made by us, the quality of what we offer, the after sales service we provide, that is your choice, but look for ways to do things better than others, and if possible, are difficult to imitate others. This way you ensure a clear perceptible advantage.
Measure, analyze and study: Every action you do, whether it’s promotional, makeover, or whatever, should you be continually seeing consequences brings tried correctly interpret the signals, otherwise you will not have idea if served to something and therefore do not know whether to go that route or opt for another. So try from day measure, analyze and understand your business in detail.
These are just a few to start, another day expand and will provide clear examples. If you like, you can help me in the comments for the next post.
