We live in the modern age where we have more online stores than physical stores. Every business owner is now moving to the online marketplace due to its benefits; one of which includes enabling business owners to make more money on ecommerce, as they are able to reach a wider and global audience.
A lot of people also prefer shopping online; as it is easy and more convenient. All you have to do as an entrepreneur is build your online store via Shopify, WooCommerce, SquareSpace, BigCommerce or whatever works for you, add your products and every other required information, do a few tweaks here and there and you are good to go.
A lot of ecommerce entrepreneurs always ask/wonder how much they can make on their ecommerce store. While there is no guarantee as to how much you can actually make from an ecommerce store or if you can make any money at all, there are certain things you have to do in order to make money on your ecommerce store.
What then are these thing you can do to ensure you make money on your ecommerce store? Keep reading to find out
1. Create a Blog to Drive Traffic:
One of the hardest part of running an online store is driving traffic to your store. Traffic in this case are visitors who may be interested in what you sell thus, leading to sales.
Owning a blog alongside your online store is an organic inbound marketing strategy that will not only drive organic visitors to your store, but can also improve your store’s ranking in search results.
The purpose of the blog on the ecommerce site is to promote the products being sold thereby, persuading people into buying it whilst driving traffic to the website.
As such, every content on the blog should be a marketing plan talking about the products sold on the site and how it can be used. Thus, answering customers questions, understanding what the customers might be looking for and, addressing customer pain points.
An example can be found on the online fashion store Bentigos, which has a blog attached to its online store where they give fashion tips, talk about outfits and accessories, and everything fashion related that aligns with their website and what they sell.
Through this, they will link to items on their site which will promote and increase sales, whilst answering customer questions and at the same time, increase their ranking in search results.
2. Focus on Online Marketing/Adverts:
Although requiring a lot of investment, online marketing is one of the best ways to grow your ecommerce business fast and quickly draw potential customers to your ecommerce store thus leading to sales.
Many people use to advertise on Amazon but now that it has become more competitive, thankfully, there are other ways to advertise your products online in order to reach your target audience and generate sales.
One of which involves content marketing (highlighted in number 1). Sponsored ads on Google and social networks (Facebook and Instagram) have proven to be effective as it promotes growth and increases sales and, almost anyone can do it; although it requires investment in terms of money so you have go make sure you do it well in order to reap the reward.
The easiest marketing technique is social media marketing as it does not involve investment, money wise. All you have to do is create an account on either Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or whatever works for you, and then promote your business, news, product reviews and blog articles on these social networks which generates traffic to your website. It also creates an avenue for you to communicate with your customers which builds brand loyalty.
Another is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is important for every ecommerce owner who wants to grow organically and increase traffic to their store without spending money. SEO marketing involves optimizing certain areas of your store/website so it ranks well in search results. Such areas include page speed, content optimization, product keywords, product images, meta title, image optimization, website description, link building, etc, in order ti boost search engine rankings.
Another method which probably did not cross your mind is email marketing which can drive more traffic than people think. It involves creating a good email marketing strategy, which can convert into a sales channel that drives traffic to your store every time. An email newsletter sent out to signed up subscribers should contain, giveaways to attract people, discount, informational content, coupon codes, information on new products, etc.
3. Build a Trusted Brand:
People will not patronize you if your brand seems shady. There are so many businesses, while some are real and others are fake, you want to build a trusted brand and separate your brand from the fake ones so people can patronise you. How then can you do that?
First thing is to choose and register your business name. Once your business name is registered, your business becomes credible and verified (click here to find out how you can also verify your business).
Then, after getting your domain/business website at this point, get an Employer Identification Number (EIN), even if you have no employees, and lastly, depending on your state/country, if regardless of operating online, you still need sales tax, then you need to obtain a business permits and licenses to ensure your business is authorised by the government.
4. Use Different Channels to Promote your Business:
One of the important aspect of an ecommerce store is to get your business out there, into the eyes of everyone and as such, being in different locations online is important for growth. In order to grow, you need a strategy that is backed up by channels of distribution thus creating business diversity and expansion.
Although it is a challenge for most ecommerce store owners, you need to consider listing your products on different online channels like Amazon, Walmart, eBay, etc.
Always ensure you have a good warranty as well as a distribution agreement with the distributors to ensure you maximize your profit to the fullest potential.