My God, another post to sell me smoke, you’ll be thinking right now. Well no. In fact, the title is a lie. The keys to success in eCommerce, like the commandments, can be summed up in one: work. Sooooo much work. If you have believed that selling online is easy, fast and cheap, my advice is to get the idea out of your head. Whoever has sold you that this is to arrive and sell, I am sorry to tell you that they have lied to you filthy.
Now that finally most retail has jumped into eCommerce, even if it is because the circumstances we live in have left them no other choice, we begin to find ourselves in a new situation. New to eCommerce for SMEs, but older than (as they say in my town) the trickles in the park: natural selection.
We’re starting to move on from a shortage of local supply in eCommerce (something Amazon would do somersaults over with sheer happiness) to a more than likely local oversupply in eCommerce (something for which Amazon gives triple somersaults of happiness, because it incorporates more customers to the online channel in which it is the king). In this situation, which will probably consolidate throughout 2021, only those who are able to do it very well will survive. This is like in The Immortals: There can only be one left. Well, not quite, but almost.
So if you expect me to talk about , optimizing or monitoring your, you are in the wrong post. It’s not that we don’t have to do all this and more, but we have already said that the key to success in eCommerce is work, we go from there and not allow the trees to not let us see the forest. In my day to day as a consultant and trainer I have come across people who have a small eCommerce and who dominate the , the analysis of a lot of parameters… and whose website is a disaster that there is nowhere to take. Let’s put the oxen first and then, if such, the cart.
The 10 keys to success in eCommerce that are not what you expected
1. Opening an online store is opening a store
I have already said this in a previous post but I think it is worth repeating it here. If you already have a physical store, entering eCommerce means opening a new store. That means investment, personnel costs, promotion, dedication…
An online store is a full-time job for at least one person, in addition to having specialists who advise you. Exactly the same as in a physical store. It is not something you can “spend a little while” or carry in the idle hours of your physical business. Things do not sell themselves either in a physical store or onlineput it in your head, tattoo it on your knuckles, put it on a post-it attached to your computer screen.
2. Zero cost? don’t be deluded
You are going to have to invest, and for that you need the second key to success in eCommerce: a business plan including a budget. Reserve a minimum of 30% of your budget (I recommend 50%) for promotion and online advertising, because without investing in getting to know you, you won’t get very far. And if your option is to sell on marketplaces, calculate your costs very well, which is not easy at all.
3. Do not pretend that your online store supports your physical store
That does not work like that. Although they share inventory, online store and physical store are separate business units. It may be that both are profitable, that one is and the other is not, or that neither is profitable. I mean how you manage the business, not how you present it to your customers. I will tell you about it below. omnichannel. But in terms of profitability, we cannot mix costs and revenues from physical and online channels, or we will be kidding ourselves.
4. Prepare for the desert crossing
Your first months (or rather your first year) in online sales are going to be very hard. Basically you are going to have to invest constantly without seeing many results. Now, I know that you know or have been told a case of a business that sold very little, set up an online store and now it is inflated to sell. But that, young padawan, are the exceptions that prove the rule. If you want to be successful in eCommerce, you must be patient and knowing that building a brand reputation, making your visitors trust you enough to become customers and achieving an adequate level of sales is a task in which we are adding many few, not few many.
5. Consider if you want to use your current brand
You may not want to, or you should not. Let me explain: you are going to enter a ultra-competitive environment where price is a determining factor. Not the only one but, especially at the beginning, it is what will tip the balance in most cases. This means that you may have to reduce your margins and sell cheaper in your eCommerce than in your physical store.
Obviously, if you do it with the same brand, your physical customers will not like the idea. In addition, your brand may be very good for your local business, but Calzados Maruchi may not be the most appropriate to compete online, and you have to become Zapatazo, Pieceacos or BigFoot, for example.
6. Do not try to sell everything
Sell online what you know a) has a pull and b) allows you to be competitive. Not only will you save work on product photos, loading and maintaining inventory, but it will probably be easier for Google’s algorithm to realize that you are selling something that is in demand and at a good price. Start with what is easiest to sell and, for the glory of your mother, do not consider an online store as a way to get rid of what you do not physically sell. What is not sold offline, is not sold online either.
7. Invest in image resources to have perfect product photos
Unless you are selling a well-known product in which the customer just needs to see the name, you have to show your product very well if you want to sell it. One of the fundamental keys to success in eCommerce is that the product sheets of your online store have very good photos. I’m talking VERY good. And videos, if possible. In addition, always include long descriptions not only thinking about SEO (also) but also to provide the client with all the necessary information to be able to buy. No, with photos of chichinabo it is not for sale.
8. Your home page is your showcase: take care of it
Would you have a guarrindongo showcase in your physical store? Would you leave the same products in it for 6 months? Well, in your online store the cannot be:
- Just like all the others: A header slider, 3 photos of product categories, a section of who we are where you tell how great you are and how much you pamper your customers, a section of featured products, another of news, a section of offers and hala, herding
- A static page. Change it as often as you want your potential customers to visit your website.
- Big chunks of text that no one is going to read and above all…
- A page that does not make it clear from the beginning what is being sold. All these examples that I have given you are taken from real cases that I find in my work almost daily.
9. Being popular on social media does not mean selling a lot
Many times success is confused with success in eCommerce, And it does not have to be that way. Let them tell it to many who thought they could launch their own brand of cosmetics or clothing that, in general, have been left with an expensive portfolio. Your popularity on the networks is an important component of your online reputation and will help to sell, but… it depends on what you publish.
If your obsession is to gain followers on Instagram or Facebook and you do not have a clear sales support strategy beyond posting photos of your products, you have a similar problem to someone who has a physical store and many people come in to talk to them but they don’t sell a donut. And don’t forget: social networks live on advertising, so they will do whatever it takes to get you advertised. For that (among other things) are the algorithms of social networks.
10. Online customer money is worth the same as offline
I mean, I can’t think of a better definition (suggestions welcome). It is something that I detect in my work with physical business owners: it is as if the euros of the online client are worth less. They have no problem spending half an hour talking about the time if it takes for the customer who is physically in the store to buy something, but if they receive a question on Instagram or a comment on Facebook, or a query via the contact form, it takes hours or days to reply.
If you really want to be successful in eCommerce, you have to radically change your mentality, stopping always giving priority to the physical customer over the online one. Everyone pays the same, everyone is a client and everyone deserves the same treatment, otherwise who will pay it will be your business.
Bonus track: Take good advice, please.
It is good that you read blog posts or watch videos from specialists to learn more and know how to manage your eCommerce. But when you jump from offline to online, don’t do like Juan Palomo, because what you can save on one side you’re going to lose greatly on the other. Consult with experienced people and that he knows what he is doing beyond pretty words.
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