How to sell online? It’s a valid question when you know that 27,000 merchant sites are created in France every year… The e-commerce sector is one of the most competitive activities.
It must be said that companies quickly understood the potential of online sales, given that in France alone, there were 515 million transactions on the Internet in 2021.
Whether you offer products or services in the world of B2C or B2B, discover our guide to finding out how to sell online in 2022!
Why sell online?
Since the pandemic, 40% of consumers admit to making purchases on the Internet more frequently. Regardless of the size of your business, an online presence is now vital to the survival of your business.
This is the best way to meet your customers and reach an audience beyond your normal coverage area.
There are many advantages to selling online:
Less cost
If you’ve ever run a brick-and-mortar store, you know the cost of starting and maintaining your business.
When you sell your products or services online, there is no need to worry about rent or utility bills. There is no need to hire employees to collect funds, stock shelves or manage operations.
Of course, you have to spend money to build a website that perfectly meets your goals. However, it is still less expensive than running a traditional store or warehouse.
Result: You generate better margins.
increased visibility
When you sell products or services online, you are not limited geographically. With e-commerce, you can sell to customers across the country or even around the world.
All you need is Internet access, an email address, and a computer to track your activities. Which means you can travel the world on your own while managing your online business!
Greater availability for customers and sales
Internet is open 24/7. You can receive orders even when you sleep. It’s hard to do better in terms of increased productivity… and profitability.
Better monitoring of your activity
When you sell your goods or services online, you can track the performance of your business. It’s easy to interconnect your logistics tools with your marketing and customer relations tools. By assessing sales momentum and determining your best sellers, you make better business decisions.
In addition, you have valuable information about the behavior and preferences of your customers. This data allows you to refine your marketing campaigns as well as your various business strategies.
How to sell online?
On the Internet, you can sell products like services! You also have the option to sell both depending on the activities.
How to sell products online?
Have you chosen to sell goods on an online store? Here are some tips to successfully launch your e-commerce!
Select high-capacity products
The first step in online selling is to select the range of products in the market. To come up with a powerful idea:
Avoid choosing a mainstream product
Instead, focus on one place to reduce competition. For example, instead of selling kitchen supplies, you can limit yourself to coffee makers. It will take you less time, money and get better results.
tap into your passion
You can position yourself in a market that excites you! Especially since you’ll be able to communicate better about a topic you know. Try to combine a niche need with a topic that comes up in your daily life.
For example, if you have a passion for cycling, you can start selling custom saddles.
Check Available Providers
Are you going to manufacture your own products or do you prefer to buy inventory from a wholesaler? Will you start with dropshipping or can you store consignment? These are important questions for researching available suppliers for your project.
For example, if you want to sell food products, domestic production will give more confidence to consumers.
Consider the type of store to build
Where do you want to sell your products? On your website or on marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Rakuten…?
The first solution gives you more flexibility and customization. However, the cost of its implementation is significant. In the case of distribution on the Marketplace, you benefit from a large community of customers who are loyal to the platform. Visibility of your products is more important. Stock and shipment management as well.
The exclusive distribution on the Marketplace is ideal for testing your market and finding out the best selling products. But in the long term we recommend you to use both the methods.
study the market
It is important to know the market you want to conquer. On the one hand, it allows you to know if there is a real demand and to assess your potential business. On the other hand, you can better understand the competition.
However, knowing what other companies are doing in terms of offers, distribution, market outlook and promotions helps you refine your strategy.
promote your products
To sell online, you have to attract customers to your merchant site. How to do ? through marketing campaigns.
Social networks, Google Ads, email marketing are all strategies to implement to promote your e-commerce and generate sales.
In addition, there is more than one trick in social networks! In addition to an advertising network that allows you to precisely target your shoppers, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest offer you the possibility to create your own store. You can create a catalog with your products and easily redirect internet users to your website to finalize the sale
How to sell services online?
Do you want to sell online training or other types of services? The process is different from selling products. You have to:
establish an online presence
The first step when selling services is to promote your business and your offerings. It goes beyond building a website.
Your potential customers first need useful information to make them want to buy and use your services. You need to build trust with them so that they see your business as credible.
Start by regularly posting blog posts showcasing your expertise. Also think about communicating on social networks, by offering useful subtle content.
As soon as you find your first customers, you can display testimonials, reviews and case studies on your website. This will help increase the confidence of your prospects.
survey your market
Selling services online is no exception to market research… However, if you already have an established presence on the web and a network of contacts, contact them to get to know them better.
Ask your audience questions on social networks, on forums, on sites like Quora. Ask your prospects if they face difficulties on a daily basis, if they use tools that need to be improved, if they will need expertise on a topic…
You will get valuable information to build your offers. In addition, you will be able to identify your first potential customers!
Build Powerful Landing Pages
Selling online requires a “Product” sheet. In the case of services, you need to set up landing pages. The latter aims to capture prospects by promising them something: a white paper, a free demonstration, a trial offer, a video…
This way you can build a qualified database with mature prospects to contact you later.
nurture the lead
Lead nurturing involves automating the sending of content to qualified prospects. When the latter leave their emails (on your landing pages, you’ve figured it out), they’ll need to receive articles, white papers, webinars, and other useful information to continue the reflection of the purchase.
To sell your services online, you therefore need to consider scenarios for each buyer profile (one for each landing page, in short) to encourage their conversion at the end of the process.
Find missions on special platforms
A platform like Kodoor allows you to easily sell your services online! Every day, project leaders and business managers are looking for services. Whatever service you sell, you can create your profile and answer assignments that fall within your area of ​​expertise.
Which CMS to choose for selling online?
To be successful in online sales, you need the best e-commerce CMS. The main advantage of a CMS is that you don’t need to know how to code to build and update your online store.
Instead of spending hours on the technical aspects of maintaining an online presence, you can focus on selling your products and services.
To help you choose, here are our 3 favorite CMSs:
1.wordpress
A user-friendly, easy-to-use CMS, WordPress is for all the professionals who need an online presence. Used alone, it allows you to sell your services, thanks to a number of specific themes, or add plugins.
If you want to sell physical and/or digital products, you can install its e-commerce extension: WooCommerce. You will turn your site into a real online store!
2. Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento)
If you intend to sell multiple products in a powerful and highly personalized environment, Adobe Commerce is for you.
This CMS, formerly known as Magento, offers B2B functionality, tools to optimize your omnichannel marketing, the ability to manage multi-stores and many other advanced resources.
In addition, it syncs easily with your other management tools (CRM, ERP, chatbot, etc.).
3. Shopify
Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce CMS. The reason is simple: it offers turnkey solutions at affordable prices.
If you are a novice but want to manage your website creation from A to Z, this is the ideal platform. From a predefined template, you can create a store in your image using the drag and drop function. You don’t even have to worry about the domain name or hosting, Shopify has those aspects as well.
our tip
Need help selling your products or services online? Stay with our Freelancers! Whether it’s building a website, writing content, thinking of automated scenarios, or promoting your activity, post an ad on Coder now.