Online sales: where to start? – E-commerce blog

If you are starting to explore the world of online sales, you probably have doubts about logistics, payments and the platform you are going to use.

Is it better to start selling on Instagram or Mercado Libre? Should I create an online store? How do I send the products to other provinces? Do I send my CBU to the clients and have them transfer the money to me?

These are perfectly reasonable questions and in this article we are going to answer the elementary queries to help you take the first step in this.

To start selling online you have to define:

What product or service are you going to offer?
Who are you going to sell it to?
where are you going to sell it

Depending on the answers to these three questions, you will have to establish how you are going to attract your first customers, by what channels you are going to charge them and how you are going to send them.

Let us begin!

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What to sell?

There are as many answers to this first point as there are entrepreneurs.

If you have already decided what you want to sell because you are an artist who wants to market your works or you already sell products in a physical store and you would only like to offer the same thing online, you can go directly to the next subtitle referring to the audience you want to conquer.

Now, if you came to this article wanting to diversify your income and undertake, but you are not clear about the product or service, you may be interested to know that, according to a (CACE), the 10 categories that were sold the most online in Argentina during 2021 were:

Sports apparel and goods
Clothing (non-sports)
Food and drinks
Audiovisual content and Software
Tickets to shows and events
Education: courses, careers, seminars, etc.
cell phones and phones
Electronics, audio, video and TV
Mobility and transportation
Appliances and Air Conditioners

As you can see in the list, in addition to physical products, you can also take advantage of your knowledge and offer your services as advice or create your own online course with different topics, modules and levels.

💡 More ideas: if none of the previous categories were of interest to you, we share them with you.

💡 Specialized guide: if your added value is the intangible, here we tell you.

How to define the ideal client?

As tempting as it may be to think of a business where the customer is “almost any human being”, it is best to focus on a well-defined buyer persona.

Of course there are products that can respond to mass interests such as an app in the best Facebook style, but don’t forget that there are those who prefer Twitter. In that sense, you can be as creative and ambitious as you want, but even Mark Zuckerberg — founder of Facebook — defined an ideal client when pitching his idea.

If you haven’t started selling yet, you can have a preliminary version of your buyer persona by following these steps:

Study your competitors to find out who their customers are today.
Access audience studies related to your field. For example, if you want , a good source of information is the .
Analyze the statistics of your brand’s social networks, in case you already have a presence on those channels.

If you have already started selling online but have not yet defined your ideal client, you can add interviews to your current clients to the three previous steps to get to know them better.

💡 Examples: access two .

8 online sales platforms

These options that we share below are also often called online sales channels and, despite being quite differentiated, it is possible to offer your products and services in more than one, as they are not mutually exclusive.

The purpose of this list is to give you an introduction to each platform; If you want to delve into them, click on the specialized guides and the banners that you will find at the end of each one.

1. Own online store

It is a personalized virtual showcase where you exhibit and sell your products or services.

With you you can:

Have a business available 24/7.
Sell to any part of the country and the world.
Appear on Google when a person does a search related to what you sell.
Professionalize your brand.

To create an online store you can request a personalized design and programming service or use one like Tiendanube, which has templates that you will be able to adjust to your style, without the need for technical knowledge.

2. Marketplaces

A marketplace is a website that connects buyers with sellers to carry out a commercial transaction. Imagine this online sales platform as a large shopping center where you can find various brands, products and prices.

To start selling on a marketplace you have to open an account on the platform and publish the and .

Through this channel, it is possible:

Leverage platform visibility; think of marketplaces like Mercado Libre that receive millions of users daily.
Easily publish your products.
Sell more than one product in each .

💡 Specialized guide ➡: from the details about their commissions, the most popular in Argentina and the step by step to start selling on these platforms.

3.Instagram

How many entrepreneurs do you know who started selling through this social network? If your first impulse was for your brand, you have a very good intuition, since it is a platform that has more monthly customers who spend 17.3 hours a month consuming its content.

