You’ve launched your ecommerce site. Now what?
Chances are, traffic to your ecommerce site is low, and customers are few and far between. That’s OK. You’re just starting out. Don’t panic, instead consider these three tips to help you get your site off the ground.
1. Check your Prices
It’s always a good idea to compare your prices with the prices of competitors. Internet shopping gives people an unimaginable amount of choices. With a little bit of scrolling and a few clicks, consumers are able to find the best deals online.
If your products are the most expensive on the web, people simply won’t buy them. So, compare your prices and adjust them as much as you can.
2. Build your Credibility
Few people will buy products off a site that looks like it was made in the year 2000. If your site doesn’t look fresh, professional, and credible, you need to tweak it so it does. If that means you need to hire a freelance graphic designer because your web design skills are lacking, don’t hesitate to do so. It will be a worthwhile investment.
Consider investing in a VeriSign certificate as well. A certificate of this kind will help your customers know that you’re a trustworthy retailer who isn’t looking to scam them out of their hard-earned money.
3. Market your site
This is probably the most difficult part of establishing your ecommerce site, but it’s arguably the most important part.
How well you market your site will directly influence how many customers are able to find you and purchase your products. Set up a Facebook and Twitter account for your ecommerce business. Add and follow everyone you know. Let your friends and family members know what you’re doing. If they visit your site and have a pleasant experience, they’ll tell people they know about it. Word spreads quickly.
In addition to stepping up your social media game, you also should consider search engine optimizing your site’s content and product descriptions. There are basic, free tutorials that will help you do this online.
Once you’ve search engine optimized your content, consider networking with other sites and bloggers to acquire a few links to your site. This will help build its visibility on search engines.
The tips above will put your ecommerce site on the right track toward making the kind of profits you desire.
Running an ecommerce business, much like running any business, requires a good amount of work. Don’t give up if you don’t see the results you want right away. Eventually, customers will come to your site if you’re providing a good product at a good price.
Guest post is by Carolyn, a guest blogger on the subjects of ecommerce, making money online, and order management software that works with Shopify, 3dcart, and BigCommerce.
Twitter: GeraldNitram
on May 28, 2012 at 7:37 pm said:
I’m getting this feeling that if some sellers would see the low price of the competitor, they’ll lower their prices even more. While that would certainly influence a lot of buyers, what could happen here is that you won’t be getting any profit from it at all. In fact, you can have a deficit. It doesn’t matter if your prices are higher or lower than your competitors’ prices. The thing here is to keep the people engaged, and then share something about your products and services.
Twitter: SeoRizwan
on May 28, 2012 at 2:21 pm said:
I think proper image description and clear description are great things are launch of E-Commerce site.Indeed proper marketing with social media promotions are helpful for getting visitor but according to me the first point to grab visitor attraction is proper and clear description and product images gallery.
Thank you for sharing these tips. Well I must agree with you that marketing a site is the most difficult part and the most challenging. But once your site got the spot its the most rewarding feeling.
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Hi John, Good point. It’s not like the good old days where you could create a site and people would see it.
To get traffic today you’re highly dependent on your marketing and social marketing efforts.
Liz
Great tips, I think marketing your site is the most important step because if you don’t market your site won’t have the necessary presence online to attract customers for your business.
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Twitter: Monja Wessel
on May 23, 2012 at 2:57 am said:
I think checking out competitors prices is generally a good idea but some markets just set their prices lower and lower. I think you need to figure why your product is unique enough and worth to be paid for.
Very good, very interesting, very complete. I really thank you for sharing this tips that, if some of them are well known, they are not as much respected as they should be.
Congratulations for this great post Ms. Liz, and very nice to share it!
Twitter: funtober
on May 21, 2012 at 8:07 pm said:
Paid advertising through Google Adwords and Facebook should probably also be added to the list of marketing methods for ecommerce websites. And I would consider paying affiliate marketers to promote your product.
Liz, this is the really very good information for those people who are in start up stage. I think after launching the website we have to start to build it credibility. As if the brand name is good enough then we don’t have to worry about traffic because it will be automatically driven through that brand name.
Traffic is really needed once we have released our e-commerce site.all the things you have listed here are very useful, specially the first part to know our price because we all know that people costumer chooses products that is cheaper.
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