The Secret Recipe for a Successful Online Store
Creating and managing an online store on well-established marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon can limit your decision-making power. They have such restrictive seller policies that would not allow you much to exercise your creative muscles. You can be deprived of customer insights data which is very critical if you want to mark your name among one of the top online stores in your region.
To avoid such limitations and ensure that your brand emerges as a popular online store, consider building an online store for yourself. You will have complete control over everything, from Products placement to Shipping and Payment options.
But with so many options and freedom that comes as an intrinsic part of starting an independent online store, it gets more confusing.
So, to ensure that you don't get bewildered, we have laid down our secret recipe that will help you to convert more visitors into leads and make a successful online shop eventually.
Let's explore it in detail.
Captivating Web Design
As per research, 93% of buyers consider visual appearance as the most important factor while making a purchase. So if you have the best product available in your store, but the web design is not engaging, you might lose on a lot of potential sales.
While deciding on your online store builder, you must ensure that it allows you to customize web design as per your tailored requirements. You would not want to use that platform which is not flexible and doesn't allow its users to make their own choices.
Source: Pixabay
You should preferably use full-width images and to the point copy on your website.
Remember it is not a best practice to keep changing the web layout every time you get new advice from your visitors or any industry professionals – it will hurt your SEO!
So to avoid such issues, make a website prototype before going for actual website development. It would help you to avoid making repetitive changes.
Wondershare Mockitt is a design prototyping tool that allows its users to create a stunning design prototype which they can implement straight away during website development.
Mockitt is a feature-loaded tool that everyone can use regardless of their technical capabilities.
Mockitt works with drag & drop feature that makes it equally user friendly for experts or novice designers.
You can use Mockitt to create a prototype of all online store types. The benefit is that you can easily make a couple of prototypes without hurting the actual website.
If you are not someone who'd like to create prototypes from scratch, Mockitt has a library of templates which you can use right away and make changes as per your needs.
You can start using its freemium version, and when you feel like upgrading, you can always get a premium plan.
If you are using any best online store builder to create your website, you should start with Mockitt to build online store prototype for better project outcomes.
So make sure to put the design under test before you finalize prototype using Mockitt – This would help you in deciding whether or not any further changes are required.
Awesome "About Us"
Source: Pixabay
So ensure to stay relevant and include necessary information about your online store. Tell about yourself by making them relevant. For instance, "we have a 24*7 customer support so that our customers don't face support issues".
Ensure to include contact details (Email, Phone, Address, Social Media Channels) within the footer of every page.
Co-Branding
Source: Pixabay
Not every buyer would be comfortable purchasing from a new online store. So you can collaborate with few companies of a sound reputation for co-branding. In this way, your visitors would be able to trust you when they will see comparatively bigger names on your website.
They don't have to be very big names!
Customer Support
Pre and after-sales support is what your customers would want you to offer. At times they might not see their desired or relevant products on your store so they will expect 24*7 Live chat for support. Also, they would want to know if their purchase is backed by after-sales support.
Source: Pixabay
All of the best online stores offer round the clock customer service. Make sure that your support feature is visible on your website so that customer can ask questions right away without wasting any time.
Payment Options
Include a wide variety of payment options to facilitate every potential customer. Allow buyers to make an account on your store and save their information for seamless future transactions.
Source: Pixabay
Social Media Presence
Extend your reach through various social media platforms. Through social media, you can keep a check on your potential customer's needs and wants. Look out for your competitors how they are engaging their customers in a fun and creative ways.
Source: Pixabay
You can also run a couple of Ads to see which type of traffic is interested in your products. And then by performing customer analytics, you can further devise your marketing strategies.
Optimized Blog Posts
It is always a best practice to identify some relevant keywords of which answers clients are looking for and use them in your blog posts. Keywords help you to rank within search engines of a particular region. There are free and paid tools which you can use for your keyword research.
Source: Pixabay
You may write on how to use a specific product, which are the best products to buy in a limited budget – of coarse products will be those which you are selling within your store. Many good online stores use this content marketing technique to drive more traffic.
Mobile Responsive
Since more than half of the online buyers use mobile for purchasing purposes, it is imperative to make your website mobile responsive so that more store online traffic can be generated.
Source: Pixabay
Remember one thing if you plan to build online store for free, do perform an audit of that website builder because it might not be having all those features which you would require. But as long as it allows you to customize as per your requirements, it should be a good deal.With that said, our secret recipe is complete.
These were the tips which are proven and have benefited many online store owners, so make sure you follow these strategies to grow exponentially.