To sell on Instagram you need:

Have a company profile on the social network.
Post relevant content for your followers.
Get quality followers.
Offer your products through Instagram Shopping.

4.Facebook

Did you know that this is the most used social network in the world? Only in Argentina does it have that they invest about 19.3 hours per month on the platform.

On Facebook, the largest number of people belong to the group of millennials (25 to 34 years old) and generation X (35 to 55 years old).

For you have to:

Create a different page to a common profile.
Create a store within the social network, which you can integrate with your e-commerce.
Link collections with Instagram to take advantage of the potential of both social networks.

💡 Specialized guide ➡ I followed this .

5. WhatsApp

Through the “Business” function, WhatsApp allows businesses to insert business information in their profile status, create automatic responses and separate conversations by topic.

Although it is a platform that is often used as a platform, you can create distribution lists and send exclusive promotions that help increase your sales.

To create a profile on WhatsApp Business you have to access the app store of your smartphone (Android or iOS) and follow these steps:

Install the app;
confirm your phone number to create an account;
inform the name of your brand and the category of your business and click on “Advance”;
finally, in “More options” (three-dot icon on Android) or in “Settings” (gear icon ⚙️ on iPhone) > Settings, I included some extra data such as address and opening hours.

6. Email marketing

Suppose that before you started selling online, you already had a physical store and, for years, you were storing the personal e-mails of your customers and suppliers. The strategy of sending biweekly newsletters with information of interest about your business and exclusive offers can be very effective in achieving online sales.

To start doing your e-mail marketing campaigns, we recommend:

Put together a communication strategy, where you define the type of content you are going to share, as well as the frequency.
Pick one.
Analyze the results and apply improvements in case you are not achieving your sales goals.

💡 Specialized guide ➡ I learned all year round

7. Sites for the sale of services

If your interest in undertaking is focused on monetizing your knowledge, but you still do not dare to create a personal web page, you have the option of uploading your profile on these sites and working as (that is, independently):

Keep in mind that these platforms usually charge commissions and work under a reputation system: the more good recommendations, the more likely you are to understand that projects will be assigned to you.

8. Online classifieds

Although it seems a remote option or less massive than the previous ones, the classifieds have a presence on the web and can be a site to consider for your online sales.

In Argentina we can mention:

How to get clients?

The ones you decide to apply to attract customers to your business will depend on the online sales platforms you have selected.

Let’s take the examples of the three most used channels:

If you have an online store, you can create a blog that allows you to appear among the first results of Google related to your business and invest in campaigns (Google advertisements).
When selling through marketplaces, you have to optimize and update your posts so that they stand out from your competition. It is also a plus to respond to all the comments that users make to you: this is very well seen by potential clients.
In case you sell on social networks, we recommend you spread quality content and in various formats (photos, videos, stories, reels, etc.), create raffles and invest in advertising (such as ).

💡 More ideas: I discovered others.

How to organize payments and logistics?

As in the previous case, this aspect is closely linked to your sales channel or channels.

At , you will have integrations with payment and shipping methods.

Through Tiendanube you will be able to offer payments with debit and credit cards, installments, bank transfers and personalized alternatives. In the case of , you can also integrate your online store easily and smoothly with Correo Argentino, Andreani and a dozen apps, or configure a custom method.

Marketplaces like Mercado Libre also offer their payment and shipping solutions.

If you sell services, the platforms usually have special configurations so that you can share your courses, e-books or other digital products as soon as the payment is credited. Bonuses: .

Now, if you only sell through social networks, e-mail marketing or online classifieds, both the payment method and the logistics will depend 100% on you. You have to serve your customers by private messages, share your bank details with each one and make shipments on your own.

This whole process is usually more expensive in the medium and long term, as it takes a long time and the rates of payment and shipping methods are usually better when they are established through an e-commerce platform.

Also think that online sales can multiply very quickly and spread to other provinces or countries, to the point that it would be almost impossible to manage if the collection and logistics processes are not automated.

Do you still have doubts?

Don’t you…