6 Ecommerce Tips For Beginners

The world of eCommerce is a huge world, prone to constant changes. With so many sellers and customers, new trends emerge almost every year. If you want to be one step ahead of everyone else, you need to learn as much as you can about those trends.

That is the only way to stand out and beat your competition. When you do things like everyone else, you are no better than your rivals. And that won’t bring you growth and success.

So, instead of following everyone else and doing what they are doing, go a step further. In this post, you have a chance to learn more about some lesser-known tips that can help you get an edge in this fierce eCommerce game.

Don’t be afraid to experiment

Experimenting is often frowned upon. When you read about eCommerce marketing strategies, you will rarely come across experimenting. To no surprise, not many people believe this works, and mainly because they aren’t brave enough to do it.

So, what does it mean to experiment, in such circumstances? For a start, you shouldn’t be afraid of creating diverse ads for different products you offer. You can also test out various copies, formats, and images.

Hitting a home run with ads brings in more people to your store and drives sales. What’s more, when you create profitable ads, you will be able to start experimenting with other aspects of your website.

A lot of business owners focus on improving their website first. However, you can’t know how the customers will respond to different features if you don’t have any customers yet.

Do not assume things about them. Instead, experiment, try different approaches, and see what will best resonate with your audience.

Start building your audience as soon as possible

Although many marketers do not recommend building out your channels day one, they just might not be right. You should start building out an audience as soon as you have bought your store domain name. 

For instance, you could start with posts on social media platforms with the aim to grow a fan base. This doesn’t mean that you should aim to immediately sell on Facebook or Instagram. But, you should do your best to grow a fan base so that when you launch the first set of products or services, you have an audience ready to buy.

Therefore, once you set up your store, start collecting email addresses and building referral traffic. If you start this practice from day one, you are creating a high chance of growing your customer base faster.

When you place your focus on building out your social media, email list, and referral traffic, you won’t need to spend much on ads over the long-term. This way, you will be able to promote your content to your audience through your own channels.

Observe others

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There is no shame in looking up to someone. People look up to other people because they want to improve things in their own lives. In this case, you should find a successful eCommerce brand that you can look up to and make your business a great success.

If you don’t like the idea of examining other company’s actions and practices, see it as some kind of mentorship program. When you have a mentor, you will be able to do the right things faster and thus grow quicker.

You probably know that most companies aren’t eager to share their niches, ad templates, loyalty program tactics, and other inhouse specifics. After all, many people that receive these important pieces of advice usually share it with even more people, so it all kind of loses the point.

So, try to find an eCommerce brand that will be your model. For example, if you want to do an awesome job when it comes to branding, you should model your business after Dollar Shave Club. Or, if you want to create a mighty marketplace, you should look up to Amazon.

Do not copy their niches or style to succeed, just find the patterns you love about them and try to apply them to your own business.

Seek feedback on your store

It doesn’t matter whether you are still a young brand out there or you have already got quite a few years under your belt, seeking feedback on your store is something you should prioritize.

It would be best that you ask for feedback as soon as possible. But if your first days are long gone, that’s not a problem either.

When looking for feedback, don’t talk to other entrepreneurs in public communities. The issue is that you would have to share your niche and products with your rivals. And, that is something you shouldn’t do for obvious reasons.

Although an established entrepreneur can give you awesome insight, you shouldn’t rely on those individuals for feedback. They are, ultimately, your rivals. Do not forget that.

So, never reveal your niche to another business owner. Instead, look for a store review in other places (Shopify support, renowned agencies, and so on).

Listen to your customers, always!

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Your customers are the lifeline of your business. They are the ones who buy your products, visit your website, leave comments about your business, and ultimately encourage your brand to exist. That is why you should always listen to them.

To build a relationship with your customers, you need to be patient and sincere, even if that requires you to email them individually. So, for instance, you could manually email each customer and ask them how they are enjoying the product they have purchased.

Also, you could ask them if there are other types of products they would like to see in your store. Or, you could ask them to tell you what blog topics they would like to read about.

This will give them a feeling of appreciation. By doing those things, you show respect and let them have a say in the business, which means that you value their opinions. And that can only have positive outcomes.

One great idea would be to store all the important information once your customers reply. That will tell you who they are, what they like, and how likely they are to repeat purchases. Just remember to safely store this sensitive data.

In addition, do not let yourself become a victim of cyber-crime. A good way to protect your online endeavors is to use a good VPN. But, before you go online and buy the first VPN service you see, do some digging. For instance, look for a good and comprehensive review like the ExpressVPN review.

This kind of review will tell you everything you need to know. And, you will know if a given VPN will be worth your investment.

Upsell offers

Do not forget to include upsell offers. Ever.

Having upsell offers on all of your products will prevent you from missing out on easy sales. Customers who already have their credit cards out are a lot easier to sell more products to than trying to sell to new customers.

This will increase your average order value and you will make more profit per customer and make your ad spend even cheaper.

For example, you could provide upsells on similar products and throw in free shipping gifts if a customer purchases that product immediately.

This is a great practice if you want multiple upsell purchases every day. After all, this is something regarded as a prerequisite if you are looking to become a five-figure a month store in a relatively short time.